The Babes With Guns Thread

Nimh - I think I am actually in love with you now!

That is one of the cleverest bits of visual satire I have ever seen here.

(One assumes that is a TOY gun????!!!)

You have won a life-time supply of fresh carrots, and a bunny smooch (if you want it. The smooch, I mean. Carrots are GOOD for you! Keep you regular.)

I actually have a big old photograph of a young soldadera (female soldier of the 1910-1917 Mexican Revolution) in my office.

She's my girlfriend, I say.

She's about 20. Beautiful.
She has a big hat, military boots and a bouquet of flowers clapped between the bullet-full belts that cross her chest.
You can see that she has seen a lot, in such a young age.
And her glance is so, so sad.

The plaque says she was a sargeant.
A truly lovely photograph.

Not available on the net, Fbaezer? It would be great to see it.

Here's one pistol-packin' Mama who used hers . . .



Bonnie Parker

Here's another who didn't hesitate to pull the trigger . . .

Ya gotta wonder if she would have pulled the trigger . . .



Patricia Hearst

Drinking beer in a cabaret and was I having fun
Until one night she caught me right
and now I'm on the run.

Lay that pistol down, babe - lay that pistol down
Pistol Packin' Mama, lay that pistol down.

She kicked out my windshield - she hit me over the head
She cussed and cried and said I'd lied
and wished that I was dead.

Lay that pistol down, babe - lay that pistol down
Pistol Packin' Mama, lay that pistol down.

Drinking beer in a cabaret and dancin' with a blond
Until one night she shot out the light - Bang!
that blond was gone.

Lay that pistol down, babe - lay that pistol down
Pistol Packin' Mama, lay that pistol down.

I'll see you ev'ry night, babe - I'll woo you ev'ry day
I'll be your regular daddy - if you'll put that gun away.

Lay that pistol down, babe - lay that pistol down
Pistol Packin' Mama, lay that pistol down.

Now I went home this morning - the clock was tickin' four
Gun in her hand, says "You're my man, but I don't need you no more."

Lay that pistol down, babe - lay that pistol down
Pistol Packin' Mama, lay that pistol down.

Now there was old Al Dexter - he always had his fun
But with some lead, she shot him dead - his honkin' days are done.

I looked for it, but didn't find it.
See, I work at a government's office, and this old pictures are somehow part of the archives. I guess this photo (Number 1434 of the Casasola Archive) has never been scanned.

But I found a girl that has a similar uniform and sad glance. (She lacks the flowers and the presence of "my girlfriend", though):



These are the real babes with guns.
Nothing sexy about them (I find that vulgar).
But they have something so human, so brave, so tender.
And, for right or wrong, they have a cause.

Was this at the time of the fall of Porfiro Diaz, Fbaezer?

That one is fascinating, Fbaezer - I can only imagine the one you love so much! It is so amazing to me that one is looking at an artifact of light that really went to the film from the person - like almost being able to touch other lives in other times.

You are right re the vulgarity. This thread has so gone a better way, I think - (heehee - a mini-revolt?)

You're right, Set.
They fought the popular revolution that dumped Díaz into the dustbin of history .
The soldaderas started accompanying their husbands, fathers and brothers, feeding and caring for the men. Soon they became soldiers themselves.
There were thousands of them.
Two of the three most famous songs of the Mexican Revolution are about them.

La Adelita

En lo alto de una abrupta serranía
acampado se encontraba un regimiento
y la joven que valiente lo seguía
locamente enamorada de un sargento.

Popular entre la tropa era Adelita,
la mujer que el sargento idolatraba,
además de ser valiente era bonita
y hasta el mismo coronel la respetaba.

Y se oía.
que decía,
aquel que tanto la quería:

Si Adelita se fuera con otro
la seguiría por tierra y por mar,
si por mar en un buque de guerra
si por tierra en un tren melitar

Y si Adelita quisiera ser mi esposa,
y si Adelita fuera mi mujer;
le compraría un vestido de seda
para llevarla a bailar al cuartel.


Adelita

On a high mountain side,
a regiment camped,
and the young woman who bravely followed it,
crazily in love with a sargeant.

Popular among the troops was Adelita,
the woman the Sargent adored,
besides being brave, she was beautiful,
and even the Coronel respected her.

And it was heard,
that the one who loved so
said:

If Adelita left with another man,
I'd follow her by land and by sea:
if by sea in a warship,
if by land in a melitary train.

And if Adelita wanted to be my bride,
if Adelita became my wife,
I would buy her a silk dress
and take her dancing to the barracks.

THOSE ARE BABES WITH GUNS, not the wannabe Playboy bunnies!

I like the song, Fbaezer, not the least for the fact that it isn't really about the revolution, it's about people, and how they feel . . .

Perhaps that's why it's popular, 90 years later.

BTW, Set, I once, a few decades ago, wrote a satyrical "revolutionary" song about Patty Hearst.
All I remember is:

"Machine-gun S.L.A,
Institutions, they shall trumble,
filling out the air"

S.L.A (acronym for Symbionese Liberation Army, you ignorants!) also "rhymed" with "our commander Patty Hearst".

Gotta find the original. It must be full of dust, somewhere.

Patty was a sap, she'd have gotten not a moment's attention had her last name not been Hearst . . .