Summary Of Fortunate Son By Greedence Clearwater Revival

The song “Fortunate Son,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival, released in 1969, reflects the sentiment of the vocal youth during Nixon’s presidency. The lyrics, laced with anti-war messages, constitute a larger, politically influential piece of music that many resonated with at the time. By the late 1960s, opposition to the war seemed to leave a deep division in the foundations of society. Small, organized college campus groups did not foresee how many people their movement would encompass once the word of American bombings had begun circulating. The immorality of federal behavior shocked the nation, thus catalyzing a strong decline in patriotism. The visually stunning effect of violence in Vietnam on American families watching from their living …show more content…
The Vietnam draft was unpopular because people with privilege were able to dodge recruitment. The US army was mainly comprised of poor people with low education credentials. Often times, they were notified of their admittance into the military at the young age of 19. The draft board that was in charge of recruitment ultimately seemed to favor people of wealth and status. Creedence Clearwater Revival denotes this in the first chorus, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me / I ain’t no senator’s son,” and once again in the second chorus, “It ain’t me, it ain’t me / I ain’t no millionaire's son.” The rock band professed how many felt about this external discrimination with the lyrics, “Some folks are born silver spoon in hand / Lord, they don’t help themselves, no / But when the taxman comes to the door / Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah.” Because the band members were not sons of privilege, they understood the struggle of watching the wealthy be exempt from wartime measures and not having to pay back the country in any way. There was a general notion that the rich did not work as hard for their successes and continued to utilize their status to avoid their civil duties. Discontent fueled the lower working class as they were obligated to serve America’s overextended mission for democracy in a war that they believed, was not going to fare …show more content…
In the new lottery-based system, all days of the year were printed on pieces of paper and withdrawn from a jar. The publicized event generated an order of birthdays, in which men with the pronounced respective birthdays had to report for commission in decreasing priority. However, this did not solve the issue of war deferrements. Wealthy students enrolled in a full-time university were able to be pardoned because they needed their time to invest in their degree. Poorer students, on the contrary, did not have the same opportunities to do so. Another method to be granted a deferment was have a health condition, which the wealthy could easily claim to have by asking their doctor to issue a certified note. Furthermore, large sums of money were paid to experts to help forge enlistment identification papers. These illegal papers allowed many citizens to escape the actual enlistment calls because it seemed that they had already been evaluated. Still, the common people discovered more loopholes to exploit in the draft. The percentage of shotgun weddings rose during this period simply for the sake of having a child to lower the father’s chance of being sent to Vietnam. Talented individuals with specialized jobs were also omitted from deportation. People that could not deal with maintaining life in America sought Canadian refuge. About 40,000 citizens crossed the northern border and continued living in