SAIGON BRIDE - LIVE Joan Baez sang “Saigon Bride” on her 1967 album “Joan”. The song featured Vocals and guitar, some say "it (is) one of the prettiest Vietnam War songs." in Saigon Bride, Baez sings about the war, and asks rhetorical questions like “How many dead men will it take?" Baez also speaks about the drafting of the soldiers "It takes them off the streets you know | To places they would never go alone."
The line "to stem the tide" has a lot of meaning. It means, the soldier is going to "stop the tide" the huge "tide" of enemy soldiers. SAIGON BRIDE
(Music by Joan Baez, Lyrics by Nina Duscheck)
(Music by Joan Baez, Lyrics by Nina Duscheck)
Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead
How many dead men will it take
To build a dike that will not break?
How many children must we kill
Before we make the waves stand still?
To build a dike that will not break?
How many children must we kill
Before we make the waves stand still?
Though miracles come high today
We have the wherewithal to pay
It takes them off the streets you know
To places they would never go alone
It gives them useful trades
The lucky boys are even paid
We have the wherewithal to pay
It takes them off the streets you know
To places they would never go alone
It gives them useful trades
The lucky boys are even paid
Men die to build their Pharoah's tombs
And still and still the teeming wombs
How many men to conquer Mars
How many dead to reach the stars?
And still and still the teeming wombs
How many men to conquer Mars
How many dead to reach the stars?
Farewell my wistful Saigon bride
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead
I'm going out to stem the tide
A tide that never saw the seas
It flows through jungles, round the trees
Some say it's yellow, some say red
It will not matter when we're dead