How to use the archive

There are four ways into the 6,602 records on this site: search for words, narrow the archive with filters, follow a theme, place or genre, or read one of the annotated collections. The exhibitions offer a fifth, visual way in. This page explains what each one does and what you will find on a record page.

1 · Search

The search box at the top of every page looks through every part of a record — artist, title, label, place, genre, themes and notes — and the lyric quotations for 1,216 records.

Every word you type has to match, though not in the same field: seeger 1967 finds Pete Seeger records from 1967. If nothing matches every word, the closest results are shown instead.

Try, for example:

waist deep in the big muddy a title or a line
he was 19 in vietnam a half-remembered lyric
"letter from vietnam" quotation marks for an exact phrase
"bring them home" 1968 an exact phrase plus another word
paredon a record label
VWSP0250 a SongID

The first search loads the lyrics in the background, so lyric matches can take a moment to appear.

2 · Browse and filter

Browse the archive lists every record with a column of filters down the left. Ticking more than one value in the same filter widens the results (Country: USA or Australia); ticking values in different filters narrows them (Country: USA and Genre: Country). Every count updates as you go, so you can always see how much is left. The chips above the results show what is active — click the ✕ on one to drop it, or Clear all to start again.

Four filters have a second level: expand a parent theme for its sub-themes, a decade for single years, a region for countries, and a genre for sub-genres. Filters with many values have a search box and a Show all link.

Primary theme The one theme the record is filed under.
Lyric theme What the words are about, from the project's Lyric Content Themes scheme — expand for sub-themes.
Decade / year Year of release; expand a decade for single years. Undated records are kept together.
Era War Years (to 1975) or Post-War (1976 on).
Region / country Where the artist was from, formed or based — expand for countries.
US state For American records, the state behind the record.
Genre / sub-genre Parent genre with its sub-genres underneath.
Release type Single, album, EP, compilation, archival, live, soundtrack, unreleased.
Format 7", 10", 12", LP, cassette, CD, digital.
Language The language sung or spoken.
Original / cover Whether this is the original recording, a cover, or an alternative version.
Prominence Whether the war is central to the song, a general presence, or a passing mention.
Label, City, Artist Closed by default — open them and use the search box inside.

Sorting runs across the whole result set, not just the page you are on: catalogue order, year up or down, artist or title A–Z, or recently added. Any filtered view is a plain web address, so a search you want to come back to can simply be bookmarked or pasted into a footnote.

3 · Themes, places, genres and artists

Four index pages come at the archive from a different direction. Themes lays out the Lyric Content Themes scheme with a definition for every theme and sub-theme, so you can read what a tag means before you use it. Places maps the archive by country, region and US state, and Languages ranks the languages the records are sung in. Genres does the same for musical style, and Artists lists everyone in the catalogue.

Clicking any tag anywhere on the site — a theme chip on a record, a label, a city, a year — opens the filtered archive for it. Those pages carry a heading with the number of records and the span of years, and for a label the label's own logo.

4 · Collections

Collections are the project's annotated lists, rebuilt here from the ones that began on Rate Your Music: Peace and Protest, Draft Songs, My Lai, P.O.W. / M.I.A., Civil Rights, the country and regional lists, and the rest. Each runs in chronological order, with the project's essays, lyric quotations and pictures alongside the records, and an introduction setting out the criteria for what belongs on it. The annotations, essays and notes throughout the site are written by Justin A. Brummer.

Lists with a strong chronology are broken into era blocks — a short account of the year's events, with a contemporary photograph — so the records sit in the history around them.

Each entry carries a small reference number (#1, #2 …) so you can point to one: "Peace, Protest #312". The numbers run in page order within each collection and change when entries are added, split or removed, so cite the artist, title and SongID for anything permanent.

Some collection entries do not have a record page of their own yet — their titles are not links, and where they came from Rate Your Music they link there instead. There are 73 of them, and their record pages are being added.

5 · Exhibitions

Exhibitions are gallery-style tours of the archive. Records, picture sleeves and labels are shown large, one at a time, with a short museum-style caption drawn from the project's annotations: artist, title, label and catalogue number, place and year, and two or three lines on why the record matters. The objects are grouped into rooms, each opened by a short wall text, and so far there are ten: Four Dead in Ohio, on the records made in response to the Kent State and Jackson State shootings of May 1970; Song My, on the My Lai Massacre and the trial of Lieutenant William Calley; The Whole World Is Watching, on the 1968 Chicago Convention protests and the trial of the Chicago Seven / Eight; Eve of Destruction, on Barry McGuire’s 1965 hit and the answer records it provoked; Dear Son, Dear Dad, on Victor Lundberg’s “An Open Letter to My Teenage Son” and the replies; Bring Them Home, on American prisoners of war and the missing in action; The Long Black Wall, on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington; Songs from the Ranks, on records made by servicemen and veterans themselves; Another Vietnam, on records that measure other wars and crises against Vietnam; and Boats Without a Harbour, on Vietnamese refugees and the boat people.

Scroll to move from room to room, or use the dots down the right-hand side to jump. Click any picture to see it full-screen; ▶ Listen plays the recording where one is available, and Full record → opens the record page with everything else. The Dark mode button at the top switches the walls from light to dark, and the page remembers your choice.

What is on a record page

Click any record to open it. On the left are the scans — label, picture sleeve, company sleeve, inserts, and the other country pressings where they exist — with the front of the picture sleeve first. Click to enlarge. Underneath is the full discographical detail: artist, title, release, year, label and catalogue number, country, city and state, format, release type, language, composer, and whether the recording is an original, a cover or an alternative version.

On the right, where the project has them:

Release Where the archive holds two or more songs from the same album, EP or compilation, the release title links to a page listing them all — see Albums & compilations.
Listen Click to play, where a video of the record exists.
Annotation The project's written analysis of the record — cream background. Every annotation is written by Justin A. Brummer.
Notes Justin A. Brummer's shorter working notes, often a list of the record's themes — pale blue.
Lyrics Quoted lyrics, or the transcription of a spoken-word record.
Liner / sleeve notes Text printed on the record itself, quoted and labelled as such — grey.
Quote Something the artist or another figure said about the record.
Artist background A short biography of the artist — lavender.
Covers & answer records Other records that answer or cover this one.
Lyric content themes The themes the words carry, grouped under their parent theme. Hover a tag for its definition.
Also appears in The collections this record is part of.

Every record page ends with a citation line you can copy, including its SongID. The SongID is stable — it will still find the record after the catalogue grows.

Using the material

The archive is a not-for-profit research project, free to use for study and teaching. Please cite it: Justin A. Brummer, Vietnam War Song Project (VWSP), with the record's title and SongID. Record scans are photographs of items in the collection, reproduced for identification and study.

Corrections and additions are very welcome — a missing record, a wrong date, a better scan. See Contribute, or write to [email protected]. Scope & context explains what counts as a Vietnam War song for the project's purposes, and Bibliography & resources lists further reading.