An exhibition from the archive
In the summer of 1965, months after the first American combat troops landed in Vietnam, Barry McGuire released a song by the 19-year-old writer P.F. Sloan that ran through everything wrong with the world: the bomb, race hatred, the draft, and a war in the East. On 25 September it reached number one.
No other Vietnam-era protest song drew so many replies. Within weeks, record labels large and tiny were pressing answers that borrowed its tune, turned its title inside out, or attacked the singers who sang it. This is a call and its responses.
Beyond the gallery
The collection gathers 34 records in the “Eve of Destruction” family: the original, its covers, its answers and its echoes, from 1965 to the 1980s.
Explore the full collection →