One Tin Soldier - The Legend of Billy Jack

"One Tin Soldier" is a 60s era anti-war song written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. The Canadian pop group Original Caste first recorded the song in 1969. The track briefly reached limited popularity locally and reached Number 34 on the American pop charts in early 1970.

"One Tin Soldier" tells the abstract story of a hidden treasure and two neighboring peoples, the Mountain People and the Valley People. The Valley People are aware of a treasure on the mountain, buried under a stone; they send a message to the Mountain People demanding those riches. When told they can share the treasure, the Valley People instead decided to take it all by force. After killing all the Mountain People, the victors move the stone and find nothing more than a simple message: "Peace on Earth." Ironically, the valley people destroyed the treasure in pursuit of it.


The Billy Jack connection:
Jinx Dawson of the band Coven sang the song at a 1971 session with the film's orchestra as part of the soundtrack for the Warner Brothers movie Billy Jack. Jinx 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 #17 on Billboard's Hot 100 in fall 1971, only to be pulled from the charts as it was moving up by the Billy Jack film producers due to legal squabbles over the rights to the recording. The full Coven band then reluctantly re-recorded the song for their MGM album. Thus the MGM album containing a second version of this song displayed their whited-out faces on the cover, contrived again by the film's producer Tom Laughlin. The recording then hit the charts again in both 1973 and 1974 near the end of the Vietnam War and the release of the film The Trial of Billy Jack. The Coven recording was named Number One All Time Requested Song in 1971 and 1973 by the American Radio Broadcasters Association. A slightly different version recorded by Guy Chandler (titled "One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)") charted in summer 1973 (Wikipedia).

• Category

  Education

[Castleclear1]

Excellent song with a message! I still like it after all these years!!

[Barbara Hood]

BILLY JACK - the movie that MADE HISTORY and forever TOUCHED and IMPACTED an ENTIRE GENERATION in a POSITIVE and UPLIFTING way. I found myself expecting and demanding much more of myself in a qualitative way. I held myself to a higher ethical and moral standard than I had previously. I'm proud to say I became a better person in real life as a direct result of BILLY JACK. Thank you Mr. Tom Laughlin, thank you.

[strawberryseason]

Very true. The peak of music quality was mid 60s to mid 80s. Late 80s was boring stuff. Some 90s music is OK. I especially like Shawn Colvin & Oasis, who had hits in the 90s.

[strawberryseason]

Actually violent crime is down. The US is about as violent as it was in the early 1960s, down from the historical highs of the late 1980s.

[strawberryseason]

I totally agree with your post! I feel so sorry for the kids of today. In the 60s-70s us kids were always outside. Today neighborhoods are eerie. Very few children's voices. No children playing kickball or baseball. The only sports are organized sports. And we used to play guitar and sing alot. These kids today do not have those shared folk songs that we used to sing at the top of our lungs.

[ryback1340]

billy jack was one of those very rare films. it had a message, and you still remember it today with the same punch it had all those years ago. mr. Laughlin, miss taylor, you had a winner of a film then, and you do now. films like this help me remember a very fun time in my life with a smile

[dfadf adfadfa]

Go ahead and cheat a neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend, see where that gets you in life.

[dfadf adfadfa]

This version, of course, was by Jinx Dawson and Coven, not by Original Caste.

[goodthing52]

Like the part in the movie where Billy Jack says that the white man made 3500 treaties with the native americans and broke 3499 of them. How true.

[pef286]

I'm not sure how many deaf people will watch this, or read this, hope a lot. Music lyrics are poetry.

[lazz zlo]

I forgot about this stuff when I was growing up!