One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)

“One Tin Soldier”  is a 1960s counterculture era anti-war song written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter.  Singer Jinx Dawson of the band Coven performed the song at a 1971 session with the film’s orchestra as part of the soundtrack for the Warner Bros. film Billy Jack.  Dawson asked that her band, Coven, be listed on the recording and film, not her name as a solo artist.  This Warner release, titled as “One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)”, reached #26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1971.  The full Coven band then re-recorded the song for their self-titled MGM album; Coven hit the charts again with the song in 1973, in both the new MGM recording and a reissue of their Warner original.  The Coven recording was named Number One All Time Requested Song in 1971 and 1973 by the American Radio Broadcasters Association.  (More from Wikipedia)

 

  

 

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