Woodstock: The First Song

Listen to the first song performed at Woodstock - 1969

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VicZ_2W_10 (1974 recording)



Richie Havens (one of my all-time favorite poet/ musicians) was the first artist to perform at The Woodstock Music & Art Festival in 1969.  The first song that he performed was "Minstrel from Gaul."  Here is my completely amateur interpretation of his song.

Minstrel From Gaul
Words by Richie Havens & Mark Roth

 

A minstrel came down from Gaul, with scores of tales to tell.
Some of them were true and some were false and some we knew too well.
It was told in fire, it was told in ice,
It was told a million times though it need not be told twice.

 

Verse 1 Interpretation: Minstrels were musicians who sang lyrics of far off places and "historical" events...A reference to 500 years of Roman war with and domination of Gaul (modern day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Germany). Gaul and it's language, culture, etc. were destroyed...where is The Roman Empire now?
 

A soldier came down from Dien Bien Phu, with silence in his eyes.
He told of many an evening when fire was the sky.
He told of many a morning when the bravest of men would cry,
Knowing, through Satan’s earthbound magic, many more would have to die.
Many more would have to die.

 

Verse 2 Interpretation: A reference to the very bloddy Battle of Dien Bien Phu...the final battle (March-May 1954) of the First Indochina War between the French Colonial Army (France had occupied Vietnam for nearly 100 years) and Vietnamese Viet Minh Communist forces. Historian Martin Windrow wrote that Dien Bien Phu was "the first time that a non-European independence movement (Viet Minh) had evolved from guerrilla warfare to a conventionally organized and equipped army able to defeat a modern Western Super Power (France). Havens also eludes to the fact that the battle would not be the end..."many more would have to die"...a clear reference to the American Vietnam War.

A man came down from Sinai Mountain,
with words of truth for us all.
How we bowed and knelt down,
How we worshipped well.
And when it came to listening,
We listened little, if at all,
If at all.

 



Verse 3 Interpretation: Here Havens recalls the story of Moses and The Ten Commandments...how "we worship the truth" but don't really listen/ learn anything from it at all.  What have we learned from war, occupations, past experiences, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or the words "Thou shalt not kill"...