The "AAA" referenced in the lyrics is the Agricultural Adjustment Act, a major New Deal program introduced by the Roosevelt administration to combat the Great Depression. To raise the plummeting prices of crops and livestock, the government paid farmers to reduce supply, which famously resulted in the slaughter of millions of pigs and the plowing under of vast fields of cotton. The Human Cost
The song "Plow Under" was recorded by the American folk music group The Almanac Singers and released in May 1941 on their highly controversial album, Songs for John Doe . To understand the track, one must examine the complex geopolitical landscape of the early 1940s: Plow Under (Original Mix)
: In August 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed a non-aggression pact. The "AAA" referenced in the lyrics is the
The shelf life of "Plow Under" was incredibly short due to a sudden, massive shift in global events: To understand the track, one must examine the
The Almanac Singers weaponized this New Deal memory to attack the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 (the peacetime draft). They argued that just as the government callously destroyed every fourth row of crops to stabilize the economy, it was now preparing to sacrifice every fourth American young man to feed the military-industrial complex. 3. Examining the Drastic Shift and Legacy
The Almanac Singers’ "Plow Under": An Analysis of Anti-War Protest Music 1. Contextualizing the Era