There is an echo of 1968 in the air – the year Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King jr were assasinated. That year the song ‘Abraham, Martin and John,’ originally by the folksinger Dion, defined the mood, honouring the fallen leaders of the USA, murdered to silence them.
It is time to sing this song again. And add new lyrics, sadly.
Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good, they die young
You know, I just looked around and he’s gone
[Verse 2]
Anybody here seen my old friend John?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good, they die young
I just looked around and he’s gone
[Verse 3]
Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
He freed a lot of people, but it seems the good, they die young
I just looked around and he’s gone
[Bridge]
Didn’t you love the things that they stood for?
Didn’t they try to find some good for you and me?
And we’ll be free
Some day soon, it’s gonna be one day
History makes it plain, perhaps more plain than in 1968, that these men were flawed heroes. Whoever we add, the same applies. But this song really captured the mood, that political violence had set the tone of a nation, and people will feel the same today.
Charlie Kirk fits right in