In America in the 1960s, there was a lot going on, conflict-wise. At the beginning of the decade, John F. Kennedy was the President of the United States, and he promised a great future for America. However, in 1964, he was assassinated and was succeeded in office by Lyndon B. Johnson, who declared he would make the U.S. into a great society. He wanted to get people out of poverty by creating jobs for the impoverished. However, this soon was put on the back burner, as the Vietnam War escalated and America got involved. This war divided the nation; people were either in support of the war, protested in the streets, or fled to Canada to avoid the draft. The people protesting expressed their feelings through many mediums, including street protests and writing protest songs. Many singers who were against the war expressed their disdain by releasing songs that communicated their feelings. In the two protest songs "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and "Turn, Turn, Turn," there are strong anti-war messages, and listening to the two in conjunction with one another can give a better understanding of the ideologies in America in the 1960s.

In the song "I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Phil Ochs, the lyrics hold a strong anti-war message. The song is sung through the perspective of a soldier in each war, who participated and no longer wishes to fight for the government. He begins by saying, "I marched to the battle of New Orleans / At the end of the early British War," which is an allusion to the Battle of New Orleans, which occurred at the end of the War of 1812, and he then refers to "The young land started growing," which is a mention of the young, growing American nation. The next battle Ochs discusses are the "thousand different fights," in which he "killed [his] share of Indians," and he is referencing the battle at Little Big Horn, in which thousands of Native Americans were killed in a thoughtless genocide. He next mentions two conflicts in the same verse; "I stole California from the Mexican land / Fought in the bloody Civil War," This first reference is to the Mexican-American war. The second is to the American Civil War, where men "killed [their] brothers," He next references the "battles of the German trench," which is World War I, often referred to as the "war to end all wars" and he also brings up the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II. He finally brings up the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the world was almost at the brink of a nuclear war. The use of a narrator who has seemingly been in all of these wars is an interesting one; Ochs ends each verse with the line "I ain't marching anymore," which is used to say that the soldier wishes to no longer participate in fighting for the government. Ochs is criticizing America for immediately turning to warfare as a resolution for problems, and by referencing all of these past conflicts, he is setting listeners up to be against war because he paints these conflicts in a negative light. This song was released in 1965 as a protest against the Vietnam War, and Ochs manages to portray his feelings towards the Vietnam conflict without even mentioning it. This shows the ideology in 1960s America because many people were against the war and there were anti-war protests regularly.

In the song, "Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Byrds, they use repetition and contrast to create an image in the listener's mind. The lyrics begin by saying "To everything ...  There is a season ...  And a time to every purpose under heaven," This is saying that there is a time and a place for everything. It then goes on to say, "A time to be born, a time to die / A time to plant, a time to reap" and by using these quick, contradicting images, it is shown that there is a proper time and place for all of these things through repetition. The use of imagery in the song creates an image in the listener's head; the quick switch between opposing images causes it to stick in the listener's mind. One verse of the song says "A time of love, a time of hate / A time of war, a time of peace," which is very obviously saying that there may be times at which it is appropriate to have a war. The next verse, which is repeated multiple times throughout the song, says "To everything, turn, turn, turn / There is a season, turn, turn, turn / And a time to every purpose under heaven." The repetition of this phrase helps to connect all of the verses to each other. By including "turn, turn, turn," they are saying that one must turn from one area to the next based on the situation and one's current needs. The end of the song really solidifies the message: the last two lines of the song are "A time for love, a time for hate / A time for peace, I swear it's not too late." The song is clearly a plea for world peace; the last line is clearly is begging the world to stop fighting and move on to having peace. There is a time and a place for war, but they believed it was not at the current point in time. They were aware of the fact that they did not have peace at that point, but they believed it was not too late to make the change. Some parts of this song are taken from Biblical text; they hold much similarity to Ecclesiastes 3:1, which says there is a time and place for all things: laughter and sorrow, healing and killing, war and peace, and so on. This song was heard by anti-war protestors and the American public that was buying music at the time and struck a nerve with them; they latched onto it as an anti-war protest against the Vietnam War.

There are many similarities and differences between these two songs. The first song, "I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Phil Ochs is a very direct anti-war protest song, containing lyrics that reference almost every major conflict that America has been involved with since the 1800s, with the Battle of New Orleans, and go all the way up to the 1960s, by discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis. This song employs the use of an 'eternal soldier' who has seemingly been involved in all of the conflicts over those 200 years. Ochs personifies all of America's service men and women by using this all-encompassing voice, and effectively expresses the disdain of himself and many others by doing so. The use of the 'eternal soldier' is also a literary device; it is giving the listener a history lesson on all the wars America has been involved with as a way to make the listener disapprove of the wars. In contrast to this song, the song "Turn, Turn, Turn" by The Byrds does not use a narrator, but rather draws most of its verses from the Bible, and is not written with the use of a narrator. Phil Ochs's song carries more of a direct message, and "Turn, Turn, Turn" is more of a subtle way of saying there is a time and a place for everything, and the time and place for war is not during the sixties. In "Turn, Turn, Turn," there is only one direct reference to war or peace; the last line of the song says "A time for peace, I swear it's not too late." This line is clearly a plea for world peace, since they are saying it is not too late now to have peace. A similarity between the two songs is the use of repetition. In "I Ain't Marching Anymore," Phil Ochs uses the same structure throughout the song. Each verse has the same rhythm and general line structure and sound, and at the end of each verse, he says "But I ain't marching anymore" as a a way for the soldier in each verse to say he no longer will participate in fighting for the government. In The Byrds' "Turn, Turn, Turn," the repetition is very similar to Ochs's song. Each verse contains the same structure, and the phrase "turn, turn, turn" is repeated multiple times. The phrase "turn, turn, turn" is used as a way to say that whenever there is a situation that needs to be dealt with, one must deal with it in the appropriate manner and then turn and deal with the next thing in an appropriate manner for the next situation. The use of repetition in both of these songs drives home the point of the repeated phrase. The last similarity is that both of these songs carry a strong anti-war message. "I Ain't Marching Anymore" is more clearly anti-war because it directly discusses the war and it was released a year after America became involved in the Vietnam War, and it was a very popular song to play at protests. "Turn, Turn, Turn" was intended less as a protest song, but it was still latched onto by protestors as a song to convey their feelings towards the war. Overall, the ideology of anti-war protestors in America during the 1960s was conveyed through this music, and by listening to both of these songs, one can gain a better understanding of the people protesting the war in America.
