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One Tin Soldier (WORD)
One Tin Soldier (PDF)
YOU CAN PLAY ALONG WITH THE FIRST VIDEO IN GCEA TUNING, until the key change. If you want to keep on playing with the recording, you'll need to put your capo on the 1st fret.
"One Tin Soldier" is a 1960s counterculture era anti-war song written by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. Canadian pop group The Original Caste first recorded the song in 1969 for both the TA label and its parent Bell label. The track went to number 6 on the RPM Magazine charts, hit the number 1 position on CHUM AM in Toronto on 27 December 1969, and reached number 34 on the American pop charts in early 1970. The verse of "One Tin Soldier" has the same harmonic base as Pachelbel's Canon (I-V-VI-III-IV-I-IV-V).
Singer Jinx Dawson of the band Coven performed the song at a 1971 session with the film's orchestra as part of the soundtrack for the Warner Bros. film Billy Jack. Dawson asked that her band, Coven, be listed on the recording and film, not her name as a solo artist. This Warner release, titled as "One Tin Soldier (The Legend of Billy Jack)", reached number 26 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1971. The full Coven band then re-recorded the song for their self-titled MGM album, which displayed the band members' whited-out faces on the cover, contrived by the film's producer Tom Laughlin. Coven hit the charts again with the song in 1973, in both the new MGM recording and a reissue of their Warner original. The Coven recording was named Number One All Time Requested Song in 1971 and 1973 by the American Radio Broadcasters Association.