"If only the world could get along as this ice cream cone.. Billy Paul wouldn’t have to kill so many people."
Posted on 09/25/2026 11:41:09 AM PDT by Pol-92064
One Tin Soldier is a 1960's era protest song written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. Sung by "Coven".
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
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Here is another song from that group.
Satanic Mass by Coven
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPHoJP9GFmY
I remember that song. I was a sophomore in high school. I didn’t really get it, except that I knew it had something to do with the peace movement and hippy culture. There were some kids in my class who were becoming hippies; some kids were getting into the drug culture.
We got a new, young physics teacher that year. He soon disappeared. Many years later I found out he was busted for pot. I think it was handled within the school; I don’t think he was arrested, or that it ever got to law enforcement. Which was good; at that time, NY was under the “Rockefeller drug laws,” and penalties for even possession of an ounce were draconian. For a high school teacher, busted on school property... well, he would have been in a world of hurt.
I guess “Coven” is a singer and not the band I posted about?
I was a Junior in High School when it came out. I loved it because I was into martial arts at that time.
I watch it again as an adult and thought it stunk on ice.
Ha ha! I tried to watch it once too, when the VHS tape came out. I thought it was pretty amateurish, but also well-meaning. I guess making that movie was an obsession for Tom McLaughlin. IIRC, his wife played his love interest.
They really meant it. It was from the heart.
Remember, they spoofed it on SNL? Paul Simon played Billy Jack.
“I watch it again as an adult and thought it stunk on ice.”
The words and movie: not timeless.
The music: still try to play it on the piano.
"If only the world could get along as this ice cream cone.. Billy Paul wouldn’t have to kill so many people."
I think his name is Tom Laughlin, not McLaughlin.
Paul Simon was pretty cool.
Achieved a level of cinematic pretentiousness that most of us couldn’t appreciate until the 90’s.
I think that was the show where he sang “Still Crazy After All These Years” in a turkey outfit.
Did you ever see Vanishing Point ?
Also came out in 1971.
A lot of drugs were being done in Hollywood.
You're right, thanks.
I was in elementary school when our teachers took us on a field trip to see this movie. I thought the fighting was cool and I felt special for being able to watch something that my parents definitely would have forbidden.
I saw a clip of it a few years ago. It was the first time I’d seen any of it since that time I was a kid. Wow. What a turd. I agree though with what was posted earlier, their heart was in the right place. It was honest, but they lacked the budget and skills to make what at the time would’ve been considered a “good” movie.
A lot of drugs were being done in Hollywood.
Dennis Hopper probably did about 3/4ths of them.
Hippies and native Americans victimized by rednecks and cops
Saved by war vet martial arts expert quiet all around cool guy Billy Jack
It was perfect to me at 14 lol
The lead female role was insufferable
The only movie then even more hamfisted was Bless The Beasts and The Children
Laughlin was good though
Vanishing Point had a few minutes that were very watchable.
If you read Chaos by Tom O'Neill, he paints a pretty vivid picture of LA in the late 60s and into the 70s. In the entertainment world, it was just a gigantic, drug-fueled frat party. The whole region. Unbelievable, at least to someone who grew up in East Coast suburbia.
Manson made his money by renting out his girls for beach-house parties, mostly for the younger Hollywood actors and directors. He supplied the drugs and the girls, who would do whatever was wanted. Doris Day's son, Terry Melcher, was in the middle of it; he was lucky to escape with his life, and lived in paranoia for years after, even when Manson was locked up.
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