Hello everyone! Today I’ll be writing about “The Ballad of Ho Chi Minh” by Ewan MacColl – but first, a little background on this character and our singer. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese military commander during the early stages of the conflicts leading up to the Vietnam War, after which he became a politician, eventually rising to Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Vietnam and the Prime Minister of the country. The song was written in 1954 – Minh’s forces had just succeeded in driving out the French military at Dien Bien Phu, and the United States and its allies were not pleased. Western countries painted Minh as a tyrant just starting out on his path to glory, doubtlessly comparing him to the likes of Stalin. MacColl did not believe the hype, however, and was particularly frustrated with the way Western propaganda represented him; accomplishing such a feat with very little supplies and being outnumbered, resulting in driving out invaders from one’s home ought, to be praised as the stroke of military genius it was. MacColl himself was a Scotsman, a note I find particularly interesting, as Scotland has suffered to no end under the British since their imperialism and invasion of the country in the early 1500’s. I think this is a particularly significant note in the song’s numerous anti-imperialist sentiments, and I think it’s at least somewhat likely that MacColl identified with the struggles of the Vietnamese against the French.
Here is a video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjzMWumVhV8
The lyrics are as
follows
[Verse 1]
Far away across the ocean
Far beyond the sea's eastern rim
Lives a man who is father of the
Indochinese people
And his name, it is Ho Chi Minh
[Chorus]
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh
Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh
[Verse 2]
From Viet Bac to the Saigon Delta
From the mountains and the plains
below
Young and old workers, peasants
and the toiling tenant farmers
Fight for freedom with Uncle Ho
[Chorus]
[Verse 3]
Ho Chi Minh was a deep sea sailor
He served his time out on the
seven seas
Work and hardship were part of
his early education
Exploitation, his ABC’s
[Chorus]
[Verse 4]
Ho Chi Minh came back from
sailing
And he looked on his native land
Saw the want and the hunger of
the Indochinese people
Foreign soldiers on every hand
[Chorus]
[Verse 5]
Ho Chi Minh went to the mountains
And he formed a determined band
Heroes all sworn to free the
Indochinese people
Drive invaders from the land
[Chorus]
[Verse 6]
Forty men became a hundred
A hundred thousand and Ho Chi
Minh
Forged and tempered the army of
the Indochinese people
Freedom's Army of Viet Minh
[Chorus]
[Verse 7]
Every soldier is a farmer
Comes the evening, he grabs his
hoe
Comes the morning, he swings his
rifle on his shoulder
That's the army of Uncle Ho
[Chorus]
[Verse 8]
From the mountains and the
jungles
From the rice lands and the Plain
of Reeds
March the men and the women of
the Indochinese Army
Planting freedom with victory
seeds
[Verse 9]
From Viet Bac to the Saigon Delta
Marched the armies of Viet Minh
And the wind stirs the banners of
the Indochinese people
Peace and freedom and Ho Chi Minh
[Chorus]
[Outro]
Ho!
I think what particularly drew me
off the bat to this song was the way MacColl portrays the fighters in Minh’s
army right from the start of the song – they are every-day people. They’re
hard-working, tough, and do some incredibly tough jobs, or what we might call
blue collar. They are quite literally the picturesque proletariat that
immediately comes to mind when reading Das Kapital or The Communist
Manifesto. These every-day heroes push against the invaders on every hand,
and find the strength to do so in spite of lacking for food and adequate
supplies. Eventually he forms an army out of ragtag farmers and peasants that
effectively defends their home – not unlike the American Revolutionary
movement, come to think of it. In terms of the actual music – melody, harmony,
and so on – it’s pretty simple stylistically. I hear one acoustic guitar and a
lot of vocals – it seems almost as if it was written to be easily performed by
working people, who wouldn’t be likely to invest a lot in quality of
instruments or variety thereof. The song was incredibly popular around the world,
most notably in North Vietnam, and showed that there were some Western citizens
that did not see Minh’s movement as a communist threat.
