The Barons - Don't Burn It (Brownfield) Anti War Protest song

reyes

reyes

Ikon Class
Joined
Apr 27, 2011
Location
Brooklyn NY, US
Looking for some info on my copy of The Barons on Brownfield, found a website dedicated to anti war protest songs, and found out that the title song Don't Burn It is in reference on burning draft cards, and his story on how someone was recruited for flunking school and going to war.
It also shed a light on most of the song lyrics, i tried to complete them.

Wonder how many other bands from the era sang about their experiences on war, or how many got disbanded because members got drafted? For example I think Danny Parra from Danny and the Counts (Coronado) got drafted.

Taken from the web page:
Burning draft cards often took place at the early anti-war demonstrations. President Johnson subsequently prohibited the destruction of draft cards in an amendment to the Universal Military Training and Service Act in August 1965. The arrest of David O’Brien in 1966 for burning his draft card led to a Supreme Court Case on the First Amendment (see David Paul O’Brien v. USA, US Court of Appeals).

Garage rock band the Barons offered their take on the draft. The narrator received a draft card that said: Don't Burn It The song looked at the choice between studying (to avoid the draft), fighting, or protesting:

The Barons - Don't Burn It

"You sit there contemplating,
Worrying about my generation
trying to keep us from our occupations*
Save us from annihilation
leave us alone is not your worry
your leaving our lives in too big of a hurry

Well people take us for nothing but fools...
We either fight or go to school,
I go to school and I still can't learn
and then I get a little card that says don't burn,
Go to the draft board one fine day
Sergeant says "boy you're 1-A"


So here I sit,
With blood in my eyes,
Bullets flying around like flies
while i am here can't realize
then I get another surprise,
my folks don't even let me smoke, now they send me cigarrettes"
(Scream and SOLO!!!!)
So you sit there contemplating,
worrying about my generation,
tell your boys better go to school, so they won't wind up being a fool,
Study hard and really learn,
So they don't get a card,
That says Don't Burn!"

Would this make the baddest war protest song? is not all love and peace hippie, it takes another perspective for sure.....
 
this is one of my 45 WANTS.... anyone got a spare to sell.

I am a fan of The Barons, I covered Live and Die on my LP.

I dig it as an anti-war song!!! it probably is the most bad-assed song about Vietnam.
 
Mike, can I ask.... what's the most you've spent on a 45?

I am incredibly envious at the fact you guys (the one's of you with the best collections of garage music) can afford some top dollar 45s, I was thinking to myself, you all either have killer high paying jobs, been collecting way before garage was popular (even though it still pretty much isn't) or have very heavy credit card debts??

What is the case, with regards to myself... I don't get paid much at all and it seem's that I can blow a couple of week's wages on garage 45s... because the dire need to own these records is there.

As you may or may not know, I am friends with the folks you dubbed 'the duluth mafia', sad scenario for a lot of those guys was that most of them had to sell their rather killer garage 45 collection due to personal reasons.... I think that has to be the worst thing to happen in the world, where life circumstances forced you to sell off record collections, one of the "mafia" I converse with stated he at one time owned 3 copies of The Intruders - Now That You Know with pic sleeve.... all gone now, imagine that??
 
The way I see it, and I am not even close to having a heavy collection, i mean I've only been collecting seriously for about 5 years. Is that you have to look at it as a life long endeavour.

Any kind of collecting is expensive, not only records or garage 45's, so in order to achieve it (actually it may be a never ending thing) you gotta be patient.

If at first all I knew were the 5-30 range discs, then I found out about the 30 - 100 then I realized that in order to get the g45 kind had to really step it. So when I used to receive in the mailbox a bunch per month, now I get 2 or 3 at the most.

Credit card debt? I wouldn't recommend. Unless you have the
Means to repay. And killer job wouldn't hurt....haha

but we don't want collectors with a shit load of money too because we'll never get a chance and prices would go through the roof. Sorry went off to a tangent there...

That how I see it and my expirience so far....
 
It's not just about having cash on hand or even access to a line of credit. Some folks, me included, buy other records. I and others readily spend a few bucks on records that can be flipped for $15 and $30. A 30 piece auction of $20 records adds up to a nice little war chest. I've usually got some $200 or $300 northern soul record on hand that can be turned into something I want.

I add to this by not only hunting for records at thrifts and estate sales but also hitting the closets and racks in search of vintage clothing from the 40s and 50s. I keep choice, wearable pieces and sell off the rest in an auction every year or so. Once again... loot for the war chest.
 
I've always had a hard time opening the wallet once the price reaches four figures for one 45. I have paid $1500 a couple of times, but never more than that, unless I had a 45 in trade value which I could sell for a high amount. The most paid was 5K - a combination of cash (1500 plus 45 trades amounting to 3500). I do have debt, most of which results from being unemployed for a long stretch, tossing $$$ toward a long-distance relationship, costs for the book, and, yes, some for 45s which I could not afford to let pass by. It isn't alot, as compared to the amounts other people carry, but it will be quickly wiped clean once TBM is out, so I have not been worried.

I started seriously buying and selling garage 45s in 1986; I had been a limited funds type purchaser prior to that year. Spending $266 on a mint Starfires "I Never Loved Her" that December (a Goldmine Magazine auction bid win) was the first time I got the fever to obtain the monster 45s. I did spend most of my pay in those days on 45s after bills - Back then, I had two jobs and worked 60-65 hrs a week on average for many years. The 2nd job afford the opportunity to purchase more records. It was a good decision, since the amount I spent on the Barons "Don't Burn It", for example, was $75, and I can easily recoup a high percentage if/when I decide to sell off the collection. The bulk of my collection was built over a 15 year period on what Mark dubbed "A shoe-string budget"; by the year 2000, competition from other affluent collectors and ebay made it much more difficult to afford wanted 45s, so I would concentrate on obscure 45s, hoping to pick them up cheaply. eBay was great in that regard, but for a most-wanted 45 like the Chob "We're Pretty Quick, well, forget the chance to buy a copy for even $500!

Like Westex, I made myself learned in other genres. I always collected soul 45s, but did not know the ins and outs of the northern soul scene, so around 2000 I started buying and dealing these discs to help on the garage front. I've sold off all of my valuable / G100 type northern soul 45s since then, and always made more than original cost. If I find blues, group, or rockers which I can easily resell for double the purchase price or more, I will pick them up. Garage sound 45s have always been tuff to find "in the wild", a la blues 45s. There are great bargains to be had right now, if you can afford to buy.
 
Regarding CC debits - there are many active soul collectors in the UK who have max'd out two, three or more cards buying northern soul 45s. I know this to be true from a long time wheeler / dealer record hound. He used to be able to quickly sell midrange and hi-end northern 45s; today, those same discs take many months to move along, even at a reduced price. 50s group harmony (doo-wop) 45s are overflowing the market right now, and guys who still collect are able to nab 45s which had not ever been offered since the 1960s. There are newbie group collectors, but not on the level as there are for garage / 60s beat sides.
 
Thanks for the reply guys.

Westex, your means of buying 45s, sound fun and profitable.

With my own collecting, I'd say I do at times over spend on garage 45s, but I've kinda figured it's my life.... I am a hound of the $20 - $100 range 45, often spending a pretty penny on many items within that bracket.... I also chance buy, taking pot luck on a set sale listing description and in most cases this has paid off and suited my needs.

I have a list of 'Monsters' I would like and have been slowly and surely knocking these off.... my most expensive 45 was The Elite - My Confusion which is a VG plus copy at 140 bucks, which I personally thought could've been a cheap steal.

I collect soul, r&B, surf, girl group and doo woo when I can get my hands on it, in fact the doo-wop stuff I really dig and would like to collect more of it, maybe I should start fully investing my time on this genre whilst the prices and rarities are cheap.

I am so oblivious to the ways of people my own age or below, that I actually am hoping that my age is working in my favour.... is there many known YOUNG under 30's collectors out there?? aside from me, who are willing to spend 300 bucks on a killer record if it came around???

Mike, I have a few friends who are "northern soul' collectors, I am kinda glad that I am not too interested in soul music to be a collector of that stuff... It is funny with NS collectors, because when you say to them "man I can't believe you spent that much money on such a shit song with horns and strings" they act pretty insulted, however when these folks say to me "what do you see in this whiny white teen music" I laugh and am quite happy they don't get it or never will.

I have said a million times, garage particularly the moody end of the spectrum, is the most honest music since delta blues or black spirituals from the 20s.


I am pretty envious of you guys in America, so much cool music can be found in the wilds.... I would be totally happy picking up soul, rockers, surf, doo woo cheaply.... here in the UK, you can't really find much like that at all.... in fact, 45 collecting is pretty much reduced to ebay or set sales.


Paul
 
paul messis said:
I am pretty envious of you guys in America, so much cool music can be found in the wilds.... I would be totally happy picking up soul, rockers, surf, doo woo cheaply.... here in the UK, you can't really find much like that at all.... in fact, 45 collecting is pretty much reduced to ebay or set sales.

Paul
Click to expand...

SOMETIMES it's just too easy such as my recent grab of the two Buck Owen's Rockabilly discs, the funky soul rarity by the Motifs on Galactic, and the Byrds-y Lost Chords on Vaughn-Ltd, in the span of 10 minutes from a local junk shop for 5 or 6 bucks. The same shop turned up the Debonairs on Soul Click - a not so good northern disc that goes for decent $$$- just the month before.

MOST of the time, though, it is not quite so easy. I could do better if I worked harder (ads, door knocking, band member cold calls, etc.) but I'm far too lazy.
 
reyes said:
goto the draft for war one fine day,
sargeant says "for year one hey?"
Click to expand...

I think it's

Go to the draft board one fine day
Sergeant says "boy you're 1-A"

1-A was a designation which meant you were "Available for unrestricted military service."

The thing to aim for, unless you wanted to fight for Uncle Sam, was 4-F, which meant that you fooled the system by pretending to be a retard, deaf, flaming homersexual or such.

Listened to the song again and it really sounds like "...occupation" in line 3, though the meaning is unclear to me.

"Don't Burn It" has some of the best lyrics of the entire garage era IMO... up there with "I Never Loved Her"; realistic, serious, clever, succinct, but also with a wry sense of humor. Funny thing is, some people I know think it's a pro-draft song!
 
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