| Peter, Paul and Mary – The Great Mandella (The Wheel of Life) Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I've been playing this song on the guitar since it was first written and for all these years I believed, and still believe that the song wasn't about a draft resister from the Vietnam War but a song against capital punishment. "So I told him that he'd better, shut his mouth and do his job like a man..." means go to his death in the electric chair without complaining. "And he answered, listen father 'I will never kill another'..." is what he was saying to the priest and means he was remorseful about the death he caused. "He thinks he's better than his brother that died..." means he thinks he doesn't deserve what happened to the 'brother' he killed. "What the hell does he think he's doing to his father who brought him up right..." means how could he have done this to his family. Read in this context, the remaining lyrics are talking about him fasting until dying before he could be executed and of course, the 10,000 years is how long capital punishment has been a mainstay of civilization. The last verse refers to us, the people, who, since we are now free of the executed man, can resume the wanton sanctioning of state killing because, after all, he was crazy and this is the way it's always been going on for over 10,000 years. I don't know if Peter Yarrow is still alive or whether he has ever written anything about this song but that was always my take on it from the moment I first heard it. Another reference from the era is Phil Och's 'Iron Lady' which is also about the electric chair (before lethal injection became the way the state killed). fish |
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