Vietnam War Songs Essay

Music has always been present during American wars. In the Revolutionary War the song “Yankee Doodle” was set to dances was sung to keep spirits. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Lincoln’s favorite song during the Civil War, was rivaled by “Dixie” in the Confederate States. In the middle of World War I Irving Berlin gave us “God Bless America,” which has become the unofficial anthem of the United States. Composers like Samuel Barber were hired to write upbeat songs for the government during World War II. But wars also create their unique antagonists who transform their empathy, concern, anger, and other emotions into popular music. This was particularly true of the war in Vietnam but the musical soundscape to the Vietnam War was very different from that of World War II. While there were patriotic songs that did very well the vast majority of Vietnam War songs were anti- rather than pro-war songs. By early 1968 there were 550,000 troops in Vietnam and rising death toll with no end in sight. The anti-war movement, and the anti-war music was rooted in wider changes taking place in America. The soldiers drafted to fight in Vietnam were part of the baby boom that began in 1946 and by 1964 the 17 year olds were the largest age group in the …show more content…
This was how popular music, anti-war music specifically, became a space for political and cultural conflict and dialog. The Vietnam War was accompanied by a soundtrack that addressed every issue and captured the overall impact of this war. However, the music industry’s concern for a song’s chart location each week made radical anti-war statements in popular music a somewhat rare occurrence. Songs by pop artists were made for the radio and with a popular audience in mind because the growing record business had to meet its demands. An artist with enough influence or record sales could sporadically release a song with a political or social