Hello,


I’m currently researching the background to the song English Civil War by the Clash, an English Punk Rock band. The song is a reimagining of When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again by Gilmore and deals with the rise of the racist National Front organisation and the threat of resurgent fascism, so is quite a jump from the original.

From there I go to Gilmore and the American Civil War (and thanks to Lighter’s Greatest Anti-War Song, not to Johnny, I hardly Knew Ye). From there to the British When Tommy Comes Marching Home which was an adapted version for the the South African and Sudanese Wars. It was also a popular music hall song by a British performer called Harry Marlow (available on Spotify) during the First World War. All well and good.

During World War II it became the soundtrack to a couple of cartoons, interesting for the changing reflection of audience hopes ‘Our country we will modernise, and build our cities to the skies…’ There is also the beginnings of an anti-war message as the soldiers and not the war itself is praised.

And then we reach Vietnam and I’m a bit lost. It was still being used by the military as a recruiting tool but also by the anti-war movement. There’s an anti-war poster of that title showing an amputee and several articles and studies of returning soldiers with titles such as ‘when johnny comes limping home’ but these are all after the conflict. As it was such a famous song are there any examples of it being sung by troops in Vietnam itself? Possibly less ‘ballad of the Green Berets’ and more ‘Napalm Sticks for Kids’?’

While we’re on the subject, there’s also a Polish version on youtube called When Jazek Comes Marching Home. Does anyone know if this traditional or a modern appropriation?