Coven

Coven  is an American psychedelic rock band with occult lyrics formed in the late 1960s.  They had a top 40 hit in 1971 with the song “One Tin Soldier”, the theme song of the movie Billy Jack.  They are recognized as being the band that first introduced the “Sign of the Horns” to rock, metal and pop culture (as seen on their 1969 debut album release Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls, which interestingly has an opening track called “Black Sabbath”).  (More from Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Every once in a while, I encounter the above album by Coven, Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls (1969) in a rack at a record store; and it scares the crap out of me every time. Three faces and a skull stare implacably from the cover; in fact, the way the lettering is laid out, it is not clear whether it is witchcraft or Coven itself that is doing the destroying. Inside the gate-fold album cover is a nude woman lying on an altar (with the skull strategically placed); I have read that a black mass is held that way. The album ends with a 13-minute cut called “Satanic Mass”. I recently purchased a compilation album that, unbeknownst to me, has a song from this album on it. I cannot seem to find it now, and it is just as well.

 

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The opening track on Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls by Coven is called “Black Sabbath”. Coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally, the opening song on the debut album Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath (which came out the following year) is also called “Black Sabbath”.

 

Furthermore, the bass guitarist in Coven is Oz Osborne, having practically the same name as the best known bandmember in Black Sabbath, lead singer Ozzy Osbourne. But the similarities end there: Black Sabbath is a British band from the industrial city of Birmingham; Coven is from Chicago. From everything I have heard and read, Black Sabbath is anti-Satanic if anything; Coven had Satanic trappings in their concerts from the beginning.

 

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Powerful lead singer Jinx Dawson (by then based in California) performed a song for the 1971 Tom Laughlin film, Billy Jack called “One Tin Soldier” that was originally recorded by a Canadian band called the Original Caste. The song was released as “One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)” – in fact, that was the original name for the film as well – under her old band name Coven and made it to #26 on the Billboard Hot 100.

 

The song is basically a fable about a hidden treasure rumored to be gold that the “mountain people” offer to share with but not give to the “valley people”. The identity of the treasure masks somewhat the bloodbath described in the final verses:

 

Now the valley [people] cried with anger “Mount your horses! Draw your sword!” And they killed the mountain-people So they won their just reward 

Now they stood beside the treasure On the mountain, dark and red Turned the stone and looked beneath it “Peace on Earth” was all it said

 

It is in the chorus of “One Tin Soldier” though where a mocking, even treacherous tone can be heard; this is not a call against hypocrisy but an attack on Christian theology itself:

 

Go ahead and hate your neighbor Go ahead and cheat a friend Do it in the name of heaven You can justify it in the end 

There won’t be any trumpets blowing Come the judgment day On the bloody morning after One tin soldier rides away