About the project
The Vietnam War Song Project (VWSP) is an interpretive examination of 6,500+ Vietnam War songs identified to date, revealing how the war’s significance is represented through music. The project also collects spoken-word recordings about the conflict. This unique collection of voices advances scholarship by providing insights into people’s views about the war over time as represented in music, looking at diverse communities and vibrant music scenes. It is crucial in developing our knowledge of the war and the humanities, through the use of a digital research platform.
Objectives
To critically analyse the song lyrics, searching for historical, social and cultural themes, and collecting data on the genre, location, ethnicity, nationality, language and time period of the recordings.
To preserve the physical records for the future, as artifacts of the 20th century.
To create an educational and research open history archive, to learn about the Vietnam War, and the music and artists associated with it.
The editor
Dr Justin A. Brummer is the founding editor of the Vietnam War Song Project since 2007, based in Austin, TX. He is co-author of the discography Vietnam on Record at the University of Maryland, and has featured in prominent news and history outlets, including the BBC, PBS, NPR, Shindig!, Military.com, the Journal of TX Music History, and History Today. He gained his PhD in political history from University College London (UCL) in 2012 on Anglo-American relations during the Nixon period.
Songs are posted on YouTube. Project updates are on Bluesky and Instagram. Also see Linktree.
Scope & context
How the project defines a Vietnam War song, the historical context it works within, and how the archive is structured — read the introduction, historical context, song criteria and structure →
About the themes
Lyric content themes are the categories used to describe what a song is actually about. Every song in the archive is tagged against one or more of them — a parent theme (the broad category) and its sub-themes, each with a definition. A song may fall under several parent themes at once. Browse the full taxonomy →
Press & reception
What historians, broadcasters and teachers have said about the archive, and where it has been written about. Read the press page →
Work in progress
The archive is added to continually — records, annotations, scans and translations. See what is finished and what is still being worked on →
How the site was built
The data. The website and its database are built from the master Excel discography compiled by Justin A. Brummer since 2007. Every piece of metadata on a record page — artist, title, release, year, label and catalogue number, location, genre, language, lyric themes — was collected and recorded by Justin A. Brummer, from the records themselves and the sources listed in the bibliography.
The writing. All annotations, notes, era write-ups, collection introductions and artist backgrounds on this site were written by Justin A. Brummer. The collections began as annotated lists on Rate Your Music and have been rebuilt here in full.
Record scans. Unless another collection is named under a picture, scans are from the collection of the editor, Justin A. Brummer, PhD. Pictures lent by other collectors and archives carry their name in the caption.
The software. The site is a hand-built single-page website in plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript — no content management system. The master spreadsheet is exported to data files that the page reads in the browser, so a change to the master flows through to every record page, collection and index on the next rebuild. Label scans and photographs are stored as WebP images, and the site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages.
Use of AI
AI was used in two limited areas. The first was data mapping: matching fields between the sheets of the master spreadsheet and carrying them into the site's data files. The second was internet research for some of the artist biographies in the master. This research followed set parameters. Only permitted and approved sources were used, among them Wikipedia, Discogs, 45cat, Praguefrank's Country Discography, Dollar Country, the American Song-Poem Music Archives, artists' official websites and newspaper obituaries. Each biography cites its source. The project's own Rate Your Music lists were not accepted as evidence, and dates of birth and death were recorded only where a source stated them. All of this research was reviewed by the editor, Justin A. Brummer, PhD, before it was entered in the master. Biographies researched in this way name their source on their record pages.
AI was not used to research or write the discographical data, annotations, notes or collection essays. These are the work of the editor, Justin A. Brummer, PhD.
Copyright & takedown policy
Material on this site. The Vietnam War Song Project is a not-for-profit research and educational archive. The recordings, lyrics, and label and sleeve artwork it discusses belong to their copyright holders: the artists, songwriters, publishers and record labels. The site does not sell, stream or offer downloads of any recording. Label and sleeve scans are reduced-size images of records in the editor's collection, or lent by other collectors and archives, shown to identify and document each release. Lyric quotations are short excerpts, quoted for commentary, analysis and scholarship. Video and audio links point to material hosted on other sites.
Digitised by the project. The label and sleeve scans, photographs and recordings published by the Vietnam War Song Project were digitised by the project itself, from physical records — most of them in the editor's own collection, the rest lent by other collectors and archives, who are credited in the captions. They are published as a record of the material for research, not as a substitute for it.
Original material. The annotations, notes, era write-ups, collection introductions, biographies, theme definitions and the arrangement of the database are © 2007–2026 Justin A. Brummer, PhD. They may be quoted with a citation — every page carries a citation line — but please ask before reproducing them at length.
Requesting removal. If you own the rights to something on this site and object to its use, or believe it infringes your copyright, email [email protected] with: (1) your name and contact details; (2) the work concerned, and whether you are its owner or are authorised to act for the owner; (3) the page address and the specific item — a scan, a lyric quotation, a link or a passage of text; and (4) a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised and that the information in your notice is accurate.
What happens next. Every request is acknowledged and acted on promptly. The item in question is taken down while the request is reviewed, and stays down if the claim is upheld; where possible the rest of the record — the discographical entry and the editor's own annotation — remains. If you believe something was removed in error, reply with an explanation and it will be reconsidered.
Corrections and credits. Artists, their families and labels are welcome to send corrections, better scans or permission notes through the contact page; credits are added or changed at the rights holder's request.