Hi, I'm Chris Neilsen's (the guitarist's) daughter (Oz is actually also my godfather). I like the video and I'm a big fan of your reviews. Just wanted to add that the reason Coven kind of fizzled out after One Tin Soldier's release was largely due to legal issues with the band's then manager, Tom Laughlin. It was a mess and the band members really got screwed (they don't receive any royalties for this song, for one thing). It also had a huge hand in their breakup afterward. Also, I cannot speak to Jinx Dawson's beliefs because I never really got to know her, but I can say with absolute certainty that the satanism/witchcraft/occult stuff was always totally theatrical for my dad. He never actually practiced any of it (nor did Oz, the bassist), and always viewed it as a gimmick. I've always been told that Jinx actually was the first one to do the 'devil horns,' though. I love your videos and I think it's awesome that you chose to cover this band! Thanks for all your great work.
@PrinceMario From what I have heard of their music it doesn't really sound like metal, but more like psychedelic rock. /but the group never liked either label
At the time I am writing this, there are 18 people who disliked the video. Now, I'm not trying to start rumors, but maybe, just maybe, those 18 were valley people.
I think the idea is that the mountain people do consider it a treasure because they're "enlightened" but the valley people can't accept it because as we have reiterated valley people are the worst
Yeah, that's about what I got too. The Mountain people think this is their highest prized treasure because of the message on it but the Valley people just don't get that it's not a treasure because of its physical value but just what it means to them. I think the point the song is saying is NO treasure is worth bloodshed. To get what others had they slaughtered an entire people and they realize only now their actions weren't justified.
Glad to see that's not just me. I've been a fan of this song for a while, and that's always what I've gotten out of it. And while it's a bit less clear, I think the valley people still attacked because they wanted all the treasure, and in the song the mountain people describe "sharing' the treasure.
The valley people were postmodern. They killed the mountain people for the unforgivable crime of confusing the message with the mean it was conveyed. Can't really blame 'em.
@@maskofice9432 Personally, I think this song is actually delightfully cynical? What I got is that the treasure meant more for the mountain people because of what it represented, it was a treasure for its emotional value, and the mountain people overall were enlightened and wise enough to turn the other cheek. After all, "peace on Earth" starts when you are kind to your neighbor and stuff, so they gave the valley people that chance. But because the valley people represent every scumbag who thinks they can justify horrible crimes on things like religion and the "common good", they still chose the violent approach to affirm their superiority and dominance over the mountain people for being "weak" and letting them invade. So in summary, what I got is that this is a song about how true peace on Earth will only come when we understand and fraternize with each other, but we're incapable of doing so because there's still too many of us who are greedy and hypocritical to the point of justifying things like slaughter and pillaging on religion and wellfare. One Tin Soldier remains because it's the image of what war and fighting for these selfish gains ultimately ends up on: misery and wasted opportunities for peace.
Anime America I agree, I saw this cartoon on the sonny & cher show, but cher did it and the original song sounds nearly identical. (that Canadian group I cannot remember)
Imagine Jinx making a deal with some demon and the terms are something like: "Your first album will be extremely influential to a new occult genera, even your bassists name will be legendary! But you will only have one true hit." Think about it. Black Sabbath is an insanely influential name from their first album, Oz Osborn is a household name because of a black sabbath, and they got a hit. Sure, It wasn't the same black sabbath or oz Osborn, and sure their hit was a cover, but still
Ah, I see what happened. Satan got the contracts mixed up and gave Coven's contract to Ozzy Osbourne and thus history was made. I mean honest mistake, two guys with similar names, a song called Black Sabbath and a group with the same name. The devil's a busy guy! He gets confused (or more than likely outsources jobs to lesser demons like Crowley which also makes perfect sense. 😝😎)
This song's super popular at this Christian camp I volunteered at. It sounded either immensely tragic or incredibly cheesy, there was no in-between. (The camp is Canadian, that probably explains it).
It was a staple at the chrisitan summer camp I went to as a kid. I think its in a songbook that is basically the christian-hippie-with-a-guitar hymnal.
If the camp was Canadian, then they probably connect it with the original version by Original Caste, not Coven. That version plays on Canadian AC radio all the time; I'd never heard the Coven version until this video.
I think the lyrics are implying that the valley people didn't want to SHARE the treasure; they wanted it all. Peace on earth, though, isn't something that you can have all by yourself, it has to be shared. Agreed about the horns, but I actually quite like this song.
The mountain people weren't going to share with the valleyfolk. "With our brothers" they were willing to share, but the mountain people didn't consider the valleyfolk to be brothers. That's why the king was pointing into the castle when he talked about his brothers. Seriously, the analysis here is pretty shoddy. Anyhow, hail Satan.
I think it's actually poignant that Todd was so confused that they were fighting over a stupid rock. War leaders in real life make their people fight and die over things that are often so arbitrary and useless to them.
I always thought "tin soldier" was just a remark about a knight in shining armour could just be reduced to something as frail as broken man in mere tin.
That's a good analysis. I also thought maybe it was a metaphor for the phoniness of war too. The soldiers always make themselves look polished and shiny with new armor and new weapons, hoping that they will be thought of as heroes. When it's all just fake tin. They will get wounded, they will kill people for no reason at all except because they are told that they are a godless enemy, and they will get killed. It's all a fake lie that they bought into and paid for it with theirs and other's lives.
"Go ahead and hate your neighbor! Go ahead and cheat a friend! Do it in the name of Heaven, you can justify it in the end!" I need these lyrics on a shirt...The only memorable part of the song personally.
Ironically, we used that song during a Christian retreat and it was supposed to be inspirational. I laughed when you told us Coven was a devil worshipping metal band.
Reminds me of the time The Trinity Broadcasting Network booked a live feed of the band Justice. Because their big album at the time was called 'Cross' and had a cross on the cover. Always do your research, kids.
And yet back in the day they had a problem with Stryper. A pretty clean and middle of the road sounding metal band that actual sang Jesus songs... TBN people are idiots.
Back in the 70s, when the Catholic church was trying to get all hip, two of my aunts sang George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" during mass, including the "Hare Krishna" part -- nobody including my aunts had any idea what they were singing.
*video opens, Todd builds up awesomeness of band* Wait for it... *shows video footage of them rocking out* Okay, little longer than expected, but it's coming... *continues to build them up* Almost there... *dinky tune starts playing* There we go. The only thing Todd ever builds up to are anti-climaxes, and that's what I love best.
I could watch Todd build up Coven's War Metal image only to become undone and drop the devil horns in confusion and despair by the flute intro all day. Definitely among my favorite Todd moments! I love it, like I said Billy Jack is one of my Mom's favorite movies and this is one of her favorite songs (at one point it was her ring tone). So I just go "3,2,1, 😝😆😆😝"
@@julieporter7805my mom also introduced me to Billy Jack and this song, she really liked it. I have to about that I do too lol but I'm glad I watched this because I didn't know their other music was drastically different and now I have another good band to listen to!
Deep Purple and Rush and Grateful Dead and Depeche Mode managed to change their sound after their first song, so that's not impossible. But like... Crazy Town, Joan Osbourne, way different.
@@liimlsan3 funny, Joan Osbourne toured with members of the Grateful Dead for a few years after Jerry Garcia's death. That lady has a cannon of a voice on her.
Thanks to reading the TVTropes page for Todd in the Shadows, I found the Trope name for what you described: New Sound Album. Happened to a few of Todd's Trainwreckords subjects, such as Billy Idol's "Cyberpunk".
@@liimlsan3Filter is another example of a band that didn’t die from their biggest hit (“Take a Picture”) sounding completely different from their first hit and to this day second biggest (“Hey Man, Nice Shot”). Granted, those two songs are the only two with huge streams and chart success, but even then the band retained a consistent level of rock radio hits from the mid-90s to mid-00s
The first time I heard this song, my choir teacher sang it for us. We had to work hard and earn a solo performance from her, and then she pulled a guitar off the wall and sang this song. Something about the simple, quiet way she played it was very powerful. It made me really love music because I saw what an artist could do with a piece of music.
A clear example of that trope where someone looking for a treasure finds it was something intangible. Normally I hate this trope, but here I think it works due to the bitterness that Todd notes. I actually think this is one of the better folky-hippie-peace-and-love songs, and the vocals are excellent.
Not much of a treasure if they still lost to the Valley People. The Valley People are going to hold it for a generation or two until it's captured by the Plateau People because turns out it was a shit castle all along.
My mom was just watching Billy Jack on tv and when One Tin Soldier came on I told her the story of Coven. She said she’s loved the song since it came out and never knew about Coven’s background. It’s crazy to think how much their “satanic” past had been scrubbed from history.
She is truly the godmother of metal. Anyone wanna fight me on that? Name another woman in proto metal with that much underrated impact, or another woman in proto metal for that matter.
Oh man, this is a trip and a half. I heard thing song at camp when I was a tween (we're Canadian, it's the law) and I was OBSESSED with it for a few years. It was just when the war in Iraq was kicking off, so it seemed very profound to me at the time. And yeah, as an adult I can recognize it's total cheese, but . . . I have a soft spot for hippie cheese.
Saddest part is i feel Coven would've thrived in the late 70's NWOBHM scene, even though they're not British. I could see them touring with groups like 45 Grave and Saxon
They're big enough among fans of lost 70's classic albums, which is a community still going strong. They're colloquially thought of as the 'satanic Fleetwood Mac'.
"New Wave of British Heavy Metal" And I agree... they would have gone well with Witchfinder General, although I thought a lot of Coven's first album had a "Jefferson Airplane meets Anton LaVey" vibe to it.
@@zufallig4377 I agree, that they were more psychedelic rock, than metal. Shucks, the only song of theirs, that, to me, sounds anything close to metal, is the title tune from Blood On The Snow, their third album. Some of their other stuff like (I Guess It's) A Beautiful Day Today, which was the flip side of the full band rerecording of OTS, sounds like psychedelic FOLK to my ears.
I've never heard this song before so this really interested me. Like Todd said, the chorus is awesome. It took me a little while to warm up to the lyrics, but it's growing on me. Interesting to note from other commentators that Christian camps sing this song, but I can see why. From a Christian perspective, the mountain people are good Christians, who want to share their religion with everyone in a loving way. They purposefully call the rock a treasure (in a way, like Christians irl do with salvation) to entice people and get them interested in finding out what the treasure is. Which is why, they were like "Yes! Come in! We want to share!" The valley people are bad Christians, who want 'the treasure' of salvation all to themselves and judge or hate anybody who is not them; they use religion to justify their behavior instead of letting their faith inspire them to do good. They do, indeed, get their just reward of realizing that they have destroyed what they sought for so badly. It makes me wonder if the original song writers intentionally wrote it with a Christian perspective in mind. The Coven cover adds a fascinating angle to the story, just because of who they are. It turns this Christian fable into a cautionary tale about religion, no matter how you practice it. You either are the hateful believers who use their religion to abuse or you are naive believers who let their religion blind them to be abused. No one wins, except the one tin soldier who walked away from the conflict (from religion). I think this may be what appealed to them about the song in the first place. Anyway, I found the interpretations of this song fascinating and the band Coven, itself, is very interesting. It's disappointing that they had to change. Thanks for introducing me to the song, Todd.
It's genius that Satanists did a song that skewers the warlike hypocrisy of religion/Christians, and Christians unwittingly embraced it, singing it in their camps w their children. 😂
I think it definitely takes some pot shots at Christianity and that's probably why Jinx chose to sing it. If what Todd says is true that she was raised in an occult practicing family and definitely into her adulthood and musical career, she certainly had a front row seat to Christian hypocrisy and judgement. Plus of course during the 60's and 70's when religious people were for the war and preventing Civil Rights, Women's Rights, and Stonewall was only a couple years prior. Yes there was probably a lot of bitterness who were speaking about God's love with one side of their mouths and dehumanizing people who weren't like them from the other side (Not unlike today in many ways).
@drummerguy 85 Hell, I grew up with it in music class. Not sure this really counts as 'obscure' at all. Just a song with a very weird backstory that no one seems aware of.
Not obscure -- maybe not a #1 hit, but the song was featured in Billy Jack, a cheezy movie that was in fact a huge hit. I remember this popping up frequently on Top 40 radio circa 1970.
I've seen this episode a few times now, and I only just realized that he played the song in a minor key at the beginning to make it sound more sinister. Nice touch, Todd.
This band should definitely be more well-known, considering how “satanic” their image was, as proven, before Black Sabbath. I always wonder how much more popular Coven would be if they kept making these wild albums.
I was trying to figure out where I'd heard this song before, but then you played the Rob Paravonian clip and that was 100% the answer. I played the cello, man. Canon in D and Pomp & Circumstance continue to haunt me to this day. HE KNEW OUR PAIN.
Funnily enough, we used to sing this a lot at the church camp I went to as a kid. No clue why, considering that this song is, if anything, anti-religious, and the lyrics make zero sense.
This entire album is a delight. And I'm pretty sure Jinx Dawson was an actual witch, because she looked good for a *long* time after their heyday. Edit: The White Witch of Rose Hall is about a plantation owner in Haiti who murdered a *bunch* of her slaves. Just an interesting note.
I've been rewatching pinky and the brain, and the show actually had a whole episode devoted to parodying Billy Jack, complete with Pinky singing a parody of One Tin Soldier. It was a surreal experience, seeing such an obscure piece media being referenced in a kid's show from 1997.
I do hope Todd is playing this up for the review, because One Tin Soldier is hardly *that* difficult to parse as a story. Still, this was such an educational episode - for one thing I had no idea Coven were, in fact, a coven!
Fuck yes!!!!!! Coven finally gets some recognition. I LOVE Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls, definitely in my top 10 favorite albums. Seriously. Wicked Woman, a great song. I definitely recommend listening to it at least 5 1/2 times.
Meanwhile my Christian ass struggles to NOT listen to it cuz on one hand yeah morally it's a song about a sinful woman reaping what she sews, on the other, LITERAL SATANIC BAND bleh, sadge.
I think what would have been more appropriate for Halloween was the song They're Coming to Take Me Away by one -hit wonder Napoleon XIV (his real name was Jerry Samuels) from 1966. Does anyone remember that song? Good luck finding clips of him though.
Personally, I was always fond of this song back in my childhood due to the dark irony. The refrain, of course, but also the "With our Brothers" bit. "Poor Communication Kills", as TVTropes would later call it. The Valley People didn't see themselves as the brothers of the Mountain People, and thus read the reply as a rejection. ...and now I need to find a metal cover of this song. (My birthday is Oct. 30, making Halloween my Patron Holiday. The only reason I never went Goth in my teenaged years is because I grew up rural. There WERE no Goths in my area. One practicing Wiccan in my class, oddly enough, but no actual Goth culture.)
I give up. I can not find a metal cover of this song. Folk covers, yes. Country covers, yes. Even a cover by Elvis himself. I know at least ONE cover exists due to the outro of this video, but said outro isn't credited, so I can't find it. If anyone else here knows where to look, let me know.
I love Jinx Dawson's voice. It's like a Grace Slick-Joni Mitchell mix. I'm into that, I don't know. Anyway, the song kind of reminds me of a rejected Schoolhouse Rock song.
@@shaunandthebugs I mean, they are and they aren't. Their original name was Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids. The band members took part of their stage names from serial killers. There's definitely a creepy aspect to some of their songs and a lot of their videos at least from the early albums. They even covered "This is Halloween" from the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. So while they're not explicitly horror-themed in the way of Rob Zombie, it's there at least a little bit.
@@silashinton6873 No, the fact that they were multiple hit wonders doesn't make for any problems with his statement. Multiple hits songs means they are not "no-hit wonders". As to the original comment; with how many horror themed bands have tried their luck over the years (especially in the 80s), being able to find a few successful ones does not discount the tendency for them to be less than hit makers, and in fact most of them just suck.
Todd, just wanted to say thank you for introducing me to Coven. I had not heard of them before this review. And the "Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls" record is an underrated psychedelic masterpiece, with the exception of the 14 minute spoken-word "Satanic Mass" which closes the record. Total missed opportunity on their part by not putting music to the mass. It could've been an epic album closer. But, I must say that I have one huge problem with your review and that is your comment about psychedelic music being "flower child music" or "peace loving hippie music". Call me a bit of a stick in the mud or an aficiando of the genre if you must, but there's been great psychedelic music, not just rock, to come out of every decade since the 60's and there's great psychedelic music to be found prior to the rock era. It's a bit shortsighted to pigeonhole that word to one particular decade. Same goes for the so-called progressive rock bands or even some the early punk rock bands in the 70's. Psych, prog and punk, really go hand in hand with each other if you really look at the histories of the bands associated with them. They were and still are merely just tools used by the critics to easily identify something in music that is different or not easily identifiable. It's true that the word psychedelic was a 20th century invention, thanks to Humphrey Osmond and the subsequent championing of the word by Aldous Huxley & Timothy Leary. But by it's very definition, it can easily be associated with almost any kind of music before or since, not just 60's or 70's "hippie rock". Sun Ra and Igor Stravinsky are great examples of "psychedelic or progressive music" that predate the rock & roll era. In their day, they worked in what became known as jazz & classical, respectively, but their groundbreaking work did for their genres what say... The Beatles or Jefferson Airplane, did for rock & roll among others. The overall idea of psychedelic & progressive is to explore new ideas & push boundaries. So by that definition, Coven, and even Black Sabbath, can be considered psychedelic or progressive, to a degree. It's not always about hippies and LSD or, in the case of prog rock, complex music for the sake of complexity. There's a lot more to it than that. And even musicians who get into modern bands that call themselves punk, prog or psych easily fall into that trap of retro revival, instead of abiding by the original spirit of doing something completely different from everybody else. Just wanted to make sure you were aware of that. There's a lot more love and acceptance of the real concept behind psychedelic in music than you think. And if you really dig Coven, you should check out Black Widow and their album "Sacrifice" from 1970. They were pretty much doing the same thing that Coven was doing concurrently in the UK, although I don't think either band was aware of each other. And also unlike Coven, Black Widow never had a big hit single, but their live show from that year is well documented and really worth checking out if you're interested in digging into the Satanic psychedelic rabbit hole even further.
Todd, I don't understand why your subscriber count is so small. I love every video you put up and get stoked every time one pops up in my feed. Keep it up, bro.
I bought this CD directly from Jinxie herself: "Out of Thy Vault"- a collection of Coven's outtakes & demos. I told Jinx I really enjoyed the romantic ballad "midnight man". She told me it was interesting I found a song about waiting for a drug dealer to be the stand out track!! I'm like "WHOA!! Back up a minute!!" I suggested maybe she should've titled it "waiting for my midnight man"!!
12:28 I think the theme here is that the Mountain People didn't actually have a treasure, the Valley people just thought they did because they were angry and jealous that the Mountain People might have had something they didn't/weren't allowed to have. So the Valley People attacked and killed everyone, only to find out that there wasn't a treasure at all. Kinda like in the movie "Oh, Brother Where Art Thou?" where the main character talks the other two into breaking out of jail with him for a secret treasure that was gonna be buried under a lake, only for him to have to come clean towards the end of the movie that there wasn't actually a treasure. He was just trying to stop his wife from divorcing him, and he had to talk the other two into coming with him because they were chained together, so he made up the treasure. It really sucked for one of them because he was literally days away from getting released when they broke out.
"One tin soldier" is a medieval set song about a knight being the only one left alive after a super bloody battle in which the valley folk slaughtered the mountain folk for their treasure. The treasure being peace, which the mountain folk valued above all. That also explains why the horns make more sense in the song.
Apparently Fine Art Films, who did this and other animations for the Sonny and Cher show, also did the opening credits for Grease as well as the Carol Burnett show.
The first LP Destroys Minds is a brilliant cult classic . I found a used copy for 99 cents in the early 80s and sold it for about $500 in the 2010s. But I had since found a duplicate vinyl copy 🤘🏽
I saw "Billy Jack" at a drive-in theater as a young child. Also, in the very late 1980s and early 1990s I worked as a DJ at an adult contemporary formatted radio station. This song was in our "low frequency" playlist, which means it was an oldie that wasn't played often. Anyway, I played this song one night and the next day the local news station announced we were playing Satanic rock and roll. I'm totally serious. The phones were flooded with calls demanding everything from removing the song to threats of burning down the radio station. In friggin' 1990.
I love the song, especially the 'me first and the gimme gimmes' cover, which I'm surprised that version wasn't used at the end. also, especially since me first also did a cover of the Anne Murray song used as a clip in this video.
The music video looked like something out of early 70s animated segments on Sesame Street. Also, OMG! I remember seeing that movie "Billy Jack", my ex-friend's Mom was dating a guy who had that movie and I watched it with his family when I stayed over at their house. I thought it was so obscure no one else knew it existed until now....
This footage is actually from Sonny & Cher when Cher performed a cover of the song on the show. Someone on RU-vid synced the video to both Coven and Original Caste's versions of the song to give something to look at. Also, Original Caste did it better.
@@p47thunderbolt68 Sonny and Cher used it on their Christmas special but the version seen here with Coven is the actual thing, Watch it to the very end and it says "One Tin Soldier" Music and Lyrics by Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter; sung by Coven. That appears right before the Fine Arts Films logo. However you two ARE right about THE ORIGINAL CASTE recording to the video being a sync up,
@@chrismulwee4911 I think the animated video (John Wilson's Fine Arts Films did quite a few of these animated music videos for the Sonny & Cher show) did show up on Sonny & Cher with their cover dubbed over it--and went into "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" right after the last verse, hence the Christmas star at the end. But I think it was originally made with the Coven original.
My school had a music teacher who came to my 4th grade class once a week to have us sing songs from mimeographed sheets of lyrics she gathered from somewhere (early 80’s). This was the most popular song we sang - everyone seemed to think it was great and we requested it every class. Had no idea of its origin or backstory. Good times.
It's amazing that Todd sounds so clear considering how far back his mic looks. I don't know if this has been in all his recent videos but I just now noticed it.
I'm impressed there's no easily available video on this song, except for the Sonny & Cher animation. The early 70's were probably the last time you could find a charting band with almost no video footage. Fascinating background for this song, and we did sing this when I was in elementary school at a Lutheran school. And true on the Valley Folks, can't trust them :)
the first couple times I heard it, I somehow misheard the chorus and thought it went "god hates your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend, do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end"
In all honesty, if you wanted to review a spooky Halloween-esque song for Halloween, the up-and-coming band Ghost won a Grammy for their song, "Cirice" and recently released a new song that has been getting some mild radio play called "Square Hammer." I'd still recommend reviewing either of those songs, however I feel like this was a missed opportunity to do it.
I like how this show introduced me to artists I really like. Like the Darkness, Wall of Voodoo, and this show wasn't where I heard of them, but I listen to the Vapors because of the episode on Turning Japanese. There's also others.
That just blew me away because I am familiar with their first album, but knew nothing of their work after it. Thanks Todd, Happy Post Samhain, Proto Metal Rules, keep on rockin in the free world and DOOT DOOTLE DOOT DOOT-
Canadians picture ourself as the mountain people (no fighting, anti-war, peacekeeping efforts) and the valley people are kind of our perception of Americans.
this is really surreal... I've always liked toddintheshadows, and I've loved this song for sentimental reasons, but never did I EVER think they would intertwine.
Eddie the Head talking about proto metal otherwise whole heartedly agree THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL ON OUR WAY TO HEAVEN THROUGH THE NAZI LINES PRIMO VICTORIA
Halloween episode idea next year...The Crazy World of Arthur Brown "Fire." That song kicks ass!!! And I'm sure there'll be plenty to talk about with their musical history like Carl Palmer being their drummer which went on to Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Asia tying it back to the Buggle One Hit Wonderland episode
Todd, I want to thank you for introducung me to Coven's darker, heavier, better work from this video. RU-vid has "Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls" in its entirety, and it rocks! \m/
5:01 I deeply appreciate references like this. You videos are great. If I had any money I would send you some. But for now, I'll just say "Great job, man"
