4/3/07: Jan Berry “The Universal Coward” (1965)

Today would’ve been Jan Berry’s 66th birthday if he hadn’t died in 2004—although we’d lost much of his talent after the genius of Jan & Dean suffered severe head injuries in a 1965 car accident. Jan had already established himself as a genuine renaissance man who’d matched Brian Wilson’s innovations with an anarchic sense of humor. A lot of the punk attitude in music and fanzines never caught up to the fun that Jan had during his duo’s heyday of hits from “Surf City” to “Dead Man’s Curve.”

So it was kind of a shock when Jan took the time to address the stupidest anti-war anthem of all time. Buffy Sainte-Marie was the first to record her “Universal Soldier,” but plenty of artists had covered the song by 1965. (Donovan had the hit; Glen Campbell’s version remains the low point of his career.) The lyrics to this repulsive hippie anthem basically blame soldiers as the true cause of war, and try to explain how Hitler would’ve been more harmless without opposition.

Berry—along with co-writers Jill Gibson and George Tipton—had something to say about that. Dean Torrence wasn’t too comfortable with the idea, so “The Universal Coward” was released as a Jan Berry solo single in 1965. Here are the lyrics that made Dean so nervous:

        He’s young, he’s old, he’s in between
        And he's so very much confused
        He’ll scrounge around and protest all day long
        He joins the pickets at Berkeley, and he burns up his draft card
        And he's twisted into thinking that fighting is all wrong

        He's a pacifist, an extremist, a Communist or just a Yank
        A demonstrator, an agitator, or just a knave
        A conscientious objector, a fanatic, a defector
        And he doesn't know he's digging his own grave

                Oh, he just can't get it through his thick skull
                Why the mighty USA
                Has got to be a watchdog of the world
                He'll see the USSR bury us from afar
                And he'll never see the missiles being heard

        He's the universal coward, and he runs from anything
        From a giant, to a human, from an elf
        He runs from Uncle Sam, and he runs from Vietnam
        But most of all he's running from himself

Berry had reportedly received his draft notice shortly before that debilitating crash. He’d probably have done Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler proud. Instead, Berry spent several years recovering from the accident, and gradually returned to performing. Things certainly got troubled for Berry over the decades, but he passed away in far better shape than anyone could have hoped for after the accident.

And don’t hate Buffy Sainte-Marie too much—or at least save your hatred for her writing that “Up Where We Belong” song from An Officer and a Gentleman. (Buffy’s an Oscar winner, just like Al Gore.) She wrote “Codeine,” too, and that’s a pretty great anti-drug song.

Make it your own: You can get all the vital Jan & Dean on All The Hits: From Surf City To Drag City. “The Universal Soldier” has true context, however, on the duo’s bizarre Folk ’n Roll album—paired on CD with Ride The Wild Surf. Jan Berry wasn’t such a genius that he could find a way to mask his disdain for covering songs by dirty hippies. He was also enough of a genius that he didn’t even bother.

 

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