Vietnam as Comparison

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

1970

#3 Roy Brown No me sulfuro más 1970 · Album · Yo protesto · Libre # VR-1001 · Puerto Rico

Annotation

Roy Brown, born 18 July 1945 in Orlando, Florida, USA - his mother came from Ponce, a city in Puerto Rico, his father was a US naval officer. He studied at the University of Puerto Rico in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He released the politically charged Yo protesto album in 1969 on a label called Disco Libre, owned by the Puerto Rican Socialist Party. The album became a symbol of the protest movement at the university and throughout the country. This provides a look at an under-represented area of Vietnam War research.¹² Several songs referenced the Vietnam War: in the song "No me sulfuro más" ( "I Don't Suffer Anymore" ), he used Vietnam, and other places, to compare to the suffering in Puerto Rico: "there in Santo Domingo, Haiti, and in Vietnam, there are thousands of others who also suffer badly" . The song "Monón" attacked the US for its use of power across the world. The song also featured on the 1978 compilation Viva Puerto Rico Libre (Paredon Records # P-1035), which contained another Vietnam War song, discussed below.

Sources

1 unionpenumbra.org: Wp content ↩
2 Wikipedia: Yo Protesto ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

US issue on Vanguardia VR-1001 (the Puerto Rican issue is on Libre), "Yo Protesto", Roy Brown, red label, 33 1/3 RPM; Side A track 3: "No Me Sulfuro" (Aguinaldo); "No Me Sulfuro Más" on the back cover. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

There in Santo Domingo, Haiti, and in Vietnam, there are thousands of others who also suffer badly

Themes: Anti-War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hispanic Music Nueva canción latinoamericana Folk

Also in: ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]▤ Puerto Rican Songs

1971

#4 Gruppe Il Contemporaneo Que il nostro Vietnam / Was ist unser Vietnam [What Is Our Vietnam] 1971 · Live · Wer, wenn nicht wir, 2. Festival Des Politischen Liedes · ETERNA # 8 15 060 · Germany

Credited on the record as Gruppe Il Contemporaneo, Italien.

Notes

Recordings of events during the II. Festival of Political Song 7th to 13th February 1971 in Berlin
German Democratic Republic (GDR)

Que il nostro Vietnam / Was ist unser Vietnam (Gruppe Il Contemporaneo)
Vietnams Geschütze (Oktoberklub)

Notes

Also known as Il Contemporaneo
ETERNA 8 15 060 (VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin), stereo LP; live recordings from the 2. Festival des politischen Liedes, Berlin, 7–13 February 1971 (Ag 511/01/74); sleeve essay Margot Schröder (1971); design Peter Porsch; Musikregie Karl Heinz Ocasek. Recordings from events at the II. Festival des politischen Liedes, 7-13 February 1971, Berlin. Tracks A2, A4, A7, B1 feature Oktoberklub members; B3, B7 feature Venceremos Club members. Title page credits Armin Münch's painting 'Sieger der Geschichte'. Reissues 1973 and 1974 titled 'Wer, Wenn Nicht Wir (2. Festival Des Politischen Liedes)'. Track A5 of the compilation. Live recording from the 2nd Festival of Political Song, Berlin, February 1971, issued on the GDR compilation 'Wer, wenn nicht wir', which also includes the Oktoberklub's 'Vietnams Geschütze'. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

The fact that my boss

Accumulates money

Is nothing new;

But it’s the system he employs

That makes me protest,

And it’s the methods he uses

That make me hate him.

Naturally,

His primary means

Is to exploit me.

He claims that without him,

We wouldn’t be able to work,

And that where socialism exists,

There isn’t even enough to eat.

When I sit down

At my workstation,

My personality shifts;

I forget reality entirely

And transform into a cog—

I set my brain aside,

For what use is it to me now, anyway?

It’s worth noting

That the average Italian

Lets himself be easily fooled.

If you ask for a raise—

Fifty lire an hour—

The boss says, 'Sure, I’ll give it to you,

Just keep on working.'

On television,

They’re always showing us

How productivity is growing,

Yet wages remain the same

And the gains go to the bosses;

After all, the Italian people

Live on love and songs.

The other morning,

We went on strike—

All activity came to a halt.

From his balcony,

The boss watched us and counted us,

Pen and paper in hand;

Everyone was there, and we were singing:

'We must create,'

Wrote Che Guevara,

'Two, three, many Vietnams.'

This is our Vietnam,

This is our struggle.

You who are listening—

Join the fight yourselves.

Create

Two, three, many Vietnams—

Against NATO,

Two, three, many Vietnams—

Against a class-based school system,

Two, three, many Vietnams—

For better labor contracts,

Two, three, many Vietnams—

Create

Two, three, many Vietnams.

Italian

Che il mio padrone

accumuli denaro

non è una novità

ma è il sistema che ha

che mi fa protestare

ma sono i metodi che ha

che me lo fanno odiare.

Naturalmente

il mezzo principale

è di sfruttare me.

Dice se non ci fosse lui

non potremmo lavorare

e dove il socialismo c’è

non c’è manco da mangiare.

Quando mi siedo

al posto di lavoro

cambio personalità

scordo tutta la realtà

e mi trasformo in ingranaggio

pongo il cervello un po’ più in là

tanto ormai che me ne faccio.

Da considerare

che l’italiano medio

si lascia infinocchiar.

Se gli chiedi d’aumentar

cinquanta lire all’ora

il padrone dice te le do

ma tu continua a lavorare.

In televisione

ci fan sempre vedere

crescer la produttività

ma il salario resta ugual

e l’aumento va ai padroni

tanto il popolo italian

vive d’amor e di canzoni.

L’altra mattina

abbiamo scioperato

ferma l’attività.

Il padrone sul balcon

ci guardava e ci contava

con carta e matita in man

c’eran tutti e si cantava

dobbiamo creare

ha scritto Che Guevara

due tre molti Vietnam.

Questo è il nostro Vietnam

questa è la nostra lotta.

Voi che state ad ascoltar

fate anche voi la vostra lotta.

Creare

due tre molti Vietnam

per la NATO

due tre molti Vietnam

per la scuola di classe

due tre molti Vietnam

per i contratti di lavoro

due tre molti Vietnam

creare

due tre molti Vietnam.

Show full lyrics (121 lines) ▾

Themes: Anti-War Anti-American Anti-Capitalism Anti-Imperialism Che Guevara Festival of Political Song

Genres: ♪ Folk Contemporary Folk

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

#5 Canzoniere Il Contemporaneo Questo è il nostro Vietnam 1971 · Album · Zeitgenossen · pläne # S 88 101 · Italy

Credited on the record as Il Contemporaneo.

Notes

Pläne S 88 101, "serie SIEG No. 1", recorded in West Berlin, with an 8-page German lyric booklet; 1971 (Meschiari, 2003). Track B5. The group's own studio recording of the song heard live on the 2. Festival des politischen Liedes LP.

Lyrics

English

The fact that my boss

Accumulates money

Is nothing new;

But it’s the system he employs

That makes me protest,

And it’s the methods he uses

That make me hate him.

Naturally,

His primary means

Is to exploit me.

He claims that without him,

We wouldn’t be able to work,

And that where socialism exists,

There isn’t even enough to eat.

When I sit down

At my workstation,

My personality shifts;

I forget reality entirely

And transform into a cog—

I set my brain aside,

For what use is it to me now, anyway?

It’s worth noting

That the average Italian

Lets himself be easily fooled.

If you ask for a raise—

Fifty lire an hour—

The boss says, 'Sure, I’ll give it to you,

Just keep on working.'

On television,

They’re always showing us

How productivity is growing,

Yet wages remain the same

And the gains go to the bosses;

After all, the Italian people

Live on love and songs.

The other morning,

We went on strike—

All activity came to a halt.

From his balcony,

The boss watched us and counted us,

Pen and paper in hand;

Everyone was there, and we were singing:

'We must create,'

Wrote Che Guevara,

'Two, three, many Vietnams.'

This is our Vietnam,

This is our struggle.

You who are listening—

Join the fight yourselves.

Create

Two, three, many Vietnams—

Against NATO,

Two, three, many Vietnams—

Against a class-based school system,

Two, three, many Vietnams—

For the labor contracts,

Two, three, many Vietnams—

Create

Two, three, many Vietnams.

Italian

Che il mio padrone

accumuli denaro

non è una novità

ma è il sistema che ha

che mi fa protestare

ma sono i metodi che ha

che me lo fanno odiare.

Naturalmente

il mezzo principale

è di sfruttare me.

Dice se non ci fosse lui

non potremmo lavorare

e dove il socialismo c’è

non c’è manco da mangiare.

Quando mi siedo

al posto di lavoro

cambio personalità

scordo tutta la realtà

e mi trasformo in ingranaggio

pongo il cervello un po’ più in là

tanto ormai che me ne faccio.

Da considerare

che l’italiano medio

si lascia infinocchiar.

Se gli chiedi d’aumentar

cinquanta lire all’ora

il padrone dice te le do

ma tu continua a lavorare.

In televisione

ci fan sempre vedere

crescer la produttività

ma il salario resta ugual

e l’aumento va ai padroni

tanto il popolo italian

vive d’amor e di canzoni.

L’altra mattina

abbiamo scioperato

ferma l’attività.

Il padrone sul balcon

ci guardava e ci contava

con carta e matita in man

c’eran tutti e si cantava

dobbiamo creare

ha scritto Che Guevara

due tre molti Vietnam.

Questo è il nostro Vietnam

questa è la nostra lotta.

Voi che state ad ascoltar

fate anche voi la vostra lotta.

Creare

due tre molti Vietnam

per la NATO

due tre molti Vietnam

per la scuola di classe

due tre molti Vietnam

per i contratti di lavoro

due tre molti Vietnam

creare

due tre molti Vietnam.

Show full lyrics (121 lines) ▾

Themes: Anti-War Anti-American Anti-Capitalism Anti-Imperialism Che Guevara Protest

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

1972

#6 Nuovo Canzoniere Milanese Perché mai parlavi di pace 1972 · Compilation · Compagno Vietnam · I Dischi del Sole # DS 1012/14 · Italy

Credited on the record as A. Catacchio e F. Mascetti del Nuovo Canzoniere Milanese.

Notes

Mono LP issued November 1972, published by Edizioni Musicali Bella Ciao, graphics Gigi Romeo, liner notes Giovanni Pirelli and Ivan Della Mea; the companion songbook "Compagno Vietnam" (Edizioni del Gallo, 1974) prints the lyrics. Track B6. Ivan Della Mea's song (his own 1969 version is on "Il rosso è diventato giallo") sung by A. Catacchio and F. Mascetti.

Lyrics

English

But why ever

Talk of peace?

You know about it,

About the cold and the children

And the cost of

Shoes and clothes

And the rhythm of

Your hammer.

Why speak to you of peace

When you know the cold, your children,

The cost of shoes and clothes,

And the rhythm of our hammer?

Why speak to you of Vietnam

When you carry it carved upon your faces,

In the swindles that make up your wages,

Bargained for through your own labor?

Why speak to you of Nixon

When you see him in every boss—

With his white teeth, his brotherly smile,

And the insult of his pity?

And the choice—that is the gateway to understanding,

Expressed in a hundred, a thousand, and more voices—

In cries of 'Agnelli!' and 'Vietnam!'

And in the peace that you yourselves sing of.

This peace that you sing of

Is, today, a cry of true violence—

Directed at the Ingraos with their 'clear consciences,'

At the Novellas, the Pirellis, and all the bosses.

Why speak to us of peace

When every single day is a life lived at war—

When for every one of 'them' who falls,

A thousand of 'us' lie dead upon the ground?

Why speak to us of peace?

Italian

Ma perché mai

parlar di pace

voi lo sapete

del freddo e dei figli

e il costo di

scarpe e vestiti

e il ritmo del

vostro martello.

Perché mai parlarvi di pace

voi sapete del freddo e dei figli

ed il costo di scarpe e vestiti

ed il ritmo del nostro martello.

Perché mai parlarvi del Vietnam

voi l'avete scolpito sui volti

nelle truffe dei vostri salari

concordati sul vostro lavoro.

Perché mai parlarvi di Nixon

voi l'avete in ogni padrone

denti bianchi fraterno sorriso

e l'insulto della sua pietà.

E la scelta è il cancello per capire

con le cento e le mille e più voci

e le grida «Agnelli» è «Vietnam»

e la pace cantata da voi.

Questa pace cantata da voi

oggi è grido di vera violenza

agli Ingrao di buona coscienza

ai Novella ai Pirelli ai padroni.

Perché mai parlarci di pace

se ogni giorno si vive alla guerra

se per uno di loro per terra

sono mille i morti per noi.

Perché mai parlarci di pace

Perché mai parlarci di pace.

Show full lyrics (75 lines) ▾

Themes: Anti-Capitalism Nixon Peace Protest Vietnam Analogy Economic

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

#7 Cristina Rapisarda Tu lo sai compagno a Marzabotto 1972 · Compilation · Compagno Vietnam · I Dischi del Sole # DS 1012/14 · Italy

Credited on the record as C. Rapisarda e il Nuovo Canzoniere Milanese.

Notes

Mono LP issued November 1972, published by Edizioni Musicali Bella Ciao, graphics Gigi Romeo, liner notes Giovanni Pirelli and Ivan Della Mea; the companion songbook "Compagno Vietnam" (Edizioni del Gallo, 1974) prints the lyrics. Track B5. Ivan Della Mea's 1966 song setting the Nazi massacre at Marzabotto beside the war in Vietnam; sung by Cristina Rapisarda with the Nuovo Canzoniere Milanese.

Lyrics

English

You know, comrade, that in Marzabotto

The fascists took a woman

They tore the child from her womb

And, laughing, shot him.

I tell you, comrade, that in Vietnam

Paratroopers and marines took a woman

They tore the child from her womb

And, laughing, shot him.

But how sweet it is to be able to say 'peace

Peace, brothers, across the whole earth'—

Hitler said it, and today Nixon says it,

As do the masters who wage war against us.

You know, comrade, that time

Is still red with old wounds

And bears the voices of bereaved mothers

And the silence of the ovens in the death camps.

Oh, partisan—through all these years

We have built a party, a creed—

Yet there is a woman today who does not believe

In this 'peace' that brings no peace.

But how sweet it is to be able to say 'peace

Peace, brothers, across the whole earth'—

Hitler said it, and today Nixon says it,

As do the masters who wage war against us.

Now we know, comrades, that in Vietnam

There is that woman, more alone, and she remains silent—

And one cannot, one simply cannot say 'peace'

Over a womb that bears no fruit.

Because we are not 'former' partisans,

We say 'enough' to the fascists and the masters,

To their murderous, scoundrel lackeys—

We say 'war,' and war it shall be.

So enough talk of peace—

We are not brothers across the whole earth;

We are partisans, and we wage war—

Our own war, for the sake of our own peace.

Italian

Tu lo sai compagno a Marzabotto

i fascisti hanno preso una donna

le hanno tolto il figlio dal ventre

e ridendo gli hanno sparato.

Io ti dico compagno nel Vietnam

para e marines hanno preso una donna

le hanno tolto il figlio dal ventre

e ridendo gli hanno sparato.

Ma come è dolce poter dire « pace

pace fratelli su tutta la terra »

lo disse Hitler lo dice oggi Nixon

e i padroni che ci fanno guerra.

Tu lo sai compagno che il tempo

è ancora rosso di vecchie ferite

e ha la voce di orfane madri

ed il silenzio dei forni nei lager.

O partigiano in tutti quest'anni

ci siamo fatti un partito una fede

ma c'è una donna che oggi non crede

in questa pace che pace non dà.

Ma come è dolce poter dire « pace

pace fratelli su tutta la terra »

lo disse Hitler lo dice oggi Nixon

e i padroni che ci fanno guerra.

Ora sappiamo compagni nel Vietnam

c'è quella donna più sola e tace

e non si può non si può dire « pace »

su quel ventre che frutti non dà.

Poiché non siamo degli ex partigiani

diciamo « basta » ai fascisti ai padroni

ai loro servi assassini e cialtroni

diciamo « guerra » e guerra sarà.

E allora basta parlare di pace

non siam fratelli su tutta la terra

siam partigiani e facciamo la guerra

la nostra guerra per la nostra pace.

Show full lyrics (75 lines) ▾

Themes: WW2 Nazis Civilian Casualties Vietnam Analogy Solidarity Anti-Imperialism

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

1973

#8 Carlos Puebla y Sus Tradicionales El ejemplo de Viet Nam 1973 · Album · Carlos Puebla · Areito # LDA-3410 · Cuba

Credited on the record as Carlos Puebla Y Sus Tradicionales.

Annotation

Sources

1 Cuba - Songs for Our America ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Track A4. Compares Puerto Rico's independence struggle with the Vietnamese victory - David and Goliath. Also on Paredon P-1018 (1975).

Lyrics

English

Puerto Rico, is getting ready to liberate itself

To have a free country, without fear of the Yankee giant

With the Vietnamese victory

It has been shown once and for all that even though they seem so big

The giants are not so great

And now you see, Puerto Rico, in a very concrete way

How the peoples of smaller lands are rising up

Remember the legend of Goliath, that giant, and little David

Who forced him to surrender and to humble himself

The Yankee has cannons, and knows how to exploit you

But Puerto Rico relies on something else

Puerto Rico has its people

The heirs of Betances who at this historic moment have made up their minds to be free

Themes: Anti-Imperialism Vietnamese Patriotic Freedom & Liberty Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hispanic Music Nueva Trova

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

#9 Alfredo Bandelli Il Cile É Già Un Altro Vietnam 1973 · Single · Il Cile è già un altro Vietnam / In tutto il mondo uniamoci · Lotta Continua · Italy

Notes

- Italy, peace / protest
- A-side: protest against Allende, comparing Chile to Vietnam
- "Chile is already another Vietnam"
- B-side: Socialists will conquer, stop American imperialism
- People war, from America to Vietnam

- "2 — due canzoni internazionaliste di Alfredo Bandelli": a 45 issued as a supplement to no. 237 of the daily Lotta Continua (registered Rome tribunal no. 14442, responsible editor Fulvio Grimaldi), October 1973, the proceeds to the subscription "Armi al MIR cileno" (arms for the Chilean MIR) after the 11 September coup. Side A "Il Cile è già un altro Vietnam", side B "In tutto il mondo uniamoci". No label name or catalogue number. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Allende is dead—the socialist—

Allende is dead, murdered

By a fascist army

Trained and prepared

To defend the homeland,

To defend the State.

And the streets of Santiago

Are soaked in red blood.

And the streets of Valparaíso

Are soaked in red blood—

The blood of thousands of proletarians,

Of thousands of communists...

Fight the bosses

Wherever and however you can—

That is the only law

For us, the exploited.

With Allende dead, the ideal

Remains the 'national path';

With Allende dead, the mission

Is socialization—

No, there can be no bargaining

Over popular power.

And the occupied factories

Were bombed,

The workers massacred,

The comrades executed by firing squad

By the state army—

That 'constitutional' army, indeed...

Fight the bosses...

Allende is dead at La Moneda,

Symbol of the nation;

No, reason is of no use

Against a cannon blast:

Power must emerge

From the barrel of a gun.

The lesson was paid for

With proletarian blood:

Reformism always loses,

Revolution wins—

And Chile is another Vietnam,

And Chile is another Vietnam...

Fight the bosses...

Italian

Morto Allende, socialista,

morto Allende, assassinato

dall'esercito fascista

preparato ed addestrato

a difendere la patria,

a difendere lo Stato.

E le strade di Santiago

son bagnate rosse sangue.

E le strade a Valparaiso

son bagnate rosso sangue

di migliaia di proletari,

di migliaia di comunisti...

Combatir a los patrones

donde sea y como sea

es la unica ley qui

tenemos nos explotados.

Morto Allende, l'ideale

è la via nazionale,

morto Allende, la missione

è la socializzazione

no, non si può contrattare

il potere popolare.

E le fabbriche occupate

sono state bombardate,

gli operai massacrati,

i compagni fucilati

dall'esercito statale

certo costituzionale...

Combatir a los patrones...

Morto Allende alla Moneda,

simbolo della nazione,

no, non serve la ragione

contro un colpo di cannone:

il potere deve uscire

dalla canna del fucile.

Con il sangue proletario

s'è pagato la lezione:

perde sempre il riformismo,

vince la rivoluzione

ed il Cile è un altro Vietnam,

ed il Cile è un altro Vietnam...

Combatir a los patrones...

Show full lyrics (87 lines) ▾

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Chile (Cold War) Anti-Imperialism Anti-American Protest Benefit Record

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

#10 Movimento Studentesco Milanese Palestina! 1973 · EP · Movimento Studentesco Milanese · Edizioni Movimento Studentesco # MS 003 · Italy

Notes

Gatefold 7" 33 rpm EP: A1 I padroni possono perdere la testa, A2 Dimitrov, B1 Palestina!, B2 Come Yu Kung rimosse le montagne. Written by Umberto Fiori in 1973; also known as "La rossa Palestina".

Lyrics

English

Down there in the Middle East, like a wounded buffalo,

The American pirate rages;

But in the camps, on the dunes, even the children are armed

And every woman grips her rifle.

No, Israel's tanks do not frighten you:

You must liberate your land...

We have raised the red, the green, the white and the black,

Gripped the flag in our fist: the colours of Al Fatah.

We have raised the partisan flag of red

[Palestine

Beside the flag of Vietnam!

The bosses' newspapers call them "bandits",

The papers that called the partisans "murderers";

We will not believe the Israeli bulletins,

Nor the traitorous Jordanian tyrant.

How many times have they told us, "It's over in Palestine"?

And still we sang the song...

We have raised the red...

Beyond this sea there is a brother people:

Every struggle helps another struggle,

Every shot fired at the Zionist enemy

Strikes those who rule in Italy.

Today History moves with the peoples in revolt:

Revolution, until victory!

We have raised the red...

Italian

Laggiù nel Medioriente, come un bufalo ferito

infuria il pirata americano

ma nei campi, sulle dune, sono armati anche i bambini

e ogni donna impugna il suo fucile

no, non fan paura i carri armati d'Israele:

la tua terra tu la devi liberare...

Abbiamo alzato il rosso, il verde, il bianco e il nero,

stretto in pugno la bandiera: i colori di Al Fatah.

Abbiamo alzato la bandiera partigiana della rossa

[Palestina

accanto a quella del Vietnam!

Li chiamano "banditi" i giornali dei padroni

che chiamavano "assassini" i partigiani,

noi non crederemo ai bollettini israeliani,

al tiranno giordano traditore.

Quante volte ci hanno detto "E` finita in Palestina."

e ancora cantavamo la canzone...

Abbiamo alzato il rosso...

Al di là di questo mare c'è un popolo fratello:

ogni lotta aiuta un altra lotta,

ogni colpo sparato sul nemico sionista

in Italia colpisce chi comanda.

Coi popoli in rivolta si muove oggi la Storia,

Rivoluzione, fino alla vittoria!

Abbiamo alzato il rosso...

Show full lyrics (53 lines) ▾

Themes: Palestine Anti-Imperialism Anti-American Solidarity Guerrilla Warfare Vietnam Analogy

Also in: ▤ European Songs

1975

#11 Carlos Puebla El ejemplo de Vietnam 1975 · Album · Cuba: Songs for Our America · Paredon # P-1018 · Cuba

Annotation

Carlos Puebla, born on 11 September 1917 in Manzanillo, Granma, Cuba. He died on 12 July 1989, Havana, Cuba. He was a prominent member of the Nueva trova movement, the Cuban offshoot of Nueva canción latinoamericana, linked with leftist social and political movement in South & Central America. Released in 1975, all the songs on the album Cuba: Songs for Our America (Paredon Records # P-1018) focused on issues related to the US - such as its involvement in Puerto Rico, Panama, Vietnam, and problems at home, such as both African-American and Mexican-American Civil Rights. Released on Paredon Records, this record label was founded by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber in 1969, whose objective was to "seek out the music and speech, documentary or dialogue, that spring from the conscious artist who relates to people's movements, and which pour from all people in struggle".¹ This record label released several albums either about the Vietnam War or that contained a Vietnam War song, which are discussed on this list, see the note below. Also note that in 1969 Dane and Sliber published the book "The Vietnam Song Book" which included the notation and lyrics of one hundred anti-war songs collected from around the world.

This album included the song "El ejemplo de Vietnam" ("Example of Vietnam"), discussed above, featured on the 1973 album Carlos Puebla. A second Vietnam War-related song on this album was "Y está despertando el negro" ("Now the Black Man Is Awakening"), which combined the issues of African-American Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, focussing on the draft resistance movement. The narrator said that the US system tried to protect its investment by "enlisting and training the black man" as "cheap meat" to fight in the war. However, the narrator said that now the "black man is rising" - resisting the draft.

Sources

1 What Now People, Vol. 1 - Paredon 2001 ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Track B3; recorded in Cuba; liner notes in Spanish and English with lyrics. Same song as on Areito LDA-3410 (1973).

Lyrics

English

The black man is waking up

Now he is answering clubs with clubs

And fire with fire

The black man only asks on this earth far his little piece of sky

But he is answered with police clubs, with chains and with dogs

As long as the black man is quiet

As long as he keeps in his place

The rich man classifies him as a "good, poor nigger"

And because the rich man is the owner of the businesses and the money

He tries to protect his investment by enlisting and training the black man

And there goes the "cheap meat"

The tender flesh of the black man

That while alive is "bad", but in dying becomes "good"

But now the black man is rising with all his passion and fire

And things are changing, now that the black man has awakened

Show full lyrics (16 lines) ▾

Themes: Anti-Imperialism Vietnamese Patriotic Freedom & Liberty Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hispanic Music Nueva Trova

Also in: ▤ Draft Songs ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

#12 Maze Jackson Will Israel Be Another Vietnam? 1975 · Album · Gospel Light # GLDE 0368 · USA

Credited on the record as Brother Maze Jackson.

Notes

Will Israel Be Another Vietnam (Jackson, Maze)

Spoken-word, Baptist preacher. Mid-1970s?

Notes

Gospel Light Records L.P. 0368 (GLDE 0368), 33⅓, white label, Side One "Part 1" and Side Two "Part 2"; "Don & Earl Record Co., P. O. Box 181, Knoxville, Tenn." The sermon was "Preached by Brother Maze, March 30, 1975, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Reidsville, North Carolina, Don Harrell – Pastor". The ornate front cover shows two photographs: people amid rubble, and rows of white crosses with an American flag.

Back also prints "Broadcasting for Jesus, Bro. Maze Jackson, P. O. Box 3, Atlanta, Ga. 30301"; jackets by Gospel Artists Productions, 730 16th Ave., So., Nashville; "Gospel Light Records, a Don & Earl Enterprise, P. O. Box 181, Knoxville, Tenn. 37901". [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: Israel Religion Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Spoken Word Speech Sermons

Also in: ▤ Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]

1976

#13 Celebration Vietnam In Africa 1976 · Album · Old Green Village · Le Kiosque d'Orphée # KO/76.0515 · France

Notes

Vietnam in Africa (Celebration)

French. Psychedelic folk.
Note: might be other Vietnam-related songs on the album.

Notes

Private-press style folk LP on Le Kiosque d'Orphée. Members: Bertrand Côte (flutes), Pierre Lozac'h (guitar, banjo), Jacques Godin (guitar, banjo, dulcimer, autoharp, vocals), Pascal Genneret (guitar, vocals). Some copies include a mimeograph insert; one handwritten and one typed insert; two cover variants (black or green silkscreen). 2013 US reissue exists. From the private-press LP Old Green Village on Le Kiosque d'Orphée.

Themes: Africa Vietnam Analogy Anti-War

Genres: ♪ Folk Psychedelic Folk

Also in: ▤ European Songs

1980

#14 Μπάμπης Βενέτης[Mpampis Venetis] Θα Γίνη Βιετνάμ (It Will Be Vietnam) 1980 · Album · Που aνταμώνουν oι nεκροί · General Gramophone # GGMG 2646 · Greece

Notes

- Greece

- "Θα Γίνη Βιετνάμ" ("It Will Be Vietnam")

- Style: Laïkó. Recorded at Acoustic Studio. Rights: ΑΕΠΙ. Licence 44153/226/80. Cassette edition TC-GGMG 2646 also 1980 (release 10648827). No Notes section. 'It Will Be Vietnam', from the album 'Που ανταμώνουν οι νεκροί', composed by Katerina Korou and recorded at Acoustic Studio.

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Violence Metaphor Protest

Genres: ♪ Greek Music Laiko

Also in: ▤ European Songs

1983

#15 Ratos de Porão Novo Vietnam 1983 · Album · O Começo do Fim do Mundo · Brazil

Annotation

Ratos de Porão, a Brazilian Hardcore Punk band, formed on 13 November 1981 in São Paulo, released the song "Novo Vietnam" (# 526.404.474) on this various artist compilation. The group used the Vietnam War to make a contemporary comment on Brazil: "Brazil will be the new Vietnam" .& Vietnam War: Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Let's turn Brazil into a new Vietnam

Where your fears will end or they will multiply

And no one will help, if not I'll help help

Brazil will be the new Vietnam

But here you can not accumulate in a conclusion

We will have to get and no one will stop us

Because we are right and we will win

Brazil will be the new Vietnam

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music ▤ Punk Songs

(2) Northern Ireland: "England's Vietnam" (1977–1983)

British troops were deployed to Northern Ireland in 1969. Irish republican and folk songs called the conflict "England's Vietnam", and English post-punk bands used the comparison to protest against the army's role, internment and the prisons.

14 August 1969: British troops deployed in Northern Ireland (Operation Banner)
9 August 1971: Internment without trial introduced
30 January 1972: Bloody Sunday, Derry
1980-1981: Protests at Armagh women's prison and hunger strikes at the Maze
5 May 1981: Bobby Sands dies on hunger strike

1977

#16 The Dayhills Irish Band England's Vietnam 1977 · Album · The Dear Little Isle · Biscuit City # BC 1318 · USA

Notes

Biscuit City Records BC 1318, stereo, 33⅓ RPM, "The Voice of the Rockies", Denver, Colorado, ℗ 1977 Biscuit City Enterprises; Side One track 5 "England's Vietnam" (B. Whoriskey), 2:31 (listed on the back cover as "England's Viet Nam").

The sleeve notes call it "a modern song written out of the war in what remains of Ulster", best described "as an Irish, country-western, rebel song". A cover of the song recorded by The Men of No Property.

Front cover photograph of the trio set inside an outline map of Ireland.

Recorded August 1977 at Biscuit City Sound Recording Studios; produced by The Dayhills, executive producer Jim Ransom, engineered by Ty Atherholt. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: Anti-War Vietnam Analogy Ireland Ireland Troubles

Genres: ♪ Folk Irish Folk Music

#17 The Men of No Property England's Vietnam 1977 · Album · England's Vietnam - Irish Songs of Resistance · Folkways # FH 5409 · UK

Notes

England's Vietnam (Men of No Property, The)

Irish folk music.
Compared Vietnam's fight for independence with Irish opposition to UK.

US Irish band covered the song - The Dear Little Isle

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Ireland Ireland Troubles

Genres: ♪ Folk Irish Folk Music

Also in: ▤ European Songs

1980

#18 The Pop Group Justice 1980 · Album · For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? · Rough Trade # ROUGH 9 · UK

Annotation

The song "Justice" was about civil disobedience, and police violence, referencing the death of Kevin Gately in the Red Lion Square disorders, the death of Clement Blair Peach at an anti-racism demonstration in Southall, UK, the death of Jim Kelly in police custody in Liverpool, UK, political prisoners, conflict in Zimbabwe, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which the lyrics compared to the Vietnam War: "Ireland is their practice ground...Our very own Vietnam" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I wake up every day

And look at my country

This is what the blind man sees

Does it look like justice to you

It doesn't look like justice to me

They've got to protect their property

Better phone up the police

Call up corruption

Who killed Blair Peach?

Political prisoners caught at Southall

And tried by kangaroo courts

A man had to have his balls removed

After being kicked by the S.P.G.

It doesn't look like justice to me

Have your heard the rumours

You've got 2 years till conscription

Do you want to go fight Zimbabwe

Do you want to go fight in Ireland

Soon it's got to be you and me

Who guards the guards

Who polices the police

What happened at Red Lion Square

Who killed Kevin Gately

Jimmy Kelly arrested in Liverpool

And later died in custody

And they'll bring in the army

To break up the strikes

And they'll bring the legal terrorists

To control civil disorders

Ireland is their practice ground

To control civil disorders

Our very own Vietnam

Who guards the guards

Who polices the police

Show full lyrics (35 lines) ▾

Themes: Draft Ireland Troubles Police Brutality Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Post-Punk Art Punk

Also in: ▤ Draft Songs ▤ European Songs ▤ Punk Songs

1981

#19 Au Pairs Armagh 1981 · Album · Playing With a Different Sex · Human # HUMAN 1 · UK

Annotation

Post-Punk group formed in 1978 in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK. Disbanded in 1983. Members included: Members Lesley Woods (vocals, guitar), Paul Foad (guitar, vocals), Pete Hammond (drums), Jane Munro (bass, vocals, 1979-83). The song "Armagh" contained a brief reference to the Vietnam War in context of women jailed in Northern Island. Note the reference to the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis, which the group said received more attention than Northern Island political prisoners.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

We don't torture, we're a civilized nation

We're avoiding any confontation

We don't torture, we don't torture

American hostages in Iran

Heard daily on the news

Forget about Vietnam

You can ignore the 32

There are 32 women in Armagh jail

Themes: Iranian Hostage Crisis Ireland Troubles Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Post-Punk

1983

#20 The First Things Johnny Viet 1983 · EP · A Nation of Employees · Hysterical # HA-EP001 · USA

Annotation

Post-Punk group based in Champaign, Illinois, USA, featuring the members: Mel Eberle (bass), Pete Govert (guitar), Steve Foster, Mike Majdic, and Davin Carey. They released the song "Johnny Viet" (Hysterical Records # HA-EP001), which used the Vietnam War in its title, although the song is about the conflict in Ireland: "Emerald Isle...IRA and UDA don't mean a thing" - the UDA is the Ulster Defence Association, an Ulster loyalist paramilitary group, and the IRA is a paramilitary group which supports an independent republic free from British rule.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

The sands of the times were plowing at his back

His patron saint was lucky...

The Emerald Isle was sinking at last

Who ya for?

It doesn't matter

What ya doing?

Wasting time...

It doesn't matter

Said all I want is to ?...

The bells of the church were ringing fast

Caught in the middle of a violent past

Exporting it's hate in today's path

Who ya for?

IRA and UDA don't mean a thing

Freckles and fair skinned ?...

They see a package ?....

Rubber bullets make it hard to go home

Show full lyrics (18 lines) ▾

Themes: Ireland Troubles Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Post-Punk

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

(3) Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979–1981)

An American hostage, blindfolded and with his hands bound, is paraded by his captors at the US Embassy in Tehran, November 1979

The seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran, and the 444 days that 52 Americans were held hostage, produced a wave of novelty, patriotic and country records. Many set the hostages' homecoming, with yellow ribbons and parades, against the neglect of Vietnam veterans; others called for no repeat of Vietnam-style restraint, including several versions of "Bomb Iran".

4 November 1979: US Embassy in Tehran seized
24 April 1980: Operation Eagle Claw, the rescue mission, fails
20 January 1981: Hostages released, minutes after Ronald Reagan's inauguration
27 January 1981: Hostages welcomed home in New York

1979

#21 Dick Allen Go to Hell Ayatollah 1979 · Single · Go to Hell Ayatollah / Same Time Same Booth · Fig Lenny # FLR-100 · USA

Notes

Fig Lenny Records FLR-100-A, ℗ 1979, 2:36; (Dick Allen); SIXAM Pub. BMI; produced by Joey Gunn; recorded at A-Side, Houston, Texas. [From the record label]

Go to Hell Ayatollah (Allen, Dick) Country, Iranian hostage crisis. Our bleeding hearts made us give away Vietnam Me, J.C., and the boys will take you down [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Country Novelty

1980

#22 Bernie Hamilton The Brave 52 (Part I) 1980 · Single · The Brave 52 (Part I) / The Brave 52 (Part II) · Inculcation # 47695 · USA

Notes

Brave 52 (Part I), The (Hamilton, Bernie)
Brave 52 (Part II), The (Hamilton, Bernie)

Funk/soul, post-war 80s. Los Angeles.
About Iranian hostage crisis.
References to Vietnam: "Praise him for he has set you free! - While the Vietnam veteran is still asking America 'help me'...." "To the veterans of 'Nam -- I know you're tired of the wham bam/That's all you've been gettin' for years/But through the veil of tears -- better days shall appear" .

Notes

Inculcation 47695 (181), ASCAP, Sweet Bippy Music Publishing Co. Inc., P.O. Box #19916, Los Angeles, CA 90019; side one "The Brave 52 (Part I)" (Bernie Hamilton & Joe Banks), 4:12, "Bernie Hamilton Vocal"; side two "The Brave 52 (Part II)", 4:18; both featuring Joe Banks, trumpet, and Quinten Denard, drums. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: Patriotic Mistreatment of Vet Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Soul, Gospel & Funk Soul

Also in: ▤ Soul, Gospel, & Funk Songs

#23 Bernie Hamilton The Brave 52 (Part II) 1980 · Single · The Brave 52 (Part I) / The Brave 52 (Part II) · Inculcation # 47695 · USA

Notes

Themes: Patriotic Mistreatment of Vet Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Soul, Gospel & Funk Soul

Also in: ▤ Soul, Gospel, & Funk Songs

#24 Steve Hayes Hostages 1980 · Single · Tulsa Time / Hostages · Aaframbia # S-2 · USA

Notes

Iranian hostage crisis, pop rock Don't mess with us Khomeini, or we'll mess with you We ain't no chicken country, let's talk about Vietnam [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

#25 The Skuddzies Bomb Iran 1980 · Single · Controversial # ROW 1111 · Canada

Notes

Controversial Records ROW 1111, 2:20; (Floyd Turbo). [From the record label]

Bomb Iran (Skuddzies, The) Iranian hostage crisis, 1979, rock & roll novelty. Reference to Vietnam, WW2, Russia, Cold War [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Iranian Hostage Crisis Satire Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Punk Rock

#26 Lic Bomb Iran 1980 · Single · Bomb Iran / Tracy · Militant # MR - 100 · USA

Notes

- Rock novelty, attack Iran - They took our embassy - We won't screw around like we did in Vietnam [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Iranian Hostage Crisis Satire Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Novelty

1981

#27 Jadam Bring Home the M.I.A.s 1981 · Single · Ultra Nova # UN2626 · USA

Notes

Bring Home the M.I.A.s (Jadam)

P.O.W., prisoner of war song.
Pop, post-war 1980s.
Iranian hostage crisis (reference to the '52' in the chorus - the number of American hostages).

Notes

Ultra Nova Records UN2626, stereo, © 1981 Ultra Nova Records – Jadam Productions; "Bring Home the M.I.A.'s", Jadam, 2:58, published by Ultra Nova Publishing, ASCAP. The label prints the dedication "This song is dedicated to the veterans of the Vietnam War and to the M.I.A.'s wherever they may be" – Jadam. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Where is the eagle, where does it fly

Has it fought so many battles, it must lay down to die

Where is the righteousness, its talon grasped with zeal

Where is truth leadership that goes with the presidential seal

Why's the country's desire so low to find the M.I.A.s, I don't know

We ignored the pleas of the refugees about the boys still in Vietnam

Bring home the M.I.A.s Uncle Sam, bring home the M.I.A.s

Did the job for the 52 people, but what about the boys still prisoner in Vietnam

Where is the honesty men laid down their lives down for

And the desire to do the same again, has it gone right out the door

Will the men in Washington take heart to take these words

Will they let our eagle fly again or keep it a captured bird

Bring home the M.I.A.s Uncle Sam, bring home the M.I.A.s

Did the job for the 52 people, but what about the boys still prisoner in foreign lands...

What about the boys who served for you in Vietnam, bring the boys on home

Show full lyrics (16 lines) ▾

Themes: P.O.W. M.I.A. Patriotic Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Pop

Also in: ▤ P.O.W. / M.I.A. Songs

#28 Jerry D. Stewart Welcome Home Veterans 1981 · Single · Chaton # CR-113 · USA

Credited on the record as Jerry Steward.

Annotation

Country, Vietnam P.O.W.s, vets, Iranian hostage crisis
Parade and yellow ribbons to welcome home 52 hostages held in Iran, 8 men gone.
Hell in Iran reminds me of Vietnam, disabled vet, held prisoner.
Remember friend killed in action (K.I.A.) in Vietnam.
I'm a VFW from Vietnam at home in the USA

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

"Welcome Home Veterans", vocal Jerry D. Stewart; CR-113, stereo, 45 RPM, 4:00; © ℗ 1981 Camelback Pub. Co., BMI; written and arranged by Fran (and) Jerry D. Stewart; Eddie Cummings, steel guitar; Darrell Mock, drums; Chaton Recordings, Scottsdale, Arizona. [From the record label]

Themes: P.O.W. Iranian Hostage Crisis Vet K.I.A. Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

Also in: ▤ P.O.W. / M.I.A. Songs ▤ US Military & Veteran Songs

1989

#29 The Offspring Tehran 1989 · Album · The Offspring · Nemesis # Nem-006 · USA

Annotation

"Tehran"

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

In your plane the blue sky

You roam again

Words that echo in your mind

Make your heart beat faster

This is no Vietnam

We will win in Iran

The President said "Let it ride, ride"

Islam be damned

Make your last stand

In Tehran

Themes: Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

Unknown date

#30 Buddy Patrick Pride and Honor America Single · Rome # RF71780 · USA

Notes

Pride and Honor America (Patrick, Buddy)

Fanfare, patriotic, post-war (late 70s? early 80s?
Potentially Iranian hostage crisis reference.
Released Columbus, Ohio.
What's wrong with this country? The politicians?
Are we afraid to go to war? (Vietnam syndrome).
We've turned into puppets.
References WW1, WW2, Korea, Vietnam

Notes

Rome RF71780 (C), turquoise label with a Roman-soldier logo, 1414 E. Broad St., Columbus, Ohio 43205; Side One "Pride and Honor America" by Buddy Patrick, Side Two "Pride and Honor America" Music Track, each 2:54 (writers: Wm. A. Patrick and Thelma A. Patrick); produced by Junior Bennett, engineered by Jack Casey, published by New Rome Music, BMI. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: Patriotic WW1 WW2 Korea Iranian Hostage Crisis Pro-Soldier

Genre: ♪ Fanfare

Also in: ▤ US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]

#31 Mike Martin We Are the Americans Single · Ramar # RR-111 · USA

Credited on the record as Mike Martin and the Rumble.

Notes

We Are the Americans (Martin, Mike)

Rockabilly, country pop. Patriotic. Jimmy Carter and Iran.
Why don't we hit Iran? Send in the marines.
Can't let history repeat itself like in Vietnam - time to stand up.
Reference to JFK, Ford, Bush, & Reagan.
Also 1980 presidential race, Russia in Afghanistan, refugees dying in Thailand.
Post-war late 70s or 1980.

Notes

Ramar Records RR-111, maroon label with silver print; both sides "We Are the Americans" (Michael Ray Martin), Songbreaker/Mike Martin Music, BMI, credited to Mike Martin and the Rumble and produced by Bob Wyld, "On Location" Prod.; side A runs 4:48 and side B 3:24. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: Carter Iranian Hostage Crisis Patriotic JFK Reagan George H. Bush

Genre: ♪ Rockabilly

Also in: ▤ US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]

#32 Mike Martin We Are the Americans (Short Version) Single · We Are the Americans · Ramar # RR-111 · USA

Credited on the record as Mike Martin and the Rumble.

Notes

Themes: Carter Iranian Hostage Crisis Patriotic JFK Reagan George H. Bush

Genre: ♪ Rockabilly

Also in: ▤ US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]

#33 Travis Templeton Blame It on Richard Nixon (The Election Song) Single · Blame It On Richard Nixon (The Election Song) · Black Stallion Country # 001 · USA

Notes

Black Stallion Country Records 001-A, mono, 3:13; (Mary Justin, Richard Berberian); Black Stallion Country Pub., BMI; produced by Kenn Kingsbury, Randy Nicklaus. [From the record label]

Country novelty, Vietnam, anti-Carter, anti-Reagan, pro-Nixon. What happened to the 60s, Vietnam. When we knew good from bad. Now, inflation, energy crisis, Iranian hostages. Need Nixon back, only made one mistake with Watergate [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Nixon Iranian Hostage Crisis Satire Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

#34 Shell Stand Up America Single · Booger's on the Wall / Stand Up America · USA

Notes

Stand Up America (Shell) Texas Country, patriotic, hawk Proud to be American. Wars on top of wars we've won. Some think we are weakening (a reference to Vietnam? Or Iranian hostage crisis??) We are just beginning, old glory on the moon, build a military base on mars! [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM] 841; Vinyl 7" (45 rpm); United States. [From Rate Your Music]

Lyrics

English

Our nation had its trials and tribulations, wars on top of wars we won, some think the USA has weakened, I like to tell the world we've just begun... If they think our nation is loosing power, we'll build a naval base on planet mars...We've always tried to be a peaceful nation, on god and liberty our country was built, but if they harm old glory, or our freedom, they'll find the USA can fight like hell, stand up, be proud, we're America

Themes: Patriotic Iranian Hostage Crisis Vietnam Analogy Vietnam Syndrome Flag

Genre: ♪ Country

Also in: ▤ US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]

(4) 1980s Interventions: Central America & Iran-Contra

Poster for the "U.$. Out of Central America" march and rally in Los Angeles on Saturday 24 March 1984, the eve of the presidential election in El Salvador: more than 2,000 people marched along Broadway from Olympic Boulevard to the Plaza on Olvera Street

The Reagan administration's support for the government of El Salvador and the Contra rebels in Nicaragua revived the slogan "No more Vietnams". Folk singers, punk and hardcore bands warned that Central America was the next Vietnam; Springsteen introduced "War" as a message to the young. The Iran-Contra affair was still being sung about decades later.

24 March 1980: Archbishop Óscar Romero assassinated, San Salvador
December 1981: El Mozote massacre, El Salvador
21 December 1982: First Boland Amendment restricts US aid to the Contras
25 October 1983: US invasion of Grenada
November 1986: Iran-Contra affair revealed
1 September 1987: Vietnam veteran Brian Willson loses his legs to a munitions train while protesting arms shipments to Central America, Concord, California

1981

#35 Dead Kennedys We've Got A Bigger Probem Now 1981 · Album · In God We Trust, Inc · Alternative Tentacles # VIRUS 5 · USA

Annotation

The Dead Kennedys - a Hardcore Punk band formed in 1978, in San Francisco, California. This EP featured Jello Biafra (vocals), Klaus Flouride (bass, vocals), East Bay Ray (guitar, vocals), and Peligro (drums). The song "We've Got a Bigger Problem Now" (Alternative Tentacles # VIRUS 5) focused on the election of Ronald Reagan in 1981 but it also mentioned the Vietnam War and showed concern about Alexander Haig, Reagan's Secretary of State (1981-1982), who served under Nixon during the Vietnam War as White House Chief of Staff (1973-1974) and Henry Kissinger's deputy at the National Security Council (1970-1973). The lyrics suggested that Reagan and Haig might lead the US to more Vietnam style wars, referencing the conflict in El Salvador or Afghanistan. They warned the youth audience that "they'll draft you" . This is an updated version of the song California Über Alles released as a single in 1979, but with different lyrics (which do not mention Vietnam). The original song attacked the counter-culture and hippies for becoming too close to the economic and political establishment. But with the Reagan election, as the new title suggested, the Dead Kennedys found it more important to oppose the rise of right-wing parties, big business, and the role of religion in politics.¹

Sources

1 Sells like Teen Spirit (Ryan Moore, 2009) ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Last call for alcohol, last call for your freedom of speech

Drink up, happy hour is now enforced by law

Don't forget our house special, it's called a Trickie Dickie Screwdriver...

I am Emperor Ronald Reagan, born again with fascist cravings

Still, you made me president, human rights will soon go 'way...

Now you're going to pray in school, I'll make sure they're Christian...

You closed your eyes, can't happen here, Alexander Haig is near

Vietnam won't come back you say, join the army or you will pay

Welcome to 1984, are you ready for the third world war?!?

You too will meet the secret police, they'll draft you...

Die on our brand new poison gas, El Salvador or Afghanistan

Making money for President Reagan and all the friends of...Reagan

Themes: Nixon Reagan Haig Draft El Salvador Afghanistan

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

#36 Fred Small For El Salvador - No More Vietnams 1981 · Single · No More Vietnams / Worker's Evening · Boston # Mobilisation · USA

Notes

No More Vietnams (Small, Fred) Pop rock, released to raise money for the Boston Mobilization for Survival Anti-US involvement in El Salvador, post-war 80s. Tell the Pentagon we don't want anymore Vietnams. Ain't marching into the jungle anymore Military Industrial complex, war economy [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Vietnam Analogy El Salvador Anti-War Benefit Record

Genres: ♪ Rock Pop Rock

1982

#37 Holly Near El Salvador 1982 · Album · Speed of Light · Redwood # RR403 · USA

Notes

"El Salvador" "We've got to find a way to keep the US out of places where it doesn't belong / Guatemala, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico... All peace-loving nations reject the idea of another Viet Nam / Long live the Salvadoran people in struggle" [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Anti-War El Salvador

Genres: ♪ Folk Contemporary Folk

1983

#38 USA Today Another Vietnam 1983 · Demo · Freedom Isn't Free · Not On Label · USA

Annotation

"Another Vietnam"

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Punk

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

1984

#39 Shockabilly Vietnam 1984 · Album · Fundamental # SAVE-1 · USA

Annotation

A short lived New York noise rock / Psychobilly band (a sub-genre of Punk Rock) (1982-1985), led by Eugene Chadbourne, which did an interesting cover of the John Lee Hooker song I Don't Want to Go to Vietnam, mixed with news extracts played faintly in the background. A very politically charged album (Fundamental # SAVE-1), it used Vietnam to remind the listeners of the possible consequences of US foreign interventions. They linked the war to Ronald Reagan's involvement with Nicaragua and Iran.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Themes: Nicaragua Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Psychobilly

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

#40 Conflict Vietnam Serenade 1984 · Album · Increase the Pressure · Mortarhate # MORT 6 · UK

Annotation

This British Anarcho-Punk band formed in Eltham, South London in 1981. The original line up included Colin Jerwood (vocals), Francisco Carreno (drums), Big John (bass guitar), Steve (guitars), and Pauline (vocals). They used the Vietnam conflict to warn the US against further interventionist policies under President Reagan in the song "Vietnam Serenade" - released on their own record label, Mortarhate Records (# MORT 6). The narrator argued that whether or not a country had a communist or fascist regime, the US ought to avoid war. However, because "they were not on the wrong end of napalm" , the government and military continued to seek out "power and glory" . They concluded the song be posing the question: "will Vietnam be the forerunner to El Salvador?" - a reference to US intervention in the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992). The US supplied large amounts of military aid to the military-led government against left-wing guerrilla groups.

Note: Napalm B, classified as a chemical weapon, caused devastating burn wounds - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government used it extensively during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973. The Dow Chemical Company, the largest suppler of napalm to the US military, became a target of Vietnam protests.¹²

Sources

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

It don't really matter if it's communist red

Or whether it's fascism that causes the fatal blow to the head

America still don't realise its mistake in 'Nam

But they were not on the wrong end of the napalm

They still carry on their search for power and glory...

Will Vietnam be the forerunner to El Salvador?

Themes: Napalm El Salvador Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Anarcho Punk Hardcore Punk

1985

#41 Charlie Burton & The Hiccups Another Vietnam 1985 · Album · I Heard That · Wild # WILD LP-003 · USA

Notes

Another Vietnam (Burton, Charlie & The Hiccups) Rockabilly [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Rockabilly

1986

#42 Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band War 1986 · Single · War / Merry Christmas Baby · Columbia # 38-06432 · USA

Annotation

Springsteen took an anti-war stance towards US involvement in Central America in the 1980s, and drew comparisons to the Vietnam War experience, through the release of the cover song "War" (Columbia Records # 38-06432). Composed by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong of the soul group The Temptations (and released on their 1970 album Psychedelic Shack), Edwin Starr made it famous with his 1970 cover (discussed in the anti-war section). His version reached # 1 in the US Billboard Hot 100, depicting the anger of the anti-Vietnam War movement, and probably the first blatant anti-war song to top the charts.

Springsteen recorded this live on 30 September 1985 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and subsequently released it as a single in 1986. The single reached # 8 in the US Billboard Hot 100 on 27 December 1986.¹ It also reached # 4 in the US rock tracks chart.² Released on the album Live / 1975-85 (Columbia # C5X 40558). The promotional video for the song started with the image of a father and son watching a news report about the Vietnam conflict on TV. Then it displayed a montage of shots from Nicaragua - where the Ronald Reagan administration provided financial and military support to the Contra rebel groups, involved in the Nicaraguan Revolution. Springsteen then embarked on a spoken-word introduction, followed by the song, in which he recalled the impact of Vietnam on young people in the 1960s, and warned the youth of 1985: "blind faith in your leaders...will get you killed" . Thus, with this single, Springsteen used Vietnam as way to comment on contemporary issues.³

Sources

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Columbia 38-06432 (ZSS 175513), stereo, 45 RPM; "War" (B. Strong - N. Whitfield), 5:10; ℗ 1986 Bruce Springsteen; from the album C5X 40558.

Picture sleeve front: photograph of Springsteen with a Telecaster and "War" in red brush lettering; back lists "Merry Christmas Baby", "Taken from the Columbia LP 'Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live/1975-85' 40558", produced by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and Chuck Plotkin; design Sandra Choron, photo Watt M. Casey. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

If you grew up in the sixties, you grew up with war on TV every night

A war that your friends were involved in, and I want to do this song for all the young people out there, if you're in your teens, cause I remember a lot of my friends were seventeen or eighteen, we didn't have much of a chance to think about how we felt about a lot things, and next time there gonna be looking at you

And you're gonna need a lot of information to know what you want to do

Cause in 1985 blind faith in your leaders or anything will get you killed

What I'm talking about here is war, what is it good for, absolutely nothing

Themes: Anti-War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Americana

Also in: ▤ Bruce Springsteen Songs

1987

#43 Rick Duvall No More 1987 · Single · Tribute to Brian Willson / No More · Duvall # RD 4464 · USA

Notes

Promotional red-label pressing RD4464, "Produced by Duvall Productions", "©1987 Duvall Productions", P.O. Box 2012, Guerneville, CA 95446; side A "Tribute to Brian Willson" (Rick Duvall); side B "No More" (Rick Duvall/Debra Noah). The artist name is not printed on the labels. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: Anti-War VC Nicaragua Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Pop Rock

#44 Rick Duvall Tribute to Brian Willson 1987 · Single · Tribute to Brian Willson / No More · Duvall # RD 4464 · USA

Annotation

Duvall² Anti-war. Post-war 80s. He released a couple of cassettes, about 20 songs, Vietnam related. Is he a veteran? Contains some 80s political references, such as Nicaragua.
Based in Guerneville, California.

Duvall Productions - RD 4464

"Tribute to Brian Willson" - Vietnam veteran, peace activist¹

"No More"

"Fighting in a country where we don't belong
Are these the South Vietnamese or are these the Vietcong
Well we lived and died these battle sin our recent past
The lessons we learned were supposed to last
The lesson of war is no more war
We didn't need it then, we don't need it now, no more war
When I look at Nicaragua I see Vietnam, closer to our home
And maybe just as bloody wrong
if we send our men to fight down there we haven't learnt a thing...
There's a battle in this country, now it's getting plain to see
The war that we are fighting here is for our liberty
Well our leaders tell us one thing when the opposite is true
Does that sound like liberty to you?..."

Sources

2 countryjoe.com: War Music ↩
1 Wikipedia: Brian Willson ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Lyrics

English

Brian Willson we won't forget what you gave us today

In peaceful disobedience, of the American way

You tried to stop that gun train, so down the tracks you laid

Brother Brian they took your legs, what a price to pay

We saw you on the TV screen, the whole world heard your silent scream

It must have felt like Vietnam, that's where you learnt the pain

And I remembered all the things you'd done to bring an end to war

You were a front line troop, you'd seen it all, and then you said 'no more'...

Your fasting days in Washington with Charlies and the rest

Reached out to all us citizens and we shared your quest

In Central America you'd seen the holocaust, yes you did

You went looked into those children eye's and you'd felt their love...

So now you feel the pain of it, my front line freedom friend

You gave until you had no more to give, then you gave again

And now I look into your eyes and I here you say

I'm moving kind of slow right now brothers, but just give me a few days

Show full lyrics (17 lines) ▾

Themes: Anti-War Vet Disabled Vet Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Pop Rock

1988

#45 Half Japanese Vietnam 1988 · Album · Charmed · 50 Skidillion Watts # WAT5 · USA

Annotation

Art Punk / Indie Rock group Half Japanese, from Coldwater, Michigan, USA, which formed in 1974, released the song "Vietnam" (Fifty Skidillion Watts Records # H J 5), in which a soldier was "headed out from Californ-I-A...over there to Vietnam" - the 1A of course being a play on the classification for those "eligible for military service", established in 1971 (under the Military Selective Service Act of 1967). Other common classifications were 1-AO (Conscientious Objector available for non-combatant military service), and 1-O (Conscientious Objector available for alternate community service).¹ The song also referenced the North Vietnamese leader Hồ Chí Minh, and made reference to contemporary conflict in El Salvador.

Sources

1 vietnamlotteryfate.com: Selective service classifications ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

(Vietnam!) We're going over there to Vietnam

(Vietnam!) Gonna eat some Saigon

(Vietnam!) We'll shoot some pictures if the time is right

(Vietnam!) Gotta get down, get down in Vietnam tonight

(Ho Chi Minh!) Ho Chi Minh, he wants to be our friend

(Ho Chi Minh!) He'll beat a path to our doors, we'll just let him in

(Ho Chi Minh!) Revolution, it was tough in the South

(Ho Chi Minh!) Revolution, 'cause Ho Chi Minh must be your friend

(Vietnam!) Happiness is living in the USA

(Vietnam!) That kid is headed out to Californ-I-A

(Vietnam!) If you wonder what the fighting's for

(Vietnam!) Usually ? from El Salvador

(Vietnam!) Happiness is living in the USA

(Vietnam!) That kid is headed out to Californ-I-A

(Vietnam!) If you wonder what the fighting's for

(Vietnam!) Usually ? from El Salvador

Vietnam! Vietnam! Vietnam!...

Show full lyrics (18 lines) ▾

Themes: Saigon Vet Anti-War El Salvador Draft Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Alternative Rock

1990

#46 Agent 86 Vietnam Generation 1990 · EP · New Wave # NW032 · USA

Annotation

Hardcore Punk band, formed in 1982 in Arcata, California, USA. They are currently based in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. Members included Mike Briggs (vocals, guitar), Miss B. Haven (bass, vocals), and David Ziegler (drums, vocals). Kicking off the 1990s, they released the song "Vietnam Generation" (New Wave Records # NW032), an interesting representation of a protest by the generation that lived and grew up in the shadow of the Vietnam War: "just the pawns in a game...born in a troubled nation" . It reflects on the long-term impact of the war, and shows how it has became a benchmark in US society and culture. The song also referred to contemporary issues: "Nicaragua (South Africa)" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

New Wave Records NW 032, label marked "P.A.I.". The yellow picture sleeve shows a grainy photograph of a smiling fighter holding a rifle aloft, reproduced on the label.

The back has a live photograph of the band with the track list: side 1 "NG3" and "Vietnam Generation", side 2 "South Africa" and "Stepping Stone". It prints the addresses A.P.M.C. B.P. N°6, 75462 Paris Cedex 10, France and Agent 86/Mike, P.O. Box 70354, Washington DC 20024, USA, together with a circle-A logo reading "Be strong and resist always" and a Gabelli Photogravure credit. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Vietnam generation, look at the mess you have made

You're just the pawns in a game the government got your name

Vietnam generation born in a troubled nation

But that was long ago, now it's Nicaragua (South Africa)

Body counts on the news, you don't have too much to lose

Except the ones of this nation, of the Viet generation

Themes: El Salvador Nicaragua Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

1996

#47 Rage Against the Machine Vietnow 1996 · Single · Epic # EPC 664777 2 · USA

Annotation

The song "Vietnow" (Epic Records # EPC 664777 2) used Vietnam to attack the "lies" on right-wing AM radio shows, directly referencing conservative politician Ollie North. Also contained in the lyrics was a reference to Sgt. Stacey Koon, one of the 4 LAPD policemen videotaped beating African-American Rodney King in 1991: "comin down like bats from Stacey Koon" . Also note the reference to US involvement in sending contras into Nicaragua: "undressed and blessed but the lord, the same devil that ran around Managua with a sword" - Mangua is the capitol city of Nicaragua. The song also featured on the 1996 album Evil Empire (Epic Records # E 57523). A live version also featured as the b-side on a 1997 single: The Ghost of Tom Joad / Vietnow (Live) (Epic Records #ES7 3705).

Covers & answer records

Rap Metal group Rage Against the Machine formed in 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA, featuring members Zack de la Rocha (vocals), Tom Morello (guitar), Tim Commerford (bass), and Brad Wilk (drums). They released a few Vietnam War-related songs: "Wake Up" (1992), on the album "Rage Against the Machine", which referenced Martin Luther King Jr.'s opposition to the war, the single "Vietnow" (1996), which compared current problems with Vietnam, and "Sleep Now in the Fire", on the album "The Battle of Los Angeles", which referenced Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Turn on the radio

Nah, fuck it, turn it off

Fear is your only god on the radio/ Nah, fuck it, turn it off

Turn it off, turn on the radio...

Your savior, my guillotine, crosses and kerosene

Merge on the networks, slangin' nerve gas

Up jump the boogie, then bang, let 'em hang

While the paranoid try to stuff the void

Let's capture this AM mayhem

Undressed and blessed by the Lord

The power pendulum swings by the umbilical cord

Shock around the clock, from noon 'til noon

Men grabbin' they mics and stuff 'em into the womb

Terror's the product ya push

Well, I'm a truth addict, aw shit, I got a headrush

Sheep tremble and here come the votes

Thrown from the throat, cages and scapegoats

Undressed and blessed by the Lord

The same devil that ran around Managua wit' a sword

Check out the new style that Ollie found

A tune with a bullet to shut down the devil sound

Shut down the devil sound

The program of Vietnow

Shut down the devil sound...

Flex the cerebellum, fire, uh

Somebody gotta shell 'em, these evil angels' lists

Hittin' the AM playlist, paid to say this

That one's inhuman, illegal, single, woman

The one without a movement

The transmissions whippin' our backs

Yeah, comin' down like bats from Stacey Koon and

Terror's the product ya push

Well, I'm a truth addict, aw shit, I got a headrush

The sheep tremble and here come the votes

Thrown from the throat, cages and scapegoats

One caution, the mic's a detonator, unwound (Unwound)

To shut down the devil sound

Shut down the devil sound /Check the heads bow in Vietnow...

Is all the world jails and churches? ...

Fear is ya, fear is ya

Fear is your only god...

Show full lyrics (42 lines) ▾

Themes: Oliver North Anti-Government Rodney King Police Brutality Nicaragua Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Metal Rap Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2020

#48 Lamb of God On the Hook 2020 · Album · Lamb of God · Epic # 19439744202 · USA

Notes

"On the Hook"

Lyrics

English

Hippocratic hypocrites

Breaking oaths and cashing checks

Wrote an ocean’s worth of ink

Scripting a nation's disease

A systematic business plan

To broker death, increase demand

So flood the ghetto and starve the hills

Kill them all with crack and pills

Kill them all

Vietnam, Iran-Contra, Park Avenue, OxyContin

Themes: Drugs Vietnam Analogy Iran-Contra Affair

Genres: ♪ Metal Groove Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs

(5) First Gulf War & Iraq (1990–2000)

President George H. W. Bush greets US troops in Saudi Arabia on Thanksgiving Day, 22 November 1990

The build-up to the Gulf War brought the comparison into the mainstream. Country and patriotic records promised the troops the welcome Vietnam veterans never had, and that this war would not be another Vietnam; punk and hip hop artists answered that it would. Saddam Hussein and Iraq remained a reference point through the 1990s.

2 August 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait
7 August 1990: Operation Desert Shield begins
17 January 1991: Operation Desert Storm begins
28 February 1991: Ceasefire
1 March 1991: George H. W. Bush: "we've kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all"
16-19 December 1998: Operation Desert Fox, bombing of Iraq

1990

#49 Hank Williams Jr. Don't Give Us a Reason 1990 · Single · Warner Bros. # PRO-S-4492 · USA

Notes

Don't Give Us a Reason (Williams, Hank Jr.)

Post-war 90s. Pop rock / novelty.
About Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.
Reference to Vietnam.

Notes

Warner Bros. PRO-S-4492, A side, white "Promotion Copy — Not for Sale" label, ℗ 1990 Warner Bros. Records Inc. for the U.S.; "Don't Give Us a Reason" (Hank Williams, Jr.), 2:37, Bocephus Music, Inc., BMI; produced by Barry Beckett for Beckett Productions, by Hank Williams, Jr. and by Jim Ed Norman for JEN Productions, Inc. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Hey ole' Saddom you figured wrong

When you thought the whole world would back down

And let you take all the oil in red kuwait and plunder and spoil

Let sleeping dogs lie don't give us a reason...

No the desert ain't veitnam

And there ain't nowhere to run

And we got the real top guns

Themes: First Gulf War Saddam Hussein Iraq Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Country Country Pop

#50 Vettz Orange Ribbons (Flying High) 1990 · Single · Orange Ribbons (Flying High) / 12 Pack to Go · Fraternity # F-3572 · USA

Credited on the record as The Vettz.

Notes

Orange Ribbons (Flying High) (Vettz, The)

Post-war 90s. Cincinnati, Ohio. Pop.
Lost in in Vietnam in 1968.
Other son did the same.
Orange and yellow ribbon outside: agent orange, P.O.W.?

Notes

Fraternity Records F-3572-A (U-29018), Side 1, 45 rpm, stereo, orange label with a city-skyline design, 3744 Applegate Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45211; "Orange Ribbons (Flying High)" (W. Barker - J. Hughes - H. Lovdal), 3:20, Counterpart Music, BMI, © 1990 by Fraternity Records, Cinti, Ohio; producer Shad O'Shea, engineer Dale "Smitty" Smith. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes: First Gulf War Vietnam Analogy War Lineage Family Vet Patriotic Flag

Genre: ♪ Pop

#51 The Moody Brothers Welcome Home Soldier 1990 · Single · Lamon # LR 10234 · USA

Notes

Welcome Home Soldier (Moody Brothers, The)

Post-war 90s, pop. Mistreatment of vet. P.O.W., patriotic
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
Praise to the vets - we carried peace signs to bring you home 20 years ago (Vietnam)
But you felt neglected when you came back home
Reference to the TV war, yellow ribbons (P.O.W.s)
Current war - Gulf War - worth fighting for.

Notes

Lamon Records LR 10234-7 (U-29789), "Founded 1962", manufactured by Lamon Records, a subsidiary of Moody Music Group Inc., P.O. Box 25371, Charlotte, NC 28229, ℗© 1990. Both sides carry "Welcome Home Soldier" (lyrics Lynn Payne, music Carlton Moody/David Moody), 3:55, Laymond Pub. Co., Inc., BMI, produced by the Moody Brothers for CDT Productions, engineer David Moody: side A with a "Pledge of Allegience" tag and side B with a 30-second "Local Soldier" tag.

The picture sleeve prints the full lyrics over a faint flag image. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Welcome home, soldier, you've been away far too long.

Every hour we have missed you, every day that you've been gone.

Twenty years ago we carried signs, for you to be sent home.

But when you finally got back here, you felt betrayed and all alone.

Themes: Demonstration Pro-Soldier TV War Mistreatment of Vet First Gulf War Yellow Ribbon

Genres: ♪ Country Country Pop

Also in: ▤ P.O.W. / M.I.A. Songs

#52 Marty Cleghorn A Message to Uncle Sam 1990 · Single · A Message to Uncle Sam · Sundial # SR-181 · USA

Notes

Sundial Records SR-181, Side A, stereo, digital audio, 4:20; (Marty Cleghorn); Brighter Day Pub. BMI; producer Danny Day; 1018 17th Ave. South, Nashville. "This song is dedicated to the fighting men and women in Iraq and to the Vietnam veterans." [From the record label]

Message to Uncle Sam, A (Cleghorn, Marty) Country pop, patriotic, First Gulf War. Dedicated to the fighting men in Iraq and to the Vietnam War veterans Lets fight this war right, not like in Vietnam Lost too many men, war was too long [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: First Gulf War Vet Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

#53 Eddie Reasoner Stand Your Ground 1990 · Single · Nash Angeles # NA-82390 · USA

Notes

Nash Angeles Records, Inc. NA-82390, 3:10; (J. Buckingham - E. Reasoner); produced by Eddie Reasoner for Nash Angeles Productions, Inc.; P.O. Box 363, Hendersonville, TN. [From the record label]

Stand Your Ground (Reasoner, Eddie) Country, patriotic, First Gulf War Hendersonville, Tennessee, USA Took us years o get through Vietnam Fought for Uncle Sam, but didn't know why But now in Iraq - fighting not for sand or oil, but because it's right Check artist profile for links / research - popular song, commended by Bush Sr. [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: First Gulf War Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

1991

#54 Jello Biafra Die for Oil, Sucker 1991 · Single · Die for Oil, Sucker / Pledge of Allegiance · Alternative Tentacles # VIRUS 90 · USA

Annotation

Jello Biafra, from Colorado, US, known for his satirical, spoken-word and punk records throughout the 80s and 90s, including membership of the well-known Hardcore Punk group Dead Kennedys. He released two spoken-word tracks as a solo artist regarding the Vietnam War: "Vietnam Never Happened" (1987) and "Die for Oil, Sucker" (1991). He also released the song "Wish I Was Back in El Salvador" (1989) which referenced the Vietnam War, in collaboration with Hardcore Punk group D.O.A.. With the Dead Kennedys, he released the Vietnam-related songs "Holiday in Cambodia" (1980) and "We've Got a Bigger Problem Now" (1981).

On this single was the spoken-word track "Die for Oil, Sucker" (Alternative Tentacles # VIRUS 90), about the First Gulf War, under President George H. W. Bush, which, as stated in the title, focused on the oil economy, politics, and war. The narrator argued that the country had forgotten the Vietnam War: "Vietnam just a time life book memory, the mask is off again" . The song also discussed the Vice-President, Dan Quayle, who had avoided the Vietnam War draft by joining the Indiana National Guard, which he served from 1969 to 1975, arguing that it was a form of draft inequality, not available to people from a socially-economically deprived background: "can't buy our way out like rich folks like Dan Quayle... burn you draft card" . Note that the song also referenced the Arab-Israeli conflict, and nuclear bombs.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

You are just about the ripe age to be drafted....

Die for oil, sucker...sucker...sucker

Born on the firecracker Fourth of July

Raised on football and MTV

Never felt what its like to have to fight to stay free

Vietnam just a time life book memory

The mask is off again this time nobody cares but you can't keep dancing if your legs are blown away....

You too can get your spinal cord snapped to save greedy kings from the greed of Iraq

Give your life for a country where women can't vote and people still get their hands and heads chopped off....

But they finally did outlaw slavery in 1962, so progress is being made

And they're sitting on something we can learn to live without but certain fat cat's bank accounts cannot, oil

For this you get to be all you can be, a dead army, navy, air force, marine...

Bush talks about bombing a path to Baghdad 75 miles wide

And if the big bad wolf still won't give up we're going to drop the nuclear bomb and after that we'll just waltz right in to colonize their hearts and minds....

What's so sick about this is that there's is a better way

Stop selling guns to Arabs and to Israel

Don't need to keep ourselves hostage to oil, use our star wars know how to build solar powered cars....

For those of us who can't buy our way out like rich folks like Dan Quayle...

Burn you draft card, burn the flag, and burn the Pentagon too

Show full lyrics (20 lines) ▾

Themes: Draft Anti-War First Gulf War Disabled Vet Cold War Saddam Hussein

Genres: ♪ Spoken Word Speech

#55 Jello Biafra Pledge of Allegiance 1991 · Single · Die for Oil, Sucker / Pledge of Allegiance · Alternative Tentacles # VIRUS 90 · USA

Lyrics

English

I don't know if you've been following the Saddam Hussein of the United States, George Bush but, like Adolph Hitler, one of the first things he did to whip people up into a blind frenzy of ugly nationalism is make a real big stink about desecration of the national deity —excuse me— flag in almost identical language to Hitler.

Every day in school in America I had to rise and pledge allegiance to the flag even as the Vietnam war was going on across the street at the University of Colorado. And I was held over all afternoon in third grade to write over and over again:

I will not laugh during flag pledge

I haven't forgotten either.

I pledge defiance to the flag of the united snakes of captivity

And to the Republic for which it stands

I dip it in kerosene and stick it up the ass of you-know-who

And light it!

One nation under God - or else

One nation under psychopathic Pentagon gangsters

Whose idea of national security

Is concentration camps for people who dare to use the drugs

That the CIA brings in and the government supplies themselves.

One nation under Wall St.

If the cops and the government are all crooks

I might as well be one, too.

One nation of sedated tabloid robots

Who actually believe what they see on TV

Even on MTV

And when asked what they think about it

They reply, "I don't care"

One nation drowning in its own garbage

Indivisible from the fall of Rome

With liberty and justice for all... who can afford it.

Burn, baby, burn!

Old glory, the Yankee swastika

Burn, baby, burn.

Burn, baby, burn

Whenever I see you, I see red

If the communist countries can do it, why can't we

Throw the bastards out and try some real democracy?

Run not by rich people, not by military people

Not by sons of senators' sons of senators' sons of senators' sons of senators' sons

Have you noticed how the more they give people their freedom over there

The more they take it away over here

So, now before it's too late to even talk about stuff like this

Be a patriot, a good patriot

The one that cares about their country more than forcing

People to worship the flag

And take the swastika, the Yankee swastika

And let it burn, burn, burn, baby, burn!

Show full lyrics (45 lines) ▾

Themes: Draft Anti-War First Gulf War Disabled Vet Cold War Saddam Hussein

Genres: ♪ Spoken Word Speech

Also in: ▤ Draft Songs

#56 Geto Boys Fuck a War 1991 · Album · We Can't Be Stopped · Rap-A-Lot # 4XL 57161 · USA

Credited on the record as Ghetto Boys.

Annotation

Southern Hip Hop & Gangsta Rap group, formed in 1986 in Houston, Texas, USA. The song "Fuck a War" (Rap-A-Lot Records # 4XL 57161) is one of dozens of 90s songs inspired by the First Gulf War (1990-91), also referred to as Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the names of US operations against Iraq, directed by the US president George H. W. Bush. The track begins with a phone call, informing the MC that he's been drafted to fight in the First Gulf War. The lyrics then outline his opposition to the conflict, arguing that the conflict is a waste of time. Furthermore, it contained an argument often seen in 60s / 70s Vietnam War songs, and highlighted by Martin Luther King Jr. in his opposition to the war - which is why should African Americans fight for the country when they do not receive equal rights at home, thus containing a Civil Rights message: "they puttin' niggas on the front line, but when it comes to gettin' ahead, they put us way behind" , and thus they declared: "yo, Bush! I ain't your damn ho" . The narrator then used Vietnam as a reference point for comparison: "in Vietnam a lot of niggas died young" . It also noted the Prisoner of War issue: "P.O.W.'s got hung" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Motherfuck a war, that's how I feel

Sendin' a nigga to a desert to get killed

'Cause two suckas can't agree on something

A thousand motherfuckers dying for nothing

You can't pay me to join an army camp

Or any other motherfuckin' military branch

Of this United goddamn States of that bitch America

Be a soldier, what for?

They puttin' niggas on the front line

But when it comes to gettin' ahead, they put us way behind

I ain't gettin' my leg shot off

While Bush's old ass on TV playin' golf

But when you come to my house with that draft shit

I'ma shoot your funky ass, bitch

A nigga'll die for a broil

But I ain't fightin' behind no goddamn oil

Against motherfuckas I don't know

Yo, Bush! I ain't your damn ho

The enemy is right here G, them foreigners never did shit me

All of those wasted lives

And only one or two get recognized

But what good is a medal when you're dead?

Tell Uncle Sam I said

I ain't goin' to war for a shit talkin' president

(Fuck, fuck, fuck a war)....

In Vietnam a lot of niggas died young

P.O.W.'s got hung

What the fuck do I know about a grenade

All I know is the couch and my 12 gauge

And what if that pin gets stuck?

Several more casualties show up

This shit remind me of a drive-by

More motherfuckers die by accident than on purpose, why?

Show full lyrics (34 lines) ▾

Themes: First Gulf War Iraq George H. Bush Grenade P.O.W. Medals

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Southern Hip Hop Gangsta Rap

Also in: ▤ Civil Rights Songs ▤ Draft Songs ▤ P.O.W. / M.I.A. Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#57 Ricky Hall Line Drawn in the Sand 1991 · Single · Hart2Hart # HH 101AA · USA

Notes

Hart2Hart HH 101AA, 3:50; (Ben Hart); Ben Hart BMI, Two H Publishing BMI. [From the record label]

Pop rock, patriotic, Desert Storm - First Gulf War Tried diplomacy, but Saddam is mad, terrorism will not rein. 'Another Vietnam' people say - 'don't trade blood for oil'. War is terrible, but necessary America could be next (Domino Theory) [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: First Gulf War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Pop Rock

1998

#58 Public Enemy Resurrection 1998 · Album · He Got Game · Def Jam # 314 558 130-1 · USA

Annotation

Artist background

Public Enemy, a popular and well-known East Coast Hip Hop group, with strong political & social-economic commentary, formed in 1985 in Roosevelt, New York, USA, including the members Chuck D, Flavor Flav, Terminator X, and Professor Griff - several of their songs referenced the Vietnam War, including "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" (1988), "Welcome to the Terrordome" (1989), and "Resurrection" (1998).

The song "Resurrection" (Def Jam Recordings # 314 558 130-1), another track from Public Enemy - referenced the Vietnam War in the context of the 1998 bombing of Iraq, under US President Bill Clinton and the UK, taking place between 16 to 19 December 1998, said to have been launched due to Iraq's failure to comply with UN inspections for weapons of mass destruction.¹ The lyrics warned against getting embroiled in another conflict: "fucking with Saddam will bring a new Saigon, ain't nothing changed" .

Sources

1 Wikipedia: 1998 bombing of Iraq ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Knocking your block with some sense

P.E. got more jewels than dead presidents

The Devil try to get me cross like a crucifix

But I am focused on the vultures like a loc of locusts

New world order is goin' down

Gettin round, I'm the spook that sat by the sound

Fucking with Saddam will bring a new Saigon

Ain't nothing changed, P.E. we be the same crew

Themes: Iraq Saigon Saddam Hussein Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2000

#59 Jedi Mind Tricks I Against I 2000 · Album · Violent by Design · Superegular # SUPR 109 · USA

Annotation

Artist background

East Coast Hip Hop / Hardcore Hip Hop group, formed in 1993 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Membership included Vinnie Paz, Stoupe the Enemy of Mankind (Kevin Baldwin) (1993-2011, 2014-present), DJ Kwestion (1997-present), and Jus Allah (1999-2001, 2006-13). The group released multiple Vietnam War-related songs: "I Against I" (2000), "The Wolf" (2003), "And So It Burns" (2004), and "Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story" (2006) (with R.A. the Rugged Man). Vinnie Paz also referenced the war in his solo material: "And Your Blood Will Blot Out the Sun" (2012), "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train" (2012), "God Bless" (2013), "Writings on Disobedience and Democracy" (2016), "Ninety Three" (2016), and "Pray for Sleep"(2018).

The song "I Against I" (Superegular Recordings # SUPR 109) used both Vietnam and the Iraq War as metaphors for violence: "with Ominous, detonate the bomb, heads dread hallucinogenics since Vietnam, I spit a psalm, create bombs like an Iraqi" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Don't ever come to me with war

I've severed scores of orators

Rappers fall onto all fours like minotaurs

With Jedi Mind and the Planetary be bombin' this

We stand one step above you like a pharmacist

With Ominous, detonate the bomb

Heads dread hallucinogenics since Vietnam

I spit a psalm, create bombs like an Iraqi

Swear on the Bible and then lie to Ecclesiastes

Themes: Iraq Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop Hardcore Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

Unknown date

#60 Monteleone, Genovese, Drago No Vietnam Single · MGD Prod. · USA

Annotation

Unknown, obscure Pop Rap collaboration, credited to Monteleone, Genovese, Drago - from Hammond, Louisiana. Although no date on the record, the song "No Vietnam" was about the Saddam Hussein invasion of Kuwait in 1991, one of dozens of 90s songs inspired by the First Gulf War (1990-91), also referred to as Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, the names of US operations against Iraq, directed by the US president George H. W. Bush. The title came from a speech by Bush regarding the intervention, which is sampled in the song: "this will not be another Vietnam" . The song argued for intervention to stop Saddam Hussein, arguing if not, it could lead to nuclear war: "Desert Storm had to be done, or Saudi Arabia would be the next one... we might all be under nuclear attack" - thus reviving the Vietnam-era domino theory. Taking a patriotic stance, it reassured those worried about a post-Vietnam intervention that: "this is not Da Nang in 1965" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

MGD Prod., P.O. Box 2453, Hammond, LA 70404, 504-345-8845; "No Vietnam" credited to Monteleone, Genovese and Drago on a red, white and blue banded label; "Recorded and Mixed at Bluff Road Studio". No catalogue number, writers or time printed. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Back in August on the brink of recession

Flipped on the radio, heard some aggression

Wouldn't you know it, it must have been fate

Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait

They were killed and raped, and burned and steal, and took foreign hostage as human shields

I knew right away, something had to be done

It was up to George Bush and the Pentagon

Up was were gas prices were headed

Dollar fifty-one, super unleaded

We thought an embargo would cool his endeavor

But he had supplies to last him forever

Enough was enough, then the deadline was set

January 15 came and went

But Saddam thought we'd never fought

The talk of body bags would chill our might

But our troops were eager and trained real well

And Schwarzkopf was ready to give them hell

Anytime, anyplace, anywhere, any day

They would get Saddam in every way

And Bush found American would never attack with one hand tied behind its back

Bush: 'This will not be another Vietnam'

3 a.m. came and the light turned green and Bush sent in the F-15

Iraq was alive... Saddam Hussein was under attack

The blasted... with tomahawks and B52s...

The bombing continued day and night

And soon we thought Saddam, well had no fight

But Saddam had a trick up his sleeve

He fired the scuds at Tel Aviv

Saddam was sure the scuds would hit

But Bush sent in the patriots

Although some debris got through, the patriots did what they were supposed to do

Now if Saddam wants to know were his missiles have been

He can listen to the news on CNN

Sure we'd all like to know the plan of attack

But we don't want to know if it will help Iraq

He couldn't fight on the ground, couldn't fight in the air

So he started up the crude oil everywhere

And he blasted some wells to pollute the skies

Cause he thought he could hide from our bombers eyes

It's against his religion to destroy the ground

But if Mohamed was here he would cut home down

Bush reminded us war has a price, to expect many setbacks and sacrifice

Then Iraq paraded six of our guys

And beat them and read us lies

But we're just fight harder, we want Saddam bad

Just one more war crime to make us made

Well we got some folks that don't want no war

But supporting our troops is what were for

Desert Storm had to be done, or Saudi Arabia would be the next one

And if we waited longer and didn't act, we might all be under nuclear attack

We love our troops and want them back alive

This is not Da Nang in 1965

Show full lyrics (53 lines) ▾

Themes: First Gulf War Iraq George H. Bush Da Nang Atomic K.I.A.

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Pop Rap

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs ▤ US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]

#61 The Clergy Vietnam Album · Glow · Not On Label · Australia

Annotation

Pop rock group formed Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, featuring John Busby, Steve Sutherland, Mick Baker, and Cherri Busby. This 90s cassette-only album contained the song "Vietnam" , which according to the linear notes, was "inspired by the Gulf War. This song contains a few of my thoughts on politicians and their policies. I don't know how they sleep".¹ This is a great example of a song using the Vietnam War as a benchmark for comparison to contemporary conflicts, in this case the First Gulf War (1991), in which Australia participated as a member of the Coalition force. The narrator here was unhappy with Australia's involvement: "I don't care about Mr. Bush... I'm not going to die for them" - a reference to the US president at the time, George H. W. Bush. It argued that "we're all pawns in... political chess" and a "feather in somebody's political cap" . The chorus stated the position simply: "I don't want another Vietnam" .

Sources

1 mrworthyandwhammo.blogspot.com: The clergy glow cassette ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

1990s cassette-only album; the song was written about the First Gulf War (1991).

Lyrics

English

Well I don't know what I should do

But I'm not happy, well I don't know about you

And I don't care about Mr. Bush's...

But I'm not going to die for them friend

But I can certainly tell you that I don't want another Vietnam

They don't have a chance to capture me...

I don't want another Vietnam

They don't really have a chance

I'm not going to just sit around here and wait

All I want is control over my fate

Get together, darling we don't have to cop this crap

Well I'm not going to be feather in somebody's political cap

I don't want another Vietnam

They don't have a chance capture me...

I'm not listening to the stories...

Only one is the vote for who we can trust

But we're all pawns in some type of political chess

And when these fools have finished playing

Well there's not going to be anything left

I don't want another Vietnam...

Show full lyrics (21 lines) ▾

Themes: Vietnam Analogy First Gulf War George H. Bush Anti-Government Anti-War

Genres: ♪ Rock Pop Rock

Also in: ▤ Australian & New Zealand Songs

(6) The Balkans: Bosnia (1992–1998)

The war in Bosnia, and the debate over Western intervention, led bands and singer-songwriters in the US and Europe to ask whether the Balkans would become a new Vietnam.

April 1992: War begins in Bosnia; siege of Sarajevo
11 July 1995: Srebrenica massacre
August - September 1995: NATO bombing campaign (Operation Deliberate Force)
14 December 1995: Dayton Agreement signed; US troops deploy with IFOR

1994

#62 Aus-Rotten Vietnam is Back 94 1994 · EP · Fuck Nazi Sympathy · Havoc # HC7003 · USA

Annotation

Hardcore Punk group formed in August 1991, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. They disbanded in 2001. Core members included Dave Trenga (vocals), Ajax (guitar), Eric Good (guitar), Corey Lyons (bass), with several different drummers. The song "Vietnam Is Back '94" (Havoc Records # HC7003), like many post-war tracks, used Vietnam as a benchmark to evaluate contemporary conflicts: "fighting another war at our cost...Vietnam is back" . The lyrics took an anti-war position: "don't support any fucking war" . No specific war is mentioned, and there were of course dozens of ongoing conflicts around the world, although this could be in reference to the high-profile US bombing of Bosnia in 1994, said to be for the prevention of "ethnic cleansing" perpetrated by Serbs in the region. The US also sent troops to join a NATO peacekeeping force.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Side A label, printed over a photograph of a shouting singer, carries typed strips reading "Tuesday, May 18th, 1993" and "Vietnam Is Back '94". [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

They're fighting another war at our cost...

Bodies fill the bloody streets...

They want another war... Vietnam is back

Barricades and tear gas to keep us all in line...

They make themselves seem innocent...

They want another war...Vietnam is back

Stand up against the mass...

Don't support them anymore

Don't support any fucking war

They want another war...Vietnam is back

Themes: Anti-War Bosnian War Genocide Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

1997

#63 Heideroosjes Our Own Vietnam 1997 · Album · Kung-Fu · Fairytale # FT0497 · Netherlands

Annotation

Dutch Punk Rock group, formed in 1989, in Horst, Limburg, Netherlands. Disbanded 29 September 2012. Members included: Frank Kleuskens (guitar), Fred Houben (bass), Igor Hobus (drums), and Marco Roelofs (vocals). The song "Our Own Vietnam" (Fairytale Records # FT0497) was another post-war song that used the Vietnam War as a benchmark, to compare to contemporary conflicts, in this case the Former Yugoslavia. It noted that the Yugoslavian conflict was a "story of hate, aggression, rape, and fear" . It said that the United Nations failed to solve that problem, and that while the USA "kept their hands dry" , because they had "learned their lesson back in the sixties" , Europe now had its "own Vietnam", a somewhat distorted portrayal of American interventionism in the post-Vietnam era. In fact, the US played a role in the Former Yugoslavia, not to mention other conflicts throughout the world.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

If the trees in former Yugoslavia could talk

They could tell you a little story

A story you don't wanna hear

A story of hate, aggression, rape and fear

The almighty United Nations sent out troops to

Control the situation

But while showing the world their superiority

They got fooled and became

Part of the genocide of a nation

And now they find the bodies of ten thousand slaughtered men

We have our own Vietnam!

The United F**kin States of America kept their hands dry

They learned their lesson back in the sixties

But United Naive bastards thought they could trust the enemy

They thought they could trust the enemy...

We have our own Vietnam!

All this time during that war they told us, lies, lies, lies, lies

Told the women 'yes, your husband will return' lies, lies, lies, lies

And now they can no longer say 'we did what we could' lies, lies, lies, lies

All this time during that war they told us, lies, lies, lies, lies

Show full lyrics (21 lines) ▾

Themes: Bosnian War Genocide Sexual Violence Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

#64 Ismael Serrano Papá Cuéntame Otra Vez 1997 · Album · Atrapados en azul · Polydor (PolyGram Ibérica) # 533387-2 · Spain

Annotation

Notes

"Papá cuéntame otra vez"

From Spain.

"Now those who died in Vietnam are dying in Bosnia"¹

Sources

1 Cancioneros.com: Papa cuentame otra vez daniel serrano ismael serrano ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Recorded summer-autumn 1996 at TRAK and Sincronía studios (Madrid) and Angel Studios (London). © 1997 PolyGram Ibérica. Many reissues (LP 2017, 2021; cassette 1997; Argentine CD). Dad, Tell Me Again, with the line that those who died in Vietnam are now dying in Bosnia.

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Bosnian War Generation Gap Anti-War

Genres: ♪ Singer Songwriter Iberian Music

Also in: ▤ European Songs

1998

#65 Master Return To Vietnam 1998 · Album · Faith Is In Season · Pavement # 76962-32276-2 · USA

Annotation

Death Metal band formed in Chicago, Illinois, USA, in 1983, led by Paul Speckmann. The song "Return to Vietnam" dealt with the Bosnian War (1992-95), comparing the contemporary conflict with the Vietnam War: "they're marching off to war, in the Bosnian freeze...return to Vietnam, the parallel is the same" - this type of interpretation was often seen in the post-war period during various events, such as the Iranian Hostage Crisis (1979), 80s interventions under Reagan & Thatcher, the First Gulf War (1990), and the invasions of Afghansitan and Iraq in the 2000s.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Their killing for ideals, to build your perfect world

Their marching toward their death, with the flag unfurled

Support the national pride, to reach their ignorant goals

Their fighting to survive, the fight for all control

Step into seclusion, hide beneathe the brush

It's the code of honor, nothing to discuss

Your fates in the hands of those who pull your strings

Are they drunk with power, or lonely human beings

Mesmerize the chosen, critisize desertion

Publicize the moment, just coersion

Soldiers fill the streets, they're marching off to war

In the Bosnian freeze, a massage to explore

Old men make mistakes and soon the young men pay

Sacrifice the day with their lives Return to Vietnam, the parallel is the same

The object is to win or lose this deadly game

Show full lyrics (16 lines) ▾

Themes: Bosnian War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Metal Death Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs

(7) Iraq & Afghanistan: "The New Vietnam" (2001– )

After 2001 the comparison returned in force. "Quagmire" became a common word for Iraq, and Senator Edward Kennedy called it "George Bush's Vietnam" in April 2004. Rock, metal and hip hop artists made the same point.

7 October 2001: US-led war in Afghanistan begins
20 March 2003: Invasion of Iraq
1 May 2003: George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech
10 January 2007: The Iraq troop "surge" announced
18 December 2011: Last US troops leave Iraq
30 August 2021: Last US troops leave Afghanistan

2003

#66 Six Feet Under American the Brutal 2003 · Album · Bringer of Blood · Metal Blade # 3984-14444-2 · USA

Annotation

Death Metal band formed in 1993 in Tampa, Florida, USA, with a revolving line-up, apart from founding vocalist Chris Barnes, former member of Cannibal Corpse. The song "American the Brutal" (Metal Blade Records # 3984-14444-2) was a protest about the Iraq War (2003-2011), referencing the Vietnam War: "I think of my best friend and his stories of Vietnam and now I got a cousin fighting in Iraq" . The narrator explained why the Vietnam War is often used for contemporary comparison in songs: "when I want to know the future I look into the past" . Like protest songs of the 60s/70s, the narrator pointed the finger at the politicians: "Mr. President I'm not here to do your dirty work" , and questioned the justification for the war: "I don't fuckin believe em... worth dying not for oil" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I'd rather died than to live in this fucked world

Mr. President I'm not here to do your dirty work

Alone, I think I'm fighting a losing battle

Worth dying not for oil

NO WAR Amerika the brutal

Listen it's a fucking joke and they make you believe it on the TV

That's how they deceive you

I watch and I listen and I question their reasons

You know what, I don't fuckin believe em

NO WAR Amerika the brutal

When I want to know the future I look into the past

I think of my best friend and his stories of Vietnam

And now I got a cousin fighting in Iraq, and I want her coming back

I'm not afraid to speak my own mind

I don't use the first amendment to hide behind

I'm guaranteed that freedom, I'm born with that right

And for that I'm ready to fight

I'd rather die than to live in this fucked world

Fake president, I'm not here to do your dirty work

Alone I think I'm fighting this losing battle- worth dying?

NO WAR Amerika the brutal

Show full lyrics (22 lines) ▾

Themes: Iraq War Anti-Government Anti-War Vet Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Metal Death Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs

#67 Immortal Technique Obnoxious 2003 · Album · Revolutionary Vol. 2 · Nature Sounds # NSD-104 · Peru

Annotation

Artist background

East Coast Hip Hop / Political Hip Hop artist, born Felipe Coronel on 19 February 1978 in Lima, Peru. His family moved to New York in 1980, and he is currently based in Manhattan, New York, USA. Several of his songs referenced the Vietnam War: "Obnoxious" (2003), "The 3rd World" (2008), "Hollywood Drive By" (2008), and "In the Trenches" (2011).

The song "Obnoxious" (Nature Sounds # NSD-104) was released in the context of the Iraq War (2003-11), calling out the US president George W. Bush for not fighting in the Vietnam War: "don't talk about war when niggas know that you puss, a fuckin' hypocrite, draft-dodger like George Bush" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Like pro-lifers that support the death penalty

And don't talk about war when niggas know that you puss

A fuckin' hypocrite, draft-dodger like George Bush

Don't push me, nigga, 'cause I'm close to the edge

And I'll jump off with a rope that's wrapped around ya head

Send a dead fetus to my ex on Valentine's Day

The safety's off, nigga, so get the fuck out my way

Themes: George W. Bush Iraq War Vietnam Analogy Draft Draft Dodger

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop Political Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Draft Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#68 George Michael The Grave 2003 · Compilation · War Child: Hope (In Aid of the Children of Iraq) · London # 5046658462 · UK

Notes

Also titled 'War Child - Hope'. For the children of Iraq. Track 18 is not mentioned on the artwork. Mastered by Ray Staff at Sony Music Studios London. Multiple regional CD editions (AU, BR, AR, ID, MY, TH). Track 5 of the compilation. Cover of Don McLean's Vietnam-era anti-war song on the War Child charity compilation 'Hope' for the children of Iraq (2003); the same compilation has New Order's cover of Jimmy Cliff's 'Vietnam'. Cover of The Grave – Don McLean.

Themes: Anti-War Soldier's Perspective K.I.A. Iraq War Benefit Record LGBTQ+

Genres: ♪ Pop Adult Contemporary

Also in: ▤ European Songs

2004

#69 The Impossebulls Circle of Lies 2004 · Album · Slave Education · Slam Jamz # SJMVD1001DV · USA

Annotation

The song "Circle of Lies" from the Hip Hop group The Impossebulls, featuring Chuck D, was an anti-war protest songs against the invasion of Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and George W. Bush, with the chorus reference the Vietnam War: "got win the wars... another Vietnam, in the circle of lies... we got to get our shit together" . Note: full lyrics needed.

Artist background

Chuck D, born on 1 August 1960 in Roosevelt, New York, USA, associated with the genres East Coast Hip Hop / Conscious Hip Hop / Political Hip Hop, a member of several hip hop groups, including the prominent Public Enemy. Several of his songs referenced Vietnam: "The Pride" (1996) as a solo artist, and "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" (1988), "Welcome to the Terrordome" (1989), "Resurrection" (1998) with Public Enemy, and "Circle of Lies" (2004) with the group The Impossebulls.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Themes: Afghanistan George W. Bush Anti-War Iraq War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop Conscious Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#70 Megadeth Blackmail the Universe 2004 · Album · The System Has Failed · Sanctuary # SANCD297 · USA

Notes

"Blackmail the Universe"

Lyrics

English

The stage is set

Who will be the first to blink?

We can't go to war

Remember that "Vietnam thing"

Peace at any price

With a gun to your head, bang, bang

Weakness runs in your family

What runs in mine is death

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Metal Thrash Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs

2005

#71 Rob Swift Vietnam? 2005 · Album · War Games · Coup De Grâce # CGC5013 · USA

Annotation

Turntablism / East Coast Hip Hop artist, born 14 May 1972 in Queens, New York, USA. The song "Vietnam?" (Coup de Grâce # CGC5013) is an example of using the conflict as a comparison point to contemporary events, in this case Iraq War (2003-11) - it contained samples of US president George W. Bush speaking about the Iraq War, and so-called "Axis of Evil", and terrorism. The CD booklet contained an image of Bush on the back.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Themes: George W. Bush Iraq War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Turntablism

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#72 James Blundell Postcards From Saigon 2005 · Single · Revenge · Australia

Annotation

Singer/songwriter James Blundell, born on 8 December 1964 in Australia, released the song "Postcards From Saigon" (Revenge Records), as a tribute to Australian veterans of the Vietnam War, inspired by the US invasion of Iraq, ongoing at that time.¹ The back of the CD single said that the proceeds from this release would be donated to the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, stating that: "The VVAA NSW Branch is a welfare charity group which provides welfare support and claims assistance to all veterans and their dependents. The proceeds of the sale of this CD are being used to help build the new National Museum at Philip Island, and to establish the 'James Blundell' Veteran's Children Bursary Fund".² The narrator told of his brother who "went to Vietnam for Harold Holt and Uncle Same" - Holt being a reference to the Australian Prime Minister (1966-67). His brother's "best friend faded in his arms" , and so "he felt guilty coming home" . His brother struggled in the post-war period: "can you help to ease the pain" .

Sources

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Charity single for the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia (NSW Branch); inspired by the Iraq war. Narrated by a veteran's brother.

Lyrics

English

My brother had a a dream

My brother wore the jungle green

My brother went to Vietnam

For Harold Holt and Uncle Sam

He sent postcards from Saigon

I'm alright but it's all wrong

Three postcards from Saigon

My brother kissed the face of death

My brother drew the deepest breath

His best friend faded in his arms

He felt guilty coming home

He sent postcards from Saigon

I'm alright but it's all wrong

Three postcards from Saigon

In the killing fields the bullets sing

Purple Haze in the pouring rain

It's a military tattoo from Abel and Cain

Why must history repeat itself time and time again

My brother divorced and remarried

One summer, but two miscarried

Can you help to ease the pain

Close the circle, make him whole again

Get to know him by his name...

He sent postcards from Saigon...

Show full lyrics (25 lines) ▾

Themes: Vet Home Front Perspective Harold Holt Iraq War PTSD Combat

Genres: ♪ Country Contemporary Country

Also in: ▤ Australian & New Zealand Songs ▤ PTSD Songs

2007

#73 The Furies Vietnam 2007 · Album · The Furies · Canada

Annotation

Formed in January 1977, and originally disbanded in the same year, in Vancouver, BC, Canada, it members included Chris Arnett (guitar, vocals), Werner Von Hitler [Jon Werner] (bass), Malcolm Malcolm (bass, vocals, 1977), Jim Walker (drums, 1977), and Taylor Little (drums, 2007-present). They were said to be "Vancouver’s first punk band", playing gigs that year in 1977, which inspired other well-known bands from that city, including D.O.A. and The Subhumans.¹². The group re-united in 1997, releasing this Punk Rock album, containing the song "Vietnam" (# FU1), which noted the contemporary conflict waging at the time: "now we're going to Iraq, everything is getting out of wack" . The narrator reminded the listener that "Vietnam kicked the ass of Uncle Sam" , and that it's "Ho Chi Minh City now that Saigon's gone" , recalling the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975. The lyrics discussed the inequality in those making the decisions and those fighting: "the rich sent the poor to die for their fucked up ideology" .

Sources

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Remember when Vietnam kicked the ass of Uncle Sam

When the rich sent the poor to die for their fucked up ideology

Watch the TV, how to fight, for the USA

Remember Vietnam

Tell Uncle Sam

It's Ho Chi Minh City now that Saigon's gone

Now we're going to Iraq

Everything is getting out of wack

The rich send the poor to die for their fucked up ideology

Watch the TV, how to fight for the USA, you could get your instant break

Remember Vietnam, tell Uncle Sam

It's Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon is gone

Won't you teach me how to fight

Watch the TV, how to fight...

Remember Vietnam, tell Uncle Sam...

Show full lyrics (16 lines) ▾

Themes: Fall of Saigon Iraq War Saigon Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Rock

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

2008

#74 Lenny Kravitz Back In Vietnam 2008 · Album · It Is Time For A Love Revolution · Virgin # 509995 14281 2 9 · USA

Annotation

Pop rock artist Lenny Kravitz, born 26 May 1964 in Manhattan, New York, USA. The song "Back in Vietnam" (Virgin Records # 509995 2036521) was a protest against the Iraq War. The use of Vietnam is an indication of the long-standing cultural / political impact of the 60s / 70s conflict, still providing a point of comparison to contemporary conflicts. Kravitz criticised the West for an "illegal" war: "we do just what we want and don't care if it isn't legal" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

We are like pirates and we are coming with the biggest ego

We're going to bring it down and give it to you, that's how we go

We're going to drop from the sky like a killer tornado

Here we are again my friends

We're back in Vietnam

Back in Vietnam

We're back in Vietnam

Back in Vietnam

We're going to keep on riding `til the enemy's been severed

Well never turn around, we don't care if it takes forever

Men women children will die we're all in this together...

We're going to fly over the world inside a giant eagle

We do just what we want and don't care if it isn't legal

We're on a horse that is high, we think we're so damn regal

Themes: Anti-War Iraq War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Pop Rock

2009

#75 Kendrick Lamar Still Hustlin' 2009 · Mixtape · C4 · Top Dawg · USA

Credited on the record as K-Dot.

Annotation

Artist background

Kendrick Lamar, also known K-Dot, associated with West Coast Hip Hop / Conscious Hip Hop, born on 17 June 1987 in Compton, California, USA - commercial successful, and influential artist, with many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for Music for 2018. Songs referencing the Vietnam War include: "G’z and Hustlers" (2005) (with Jay Rock), "Still Hustlin’" (2009) (with Ab-Soul and Jay Rock), "2DopeBoyz Freestyle" (2009), "Control" (2013) (with Big Sean and Jay Electronica), and "Before I commit suicide" (2019).

Kendrick Lamar song "Still Hustlin’" (Top Dawg Entertainment), released under the name K Dot, featuring Ab-Soul and Jay Rock), used Vietnam and Iraq as a reference point for conflict: "bombs in my peak hold, bombs over Baghdad... run you nigga like a marathon, this is when Vietnam meets the Babylon".

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Welcome to the C4, you see one, you see four

Bombs in my peak hold, bombs over Baghdad

Son you niggas, you can never say I was a bad dad

Run you nigga like a marathon

This is when Vietnam meets the Babylon

Bring it to yo front porch, tanks on your grass lines

I'm Mike Jordan in his prime, jumpin' from the foul line

In order to see the king, you gotta swim through the ponds

Started out hustlin' (and I'm still hustlin')

Themes: Tanks Iraq War Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop West Coast Hip Hop Conscious Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2010

#76 Kanye West Power: Remix 2010 · Single · Good · USA

Annotation

Artist background

Kanye West, associated with Experimental Hip Hop and Pop Rap, born on 8 June 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Having sold 160+ million records and winning many Grammy and other music awards, he is one of the more prominent and successful Hip Hop artists.¹ Several songs referenced Vietnam: "Get By" (2003) (with Mos Def, JAY-Z, Talib Kweli, and Busta Rhymes), "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)" (2005), "Eyez Closed" (2011) (with Snoop Dogg and John Legend), and "Power" (2010) (with JAY-Z and Swizz Beatz).

The song "Power: Remix" (Good) (with JAY-Z and Swizz Beatz), West took an anti-war position on the US presence in Iraq, and warned about intervention in Iran, using Vietnam as a reference point, a key trend found in the post-war period in all genres: "bring our troops back from Iraq, keep our troops out of Iran... how we gon' stop the next Vietnam" . It also featured on the 2011 album Good Friday

Sources

1 Wikipedia: Kanye West ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Now everything I'm rhyming on cause a Ramadan

Been a don, praying for the families lost in the storm

Bring our troops back from Iraq, keep our troops out of Iran

So the next couple bars, I'ma drop 'em in Islam

They say "As-salamu alaykum", say "Wa alaikum as-salaam"

That's no Oscar Mayer bacon, you should run and tell your mom

Now the question is, how we gon' stop the next Vietnam

Keep Flex out of Korea, 'cause you know he drop bombs

Themes: Anti-War Korea Iraq War Vietnam Analogy Iran

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Experimental Hip Hop Pop Rap

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

(8) Other Wars & "Never Again" Warnings

Other wars were measured against Vietnam too: the Falklands, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, often called the Soviet Union's Vietnam, and the civil war in Sierra Leone. Other songs make no single comparison, but warn against "another Vietnam" in general, or describe an "endless Vietnam" kept going by the arms industry.

17 January 1961: Eisenhower's farewell address warns of the "military-industrial complex"
December 1979 - February 1989: Soviet war in Afghanistan
2 April - 14 June 1982: Falklands War
1991-2002: Civil war in Sierra Leone

1985

#77 Saxon Broken Heroes 1985 · Album · Innocence Is No Excuse · Parlophone # 1C 064-24 0400 1 · UK

Notes

"Broken Heroes"

- Heavy metal, draft, protest, anti-war

"Uncle Sam is waiting with the draft card / He says you've got to fight the Viet Cong"

Themes: Anti-War Vet Falklands War Vietnam Analogy War Lineage VC

Genres: ♪ Metal Heavy Metal NWOBHM

Also in: ▤ Draft Songs ▤ European Songs ▤ Metal Songs

1988

#78 The Brains of Humans Vietnam 1988 · Album · Confrontation · Resistance # RIP 005 · Switzerland

Annotation

Hardcore Punk formed in Zürich, Switzerland. Its membership included: Chrigu (lead vocals), Snoopy (guitar, vocals), Kräche (bass, vocals), Pablo (drums, vocals), and Domi (bass). The song "Vietnam" (Resistance Productions # RIP 005) took an anti-war position, using Vietnam as its main reference point, displaying its important in culture. The lyrics contained Cold War imagery: "don't want no Third World War...corpses lying in the street" . It also referred to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in World War Two: "no Hiroshima again" .

Also of note was the use of Vietnam War film iconography: "Russian roulette is played for fun" . This is a reference to the famous scene in The Deer Hunter (1978), a key symbol of this 'message film', in which Russian roulette is used by Vietcong captors to torture American soldiers. Such torture has never been documented and this contributes to portraying the Vietnamese in a negative way. Students of the Vietnam War would argue that this is clearly not reality. Others may feel that The Deer Hunter is depicting an important message about American involvement in Vietnam – an American soldier puts a gun to his head, pulls the trigger, and kills himself.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

We don't want no Third World War

No Vietnam, no Hiroshima again

Corpses lying in the street

Blind and crying are the people around

Blood is running everywhere

Russian roulette is played for fun

Legs and arms without corpses

Dead, blind, blood

Such is stupid fucking war

Themes: Anti-War Atomic Cold War Film Guns Russian Roulette

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

1996

#79 Arlo Guthrie When a Soldier Makes It Home 1996 · Mystic Journey · Rising Son # RSR0009 · USA

Lyrics

English

Halfway around the world tonight

In a strange and foreign land

A soldier packs his memories

As he leaves Afghanistan

And back home, they don't know too much

There's just no way to tell

I guess you had to be there

For to know that war was hell

And there won't be any victory parades

For those that's coming back

They'll fly them in at midnight

And unload the body sacks

And the living will be walking down

A long and lonely road

Because nobody seems to care these days

When a soldier makes it home

They'll say it wasn't easy

Just another job, well done

As the government in Kabul falls

To the sounds of rebel guns

And the faces of the comrades

Being blown out of the sky

Leaves you bitter with the feeling

That they didn't have to die

And there won't be any victory parades

For those that's coming back

They'll fly them in at midnight

And unload the body sacks

And the living will be walking down

A long and lonely road

Because nobody seems to care these days

When a soldier makes it home

Halfway around the world tonight

In a strange and foreign land

A soldier unpacks memories

That he saved from Vietnam

Back home they didn't know too much

There was just no way to tell

I guess you had to be there

For to know that war was hell

And there wasn't any big parades

For those that made it back

They flew them in at midnight

And unloaded all the sacks

And the living were left walking down

A long and lonely road

Because nobody seemed to care back then

When a soldier made it home

The night is coming quickly

And the stars are on their way

As I stare into the evening

Looking for the words to say

That I saw the lonely soldier

Just a boy that's far from home

And I saw that I was just like him

While upon this earth I roam

And there may not be any big parades

If I ever make it back

As I come home under cover

Through a world that can't keep track

Of the heroes who have fallen

Let alone the ones who won't

Which is why nobody seems to care

When a soldier makes it home

Show full lyrics (65 lines) ▾

Themes: Afghanistan Vet Vietnam Analogy Russia Coming Home Mistreatment of Vet

Genres: ♪ Singer Songwriter Folk Rock

1999

#80 Rage Against the Machine Sleep Now in The Fire 1999 · Single · The Battle of Los Angeles · Epic # 491993 2 · USA

Annotation

The song "Sleep Now in the Fire" (Epic Records #669136 2) referenced Agent Orange: "the agents of orange, the priests of Hiroshima, the cost of my desire, sleep now in the fire" . Agent Orange was the defoliant / herbicide used by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, which had long term negative health effects on the Vietnamese and US soldier whom came into contact with the chemical. It is frequently referenced in post-war songs. Also note the reference to the bombing of Hiroshima. Featured on the album The Battle of Los Angeles (Epic Records # EK 69630). The song reached # 62 in Billboard Hot 100 Airplay (US), # 26 in US Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks, and # 43 in UK Singles (The Official Charts Company).¹

Covers & answer records

Rap Metal group Rage Against the Machine formed in 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA, featuring members Zack de la Rocha (vocals), Tom Morello (guitar), Tim Commerford (bass), and Brad Wilk (drums). They released a few Vietnam War-related songs: "Wake Up" (1992), which referenced Martin Luther King Jr.'s opposition to the war, "Vietnow" (1996), which compared current problems with Vietnam, and "Sleep Now in the Fire", which referenced Agent Orange, the defoliant used in the Vietnam War.

Sources

1 Wikipedia: Sleep Now in the Fire ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Yeah

The world is my expense

The cost of my desire

Jesus blessed me with its future

And I protect it with fire

So raise your fists and march around

Just don't take what you need

I'll jail and bury those committed

And smother the rest in greed

Crawl with me into tomorrow

Or I'll drag you to your grave

I'm deep inside your children

They'll betray you in my name

Hey, hey

Sleep now in the fire

Hey, hey

Sleep now in the fire

The lie is my expense

The scope of my desire

The party blessed me with its future

And I protect it with fire

I am the Niña, the Pinta, the Santa Maria

The noose and the rapist, the fields' overseer

The agents of orange, the priests of Hiroshima

The cost of my desire

Sleep now in the fire

Hey, hey

Sleep now in the fire

Hey, hey, hey

Sleep now in the fire

For it's the end of history

It's caged and frozen still

There is no other pill to take

So swallow the one that makes you ill...

Show full lyrics (35 lines) ▾

Themes: Agent Orange Atomic Vietnam Analogy Hiroshima WW2

Genres: ♪ Metal Rap Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2005

#81 Kanye West Diamonds (From Sierra Leone) 2005 · Single · Diamonds From Sierra Leone · Roc-A-Fella # B0004940-11 · USA

Annotation

Artist background

The song "Diamonds (From Sierra Leone)" (Roc-A-Fella Records # B0004940-11) - it featured on his second album, "Late Registration" (2005) - is protest song focused on blood diamonds, mined in war zones, in this case, Sierra Leone. He compared the conflict to the Vietnam War, including a play on the popular 1987 film Good Morning, Vietnam, based around the rebellious radio broadcaster Adrian Cronauer, who began each show with "Good Morning Vietnam" : "good mornin', this ain't Vietnam, still, people lose hands, legs, arms, for real" .

Sources

1 Wikipedia: Kanye West ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Diamonds are forever

They are all I need to please me

They can stimulate and tease me

They won't leave in the night

I've no fear that they might desert me...

Good mornin', this ain't Vietnam, still

People lose hands, legs, arms, for real

Little was known of Sierra Leone

And how it connect to the diamonds we own

When I speak of diamonds in this song

I ain't talkin' about the ones that be glowin'

Themes: Anti-War Sierra Leone Good Morning, Vietnam Film Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Experimental Hip Hop Pop Rap

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#82 Cranked Up! Another Vietnam 2005 · Album · This Is a Weapon · Blackout! # 73 · USA

Annotation

Punk Rock group from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, led by Pat Society on vocals. This album included the song "Another Vietnam" (Blackout! Records # 73), like many songs on this list, used the conflict as a point of comparison, to protest contemporary events.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Western monopoly, what's a few hundred dead...

The innocent die

Vietnam...

Economic stranglehold...

It was all a bunch of lies...

See the connection

Is the country I live?...

Shallow grave...

Another Vietnam

Another Vietnam...

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

2006

#83 Deadones USA Modern Day Vietnam 2006 · EP · Deadones USA / The Hollow Points · No Front Teeth # NFTR 031 · USA

Annotation

Deadones USA, Punk Rock group formed in 2000 in Spokane, Washington, USA, released the song "Modern Day Vietnam" (No Front Teeth Records # NFTR 031).

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

2014

#84 Gas Rag Endless Vietnam 2014 · Album · Beats Off · Beach Impediment # BIR-011 · USA

Annotation

Hardcore Punk group formed in Chicago, Illinois, USA, released the song "Endless Vietnam" (Beach Impediment Records # BIR-011) - this looked at the industry and economics of war ("recession-proof"), and continual conflict, using the Vietnam War as its point of comparison. It referenced tension between the West and Iran, and "civil war in Syria" , which it described as "money in their banks" ..

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

A new Nazi Germany, endless Vietnam

A recession-proof industry

Money to be made

New world order war machine beats off on Iran

Investing in misery

Someone will pay

A civil war in Syria

Money in their banks

Themes: Military-Industrial Complex Vietnam Analogy WW2

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

2025

#85 Lil Darkie Vietnam 2025 · Album · USD · Not On Label · USA

Notes

"Vietnam" - Hip Hop

Lyrics

English

Check, check

God damn, turn up the fuckin' microphone

North Korea (Vietnam)

Palestine (Vietnam)

Germany (Vietnam)

Vietnam (Vietnam)

Israel (Vietnam)

Taiwan (Vietnam)

Lebanon (Vietnam)

Vietnam (Vietnam)

Yeah, bitch, we're goin' off to war (yeah)

Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine Corps

Your freedom back home is what I'm fightin' for

When I get back, politicians cut VA support

I have PTSD from seeing bodies on the floor

Every Independence Day I'm terrified of fireworks

Some of my friends died on an overseas tour

I know veterans living on the street

Dirt poor, what's it for?....

/ They told me we was tryna find nukes /But the oil in the ground the real reason that we shoot

Our highest priority

The safety of the nation

By censoring your speech and gathering your information

Donald Trump golfin', eating like a fat pig

Fighting with each other, sucking Uncle Sam's fat dick

Kill the Nazis, now you wanna throw your hand up, bitch?

To fighting for your freedom to be just another piece of shit

Fighting all on social media

And never change a thing

Fuck an eagle in the sky

Fuck a left and right wing

Fuck America

And fuck everybody that's inside

For us to be free, how many people gotta die?

North Korea (Vietnam)

Palestine (Vietnam)

Germany (Vietnam)

Vietnam (Vietnam)

Israel (Vietnam)

Taiwan (Vietnam)

Lebanon (Vietnam)

Cambodia (Vietnam)

Hiroshima (Atom bomb)

The United States (Not for long)

(Shoot that motherfucker) war never changes

Show full lyrics (46 lines) ▾

Themes: PTSD Atomic Vet Mistreatment of Vet Korea Israel

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop West Coast Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ PTSD Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

Unknown date

#86 The "Perry" Bros Not Another Viet Nam Single · Not Another Viet Nam / I Woke Up This Morning · A Single 'O # 1001 · USA

Notes

Not Another Viet Nam (The "Perry" Bro's). Country. Patriotic. Reference to WW2 and Korea. About loss of two brothers.

Notes

"A Single 'O, Record" 1001 (SoN 41071), gold label; "Not Another Viet Nam" (Bob Perry), 2:57, Single 'O Pub. Co.; credited to The "Perry" Bro's.; produced by Gene Curry, P.O. Box 6420, Wheeling, W. Va. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

In World War Two our Jack was lost at sea

Korea took the brother next to me

I'm the only one left to protect our mum

So don't let them start them start another Vietnam

She cried so hard when word came home of Jack

I was such a little fellow them, but I remember back

How my brother Eddie said we must be brave

Now he's all alone out there, in a cold Korean grave

But if I must die for what I feel is right

Then let them take my life this very night

I'll give my all for freedom and mum

But don't let them start another Vietnam

So I joined up to keep our country free

I'm no hero, and I don't want to be

I just want to know that when the fighting is done

That they'll never start another Vietnam

Dear god, not another Vietnam

Show full lyrics (18 lines) ▾

Themes: Patriotic Soldier's Perspective Korea WW2 Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

Also in: ▤ US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]

(9a) Atrocity: Other Massacres

The My Lai Massacre of 16 March 1968 became a byword for the killing of civilians. These songs compare other massacres to My Lai, from Wounded Knee to El Mozote, Srebrenica and Gaza, or use it as a metaphor in its own right. Songs about My Lai itself are in the My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs collection.

29 December 1890: Wounded Knee Massacre
16 March 1968: My Lai Massacre
11 December 1981: El Mozote massacre, El Salvador
4 June 1989: Tiananmen Square massacre
11 July 1995: Srebrenica massacre

1976

#87 Holly Near & Jeff Langley Broken Promises 1976 · Album · You Can Know All I Am · Redwood # RR-3600 · USA

Credited on the record as Holly Near With Jeff Langley.

Notes

- Broken Promises
- My Lai massacre and Vietnam
- Contemporary folk

- Sleeve billing "Holly Near With Jeff Langley". Words Holly Near, music Jeff Langley, (c) 1975; the insert note pairs the tactics used in Vietnam with those used against Native Americans (Amherst's smallpox blankets - "blankets and bombs") and calls for reparations. Personnel: Warren Bryant (percussion), Roy McCurdy (drums), Peter Marshall (acoustic bass), George Stavis (banjo), David Sherr (piccolo); string quartet Marcy Dicterow, Shari Zippart, Marilyn Baker, Judy Perett; supporting vocals Women's Choir, Friends of the Provisional Theater, Jeff Langley, Rob Moitoza.

Produced by Near, Langley and Julie Thompson. Redwood Records, 33.3 rpm, stereo, cream label with a redwood tree drawing; "Holly Near with Jeff Langley — You can know all I am (a collection of short plays)", ℗ 1976 Redwood Records, all selections copyright Hereford Music, ASCAP; Redwood Records, P.O. Box 996, Ukiah, California 95482.

Side 1 (Act One), track 6: "Broken Promises", 2:18, words by H. Near, music by J. Langley.

The front cover shows Holly Near against a brick wall; the back shows a smiling Jeff Langley.

Produced by Holly Near, Jeff Langley, Rob Moitoza and Julie Thompson; engineered by Jerry Hall; musical arrangements by Jeff Langley; recorded at the Upside Down studio, Hollywood, California; cover photo Julie Thompson, back cover photo Robert Kalkman, liner photos, layout and design Molly Rhodes; the album is dedicated to Connie Cox (1922-1975) "who was a great inspiration to many young musicians in Ukiah, California".

The lyric sheet's note for the song says "The war in Vietnam is not over and won't be until reconstruction, friendship and understanding heal the wounds", and the chorus links "Indians and Vietnam". [From the record sleeve and labels]

Lyrics

English

Wounded Knee play a drum

Men and women die, shift to My Lai

Broken Promises

Blankets and bombs

Indians and Vietnam

Themes: Anti-War My Lai Wounded Knee Indigenous Rights Vietnam Analogy Genocide

Genres: ♪ Singer Songwriter Contemporary Folk

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

1984

#88 BAP Drei Wünsch frei 1984 · Album · Zwesche Salzjebäck un Bier · Musikant # 1C 066 1469141 · Germany

Notes

- "Drei Wünsch frei".
- Deutschrock from Cologne, Germany.
- Reference to My Lai massacre

"Wo sind die Schlachten an der Marne? Wo ist My Lai, Hiroshima"
______________
"Where are the battles of the Marne? Where is My Lai, Hiroshima"

- Sung in Kölsch (Cologne dialect). Released 25 May 1984 (EMI Electrola / Musikant); album No. 1 in Germany. Lyrics Niedecken, music BAP.

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy Hiroshima WW1

Genres: ♪ Rock Deutschrock

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

#89 The Pogues Boys From the County Hell 1984 · Album · Red Roses for Me · Stiff # SEEZ55 · UK

Annotation

The song Boys From the County Hell (Pogues, The)

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

The boys and me are drunk and looking for you

We'll eat your frigging entrails and we won't give a damn

Me daddy was a blue shirt and my mother a madam

And my brother earned his medals at My Lai in Vietnam

Themes: My Lai Medals My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Celtic Rock

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

1993

#90 Screeching Weasel El Mozote 1993 · EP · El Mozote / Janelle · Lookout # Lookout 73 · USA

Notes

"El Mozote" . Hardcore punk. Reference to My Lai massacre

Lyrics

English

Somewhere in El Salvador

There's a grave for seven hundred

Pits full of guts

And kids who were tortured and hunted

By death squad soldiers

Who won't ever be purged or punished

Paid for by a government

That our tax dollars funded...

But that was so long ago

And our officials have retired

And once the stench is gone

It's easier to forgive the liars

There's so many atrocities

This nation's since acquired

And a Mỹ Lai doesn't mean much

With the papers stayin' quiet

Show full lyrics (17 lines) ▾

Themes: El Salvador Genocide My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Punk Songs

1999

#91 JxTx Massacre at My Lai in a Classroom 1999 · Compilation · We Will Not Obey · Achieve # ACH002 · USA

Notes

- Massacre at My Lai in a Classroom (JxTx) (aka Jorge Anthony Tapia)
- Free The P.O.W.'s (Anarcho-Acoustico)
- Acoustic punk

Themes: Genocide My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genre: ♪ Punk

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Punk Songs

2006

#92 Misery Index Unmarked Graves 2006 · Album · Discordia · Relapse # RR 6675 · USA

Annotation

Death Metal band, formed in 2001 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, with a revolving line-up, lead by Jason Netherton. The song "Unmarked Graves" (Relapse Records # RR 6675) referenced multiple conflicts and war crimes / massacres, including the My Lai Massacre - the mass murder of between 300-500 civilians in the South Vietnamese area known as "Pinkville", containing the hamlets, known as My Lai 4 and My Khe 4, and throughout the area of Song My, by US forces on 16 March 1968: "From Nanking to Mỹ Lai, from Srebrenica to Algiers... their spirit lives in defiance of it all" . It also referred to multiple genocides throughout history, such as Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) in North America, the Srebrenica massacre (1995), part of the Bosnian War, and The Darfur genocide (2003-present), part of the War in Darfur.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

From El Mozote to Amritsar

From Nanking to Mỹ Lai

From Srebrenica to Algiers

From Wounded Knee to Sabra-Shatila

From Tiananmen to East Timor

From Warsaw to Darfur

From Guernica to Halabja

Their spirit lives in defiance of it all

Themes: My Lai Genocide Bosnian War Srebrenica Massacre Tiananmen Square Wounded Knee

Genres: ♪ Metal Death Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

2012

#93 Vinnie Paz And Your Blood Will Blot Out the Sun 2012 · Album · God of the Serengeti · Enemy Soil # ES-CD-1201 · USA

Annotation

Artist background

Vinnie Paz, East Coast Hip Hop / Hardcore Hip Hop artist, born on 5 October 1977 in Sicilia, Italy, and soon after moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was member of the group Jedi Mind Tricks. His solo songs referencing the Vietnam War included: "And Your Blood Will Blot Out the Sun" (2012), "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train" (2012), "God Bless" (2013), "Writings on Disobedience and Democracy" (2016), "Ninety Three" (2016), and "Pray for Sleep"(2018). His group, Jedi Mind Tricks, also released a bunch of Vietnam War-related songs: "I Against I" (2000), "The Wolf" (2003), "And So It Burns" (2004), and "Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story" (2006) (with R.A. the Rugged Man).

This album featured the first two solo efforts from Vinnie Paz to reference the Vietnam War. The first was in the song "And Your Blood Will Blot Out the Sun" (Enemy Soil Records # ES-CD-1201) which contained an anti-war protest message, suggesting that people did not need government or orders to carry out a massacre, referencing the My Lai Massacre - the mass murder of between 300-500 civilians in the South Vietnamese area known as "Pinkville", containing the hamlets, known as My Lai 4 and My Khe 4, and throughout the area of Song My, by US forces on 16 March 1968: "murder doesn’t need a lobbyist or an ambassador, ask the survivors of the Mỹ Lai massacre" . The other song, "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train" , provided an anti-war, anti-government take, featuring a sample from Howard Zinn, a US intellectual and historian, which referenced the Vietnam War.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

And then, not long after that, was World War II. And then soon the United States was waging war in Korea, and then Vietnam. If you study history, what you learn is that wars are always accompanied by lies. Wars are always accompanied by deception

Themes: Anti-War Genocide My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop Hardcore Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2015

#94 Chadwick Stokes Our Lives Our Time 2015 · Album · The Horse Comanche · Ruff Shod # RS20151 · USA

Notes

- "Our Lives Our Time"
- Singer/songwriter.
- Reference to My Lai massacre and Hugh Thompson.

- Stokes describes the song as a protest at contemporary US politics (AllMusic).

Lyrics

English

It was fight night and the price fighter got cut like in a knife fight

It was all over the highlights 'cuz he got hit by a hard right /Saw stars like light bright, couldn't see any sight line, started this sky dive from the high life like Pele playing jai-lai

Shouted mayday, it was hay-day in the pell-mell of the melee

His coroner was getting' a pay day, needed Thompson from My Lai, turned his guns on his own guys, but it wasn't Molotovs and mai-tais, just AKs and white lies

Themes: My Lai Hugh Thompson My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Singer Songwriter Folk Rock

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

2016

#95 Ephelant The New Scum 2016 · Album · How to Sew Wounds with Words · Dirty Laboratory · USA

Notes

- "The New Scum"
- Hip hop

Lyrics

English

Bombing hospitals in Palestine

Babies in the rubble, hope went blind

My Lai Laos still got bombs going off

The leaves fall off with an agent orange cough

Themes: Agent Orange Laos Palestine My Lai Analogy Vietnam Analogy My Lai

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Political Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2019

#96 Yung Dmize Death Toll 2019 · EP · Doomshop · USA

Annotation

Memphis Rap collaboration, featuring the song "Death Toll" (Doomshop Records) which used Vietnam as a metaphor for violence, noting "lyrical bullets guerrilla rap game Vietcong" . It referenced chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973¹²³: "drowning you in napalm" . It also referenced the My Lai Massacre - the mass murder of between 300-500 civilians in the South Vietnamese area known as "Pinkville", containing the hamlets, known as My Lai 4 and My Khe 4, and throughout the area of Song My, by US forces on 16 March 1968: "fuckin with war crimes, massacre your people like the village of My Lai" .

Sources

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Title track (1) of the 4-track EP Death Toll by Yung Dmize & DJ Akoza (Doomshop, 14 April 2019; DJ Akoza producer). [From Rate Your Music]

Lyrics

English

Deadly verses this that deadly Mothafuckin song

Spraying lyrical bullets guerrilla rap game Vietcong

Drowning you in napalm, fuckin with war crimes

Massacre your people like the village of My Lai

Spit up on your grave then I throw up a peace sign

Giving these Mothafuckas widespread panic that's me time

And in the meantime, increasing the murder rate

Bucking Foos down like the U.S. in '68

Themes: VC Napalm Genocide My Lai Analogy My Lai Civilian Casualties

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Memphis Rap

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2021

#97 Ideation Mỹ Lai Amusement Park 2021 · EP · Blunt Instrument · Dynastic Yellow Star # STAR-004 · USA

Notes

- "Mỹ Lai Amusement Park"
- Hardcore punk
- Tallahassee, FL, United States

Lyrics

English

How many people get to die

At the amusement park in My Lai

Will there be another day

For all the children to laugh and play

Will there be another time

For all the mothers at My Lai

To hold their daughters in the sun

Dancing and singing to the song of the gun

Does it matter what they even say

In a different language

In a foreign tongue

The only truth now is the one written in blood

Screaming and falling down /Holding hands on the ground

Red ribbon and firе across the town

Does it really havе to end?

Show full lyrics (16 lines) ▾

Themes: Guns My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Punk Songs

2025

#98 Star Matriarch Mỹ Lai to Rafah 2025 · Album · Red Ship · Exotic Fever · USA

Annotation

“My Lai to Rafah”

also cover of Trinh Cong Son’s anti-war song “Xin Cho Tôi”.

From interview in Punk News

" My parents were refugees from the Vietnam War, aka the American War. Out of all the ongoing atrocities caused by the US foreign policy of my lifetime, Palestine feels the most personal, and I wanted to explore why - why have my intergenerational wounds been feeling that much more acute ever since October 7th? Aside from the fact that this latest round has been the most public, the most blatant acts of unapologetic genocide, aside from the fact that as a mother it should not be mere privilege to witness my kids grow while their peers across the globe live under such horrific violence.

This song taps into sacred rage, an indictment of the Eurocentric cultural norms, the resource-grabbing, manifest destiny BS that allows for this violence. Musically, it revolves around my interpretation of the nawari rhythm, which I was introduced to when studying Dabke, a traditional dance popular in the Levant region, including Palestine. Watching people dabke collectively, in community, and in this geopolitical context, is incredibly life-affirming to witness.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Bui's track-by-track (Punknews) links her parents' refugee experience to Rafah; built on a nawari rhythm learned from dabke. The album's cover of Trịnh Công Sơn's "Xin Cho Tôi" is a separate track. Digital June 2025; vinyl January 2026. Exotic Fever Records, P.O. Box 297, College Park, Maryland. [From the Rate Your Music label page]

Lyrics

English

That night I dreamt of a violent sky

Of our ancestors’ grieving faces

In a cloud of smoke and debris

Helplessly watching their babies bleed

Their bones dry beneath my feet

My cries carried by a cinnamon haze

Their bones embraced by the earth and we’re one, so we move

Oh the moon was our witness /Oh ooh the moon our star witness

You trying to fight me in my own jungle?

It’s not a maze in your sweet little pumpkin patch

So you Set fire to fields you’re too weak to work

Bomb mountains you’re just too weak to climb

Set fire to fields you’re too weak to work

To the stone age, back to the stone age?

Fuck your empire, fuck your weapons

Fuck your uninspired prayers

Fuck your family, cuz where’s my family, my whole family, family, family…

Oooh, the moon, is she your witness?

Oh the moon’s our star witness

Oh who gave you the right?

Oh the moon bless our sacred revenge

Fuck your money, fuck your currency

Fuck your agents named after the rainbow

Fuck your technology, your “innovations”

Fuck your Roman script, we have our own

Fuck your canonical works of whatever

Whatever whatever, whatever, whatever, ever ever ever

But From Mỹ Lai to Rafah,

We live and love harder than you’ll ever know

From Sand Creek to Rafah

We live and love harder than you’ll ever know

Batangas to Rafah

We live and love harder than you’ll ever know

Port Âu Prince to Rafah

We live and love live and love

Show full lyrics (38 lines) ▾

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy Palestine Anti-Imperialism Refugees Civilian Casualties

Genres: ♪ Punk Post-Punk Riot Grrrl

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Vietnamese Refugees & Boat People ▤ Punk Songs

(9b) Atrocity: My Lai as Metaphor

Songs that use "My Lai" as a metaphor, often for love, loss or violence, rather than to compare another massacre.

1997

#99 The Seahorses Sale of the Century 1997 · Single · Love Is the Law · Geffen # GFSTD 22243 · UK

Notes

- "Sale of the Century"
- Britpop
- My Lai

- Track 3 of the UK CD single (28 April 1997); not on the 7" or cassette, so CD is the format for this song.

Lyrics

English

Step right up now, hurry, hurry, hurry

Come on down and play

Take your seats for the sale of the century

Anything you want we've got it here today

We've got the My Lai Massacre, E-Type Jaguar

Barbie, Ken and Christy Brown

Anne Frank's Diary, DC's Library

And a chunk of the Berlin Wall

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Britpop

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

2006

#100 Proudflesh My Lai My Love 2006 · Album · Proudflesh · Wired Gnome # WG2 · USA

Notes

- "My Lai My Love"
- Punk
- Formed San Francisco, CA, United States

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Melodic Hardcore

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Punk Songs

2012

#101 Elvis Depressedly My Lai (Amy's Version) 2012 · Album · Mickey's Dead · Orchid Tapes # OCT042 · USA

Notes

- "My Lai (Amy's Version)"
- Reference to My Lai massacre
- Group formed 2011, Columbia, SC, United States
- Currently Asheville, NC, United States
- Bedroom Pop, Slacker Rock, India Folk

- Digital 1 July 2012 and Orchid Tapes cassette, both 2012. Primary location is the current base (Asheville); formed Columbia, SC.

Lyrics

English

I ain't never gonna learn to swim

So when the water rises to my mouth

I'm just gonna breathe right through my smile

And be happy to drown

This planet is a torturer

Nature gets off on pain

From My Lai to your wife's black eye

From genocide to tooth decay

I ain't never gonna learn to run

So when the walls come tumbling down

I'm just gonna stay where I always been

I wanna die hanging around

This planet is a torturer

Nature gets off on pain

From My Lai to your wife's black eye

From genocide to tooth decay

Show full lyrics (17 lines) ▾

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy Genocide

Genres: ♪ Pop Bedroom Pop Lo-Fi

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs

2018

#102 Lil Keed Ain't Seen My Face 2018 · Mixtape · Keed Talk to 'Em · Young Stoner Life · USA

Annotation

Lil Keed, Pop Rap / Trap artist born Raqhid Jevon Render on 16 March 1998 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The song "Ain’t Seen My Face" (Young Stoner Life) contained a small reference to the My Lai massacre as a comparison to violence in the US: "chopper send a nigga sky-high... niggas burnt out, call 'em My Lai" - this was a disproportionate comparison, as the My Lai Massacre involved the mass murder of between 300-500 civilians in the South Vietnamese area known as "Pinkville", containing the hamlets, known as My Lai 4 and My Khe 4, and throughout the area of Song My, by US forces on 16 March 1968.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Chopper send a nigga sky-high

I'm geeked out, eatin' Five Guys

Bad bitch gotta be wine fine

Get a nigga whacked from the blindside

I'm smokin' super strong, call it Popeye

If that stick talk, bet they all die

Niggas burnt out, call 'em My Lai

In the sky, high, on a private flight

Themes: City & Community Violence Genocide Guns My Lai My Lai Analogy Violence Metaphor

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Pop Rap Trap

Also in: ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2024

#103 Just Urbain My Love My Lai 2024 · Compilation · Raw & Alive 78 - 81 · Shake # SM10 · Australia

Notes

- My Love My Lai
- Australian punk, Brisbane
- Archival, recorded 1978-81, but only released in 2024

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

Also in: ▤ Australian & New Zealand Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Punk Songs

#104 Just Urbain My Love My Lai (Studio Coda) 2024 · Compilation · Raw & Alive 78 - 81 · Shake # SM10 · Australia

Notes

- My Love My Lai
- Australian punk, Brisbane
- Archival, recorded 1978-81, but only released in 2024

Themes: My Lai My Lai Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

Also in: ▤ Australian & New Zealand Songs ▤ My Lai & Lt. William Calley Songs ▤ Punk Songs

(10) The Home Front as War Zone: Cities, Drugs & Violence

From the 1990s, especially in hip hop, "Vietnam" described the home front: streets, drugs and violence as a war zone. The comparison was made of New York, New Orleans, Marseille, Buenos Aires and Brazil's cities, and in 2020 of COVID-19 quarantine.

1971

#105 Edward Swint Bulletts from the Bottle 1971 · Single · Bullets From the Bottle / Three O'Clock in the Morning · Wasp # WR-131 · USA

Notes

- About alcoholism - Gun laws can prevent death, but not the killing of JFK - Liquor killed more people than in Vietnam [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Drugs JFK Vietnam Analogy

Genre: ♪ Country

Also in: ▤ US Domestic Perspective Songs [War Years]

1990

#106 IAM Vietnam 1990 · Album · Concept · Roker Promocion # RP-02 · France

Annotation

French Hip Hop group, formed 1989 in Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France, featuring Akhenaton, Kheops, Shurik'N, Imhotep, Freeman (1990-2008), Kephren (dancer, manager, 1990-present). The rare cassette (only 300 copies made, last sold on Discogs for $900), had the song "Vietnam" (Roker Promocion # RP-02). Firstly, the song compared current world events to the Vietnam War era: "it is total chaos; the world is in agony, with no justice to be found, we plunge back, just like in the past, into the heart of the Vietnam era of the 70s" . It then used Vietnam as a comparison to community violence in France: "before long, Marseille is gonna be just like Vietnam, it’s nothing but psychopaths out there" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

French

Quand vient la mort, la nuit dehors, le bruit

Des ruisseaux de sang s'écoulent pêle-mêle

Ici c'est la guerre la prison, les cités, le pognon

Mille balles en poche ou cinq ans de détention

Un black et deux blancs tout puissant IAM

Notre concept criminosical fait redouter chaque

Mot sur mon mic et la nouvelle d'un avènement

D'un regain de violence est exact

[?] seigneur signe de son sceptre

Ces textes sont 100% assassins et c'est dans ce sens/ Que se suivent certainement

Le son de ces phrases accentuées sensuellement

Nous sommes des perfectionnistes aussi équilibristes

Le noyau de l'évolution musicale

De la culture nous sommes les roues motrices

Les pionniers du hip hop phenomenon

Souvent critiqués, hâtivement jugés

Jamais vraiment aimés mais toujours respectés

De nous exprimer ils ne nous empêcherons pas

Les IAM arrivent, rien ne les arrêtera

Agressifs, attaque musique pour les critiques

Issue unique, il n'y a pas d'autre alternative

Une Vietnam, une Vietnam

Assis devant le métro je sens le froid

Un proverbe a dit : qui vivra verra

Et tout ce que je vois c'est calme devant moi

Le paradis terrestre est là ma foi

Alors qui est quoi, où et comment

C'est le chaos total le monde en est souffrant

Sans justice, replonger comme jadis

Au cœur du Vietnam des années 70

Si l'est peut devenir l'ouest à l'avenir

La politique est un jeu qui fait frémir

Car les règles ne sont pas si terre à terre

Le nom du jeu est connu : (Shurik'n) c'est la guerre

Avec la tension pour stopper l'extension

Guidé par la voix de la divine expansion

Pharaon envoie droit au peloton d'exécution

Les dirigeants au langage nauséabond

Mais vous connaissez la suite du feuilleton

Devant les juges et les jurés ils m'enverront

Car j'ai dit la vérité

Et personne ne veut l'entendre à dire vrai

Overload Akhenaton l'executional

Ballistique linguistique de l'invincible seigneur

Qui se résume en un paragraphe

Le bibliographe [?] tueur froid du phonographe

Egyptien manipule à majuscule

Calcule et articule, enfer et capitule /L'inocule incrédule ridicule c'est ton crépuscule

XXX tu simules et affabules

Je paierai mes impôts mais demeurerai un ennemi

Essayons de ne pas jouer dans leurs scenarii

Car si c'est la guerre qu'ils veulent qu'ils ne tournent jamais

Le dos à la rue sinon on leur garantit un nouveau Vietnam

Guerrier poète contre ceux qui critiquent les gens

Au fait, tu vois un peu ce qui s'est passé hier soir au métro, quand on est descendu ?

'Tin je me demandais qui c'est ? J'arrive toujours pas à voir. C'est les jeunes…

Dans pas longtemps Marseille ça va être comme le Vietnam /(Autres voix inaudibles)

Y'a que des psychopathes là-bas

Déjà eh regarde, XXX tous les jours il a des problèmes

Quand c'est pas avec les XXX c'est avec les mecs du quartier, quand c'est pas avec les mecs du quartier c'est avec les Américains, quand c'est pas avec les Américains c'est avec le Front national

Mais il a raison sur une chausse [?] c'est qu'il faut que dans nos [?] on soit plus soudés

Okay, we had it here

Se retourner les Beatles dans leurs tombes

On est des vétérans, on te troue le cul !

Show full lyrics (65 lines) ▾

Themes: City & Community Violence Vietnam Analogy Violence Metaphor

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop French Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

1993

#107 Caballeros de la Quema Bs. As. esquina Vietnam 1993 · Album · Manos vacías · Iguana # 74321-16104-2 · Argentina

Credited on the record as Los Caballeros De La Quema.

Annotation

The song "Bs. As. esquina Vietnam" ("Buenos Aires Esquina Vietnam" or "Buenos Aires Corner Vietnam") (Iguana Records # 74321-16104-2), is another example of the use of the Vietnam War in the post-war years as a point of comparison, in this case an Argentinian city: "like a contagion from Saigon...chopped by Buenos Aires shards". Caballeros de la Quema were a rock group, formed in 1990 in Morón, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and disbanded in 2002. Its members included Alejandro Sorraires (saxophone, 1990-96), Iván Noble (vocals), Javier "Nene" Cavo (drums), Martín Carro Vila (bass, 1990-94), Martín Mendez (guitar), Martín "Cafusa" Staffolari (saxophone), Pablo Guerra (guitar), Patricio Castillo (bass, 1994-2002).

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Track 2, printed "Bs. As. Esq. Vietnam"; their debut album, distributed by BMG.

Lyrics

English

Like a contagion from Saigon...

With a toothless head and a noise that stitched together the boredom

And a roof that is plummeting...

Besieged in my right mind

Slashed by Buenos Aires shrapnel

Sniffing out the new scam, this skull is going to scream

Buenos Aires trains cretins

Buenos Aires hits you from behind

Very well, who cuts a deal first?

I'm going to mock the razzia-givers

Very well, who draws first?

I'm going to mock the razzia-givers

The owners of lunch demand more toll

They crouch in your soup and rip out your gums

I dig a nursery to keep the corpses that today

I desire, and I dress up in blue to find out how the

Enemy stinks, and I gather allies drawn out of fury

Is there anyone who wants to pull this rope?

Bs. As. hits you from behind

Very well... who draws first?

I'm going to mock the razzia-givers

Very well... who puts it in first?

Spanish

Como un contagio de Saigón...

Con la cabeza desdentada y un ruido que hilvanó el hastío

Y un techo que se cae en picada...

Sitiado en mi sano juicio

Tajeado por esquirlas porteñas

Olfateando la nueva estafa, esta calavera va a chillar

Buenos Aires adiestra cretinos

Buenos Aires pega por la espalda

Muy bien ¿Quién tranza primero?

Voy a moquear a los dadores de razzia

Muy bien ¿Quién pela primero?

Voy a moquear a los dadores de razzia

Los dueños del almuerzo piden más peaje

Se agazapan en tu sopa y te arrancan las encías

Cavo una nursery para guardar los cadáveres que hoy

Deseo y me disfrazo de azul para saber como apesta el

Enemigo y recolecto aliados sacados de furia

Hay alguien que quiera tirar de esta soga?

Bs. As. pega por la espalda

Muy bien... quién pela primero?

Voy a moquear a los dadores de razzia

Muy bien... quién la pone primero?

Show full lyrics (47 lines) ▾

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Saigon

Genres: ♪ Rock Alternative Rock

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

1995

#108 Devon Clarke Stop the War 1995 · Single · Massive B [New York] # B MAS 048 · USA

Annotation

The song "Stop the War" by Devon Clarke, (Massive B # MAS 048), a reggae artist, based in New York. This is in the Dancehall reggae genre - "style of Jamaican Music that developed from Reggae in the late 1970s, when the music of the previous Roots Reggae era became more stripped down, with an increased emphasis on pure rhythm". (1) Released in the post-war era, this track referenced Vietnam, comparing it to violence in Jamaica: "them running Jamaica like the Vietnam War" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Listen to the words of a wise man...stop the war...

I'm begging you to stop the war...

Them running Jamaica like the Vietnam War

So fight them positions...

Stop the war...

Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth

The more your learn

Johnny get up early, never knows where to turn

For the youth of today, I am concerned, so concerned...

Don't do what you did...

Killing your brother...

Was it right, no...

Run Jamaica like Vietnam War...

Themes: Violence Metaphor Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Reggae Dancehall

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

#109 Mobb Deep Shook Ones Part II 1995 · Single · Shook Ones Part II / Shook Ones Part I · Loud # 07863-64315-1 · USA

Notes

Shook Ones Part II on the album The Infamous There's a war going on outside no man is safe from / You can run but you can't hide forever / In these streets that we done took / You're walking with your head down, scared to look / You shook cause there ain't no such thing as half way crooks / There never around when the beef cooks / And my part of town is similar to Vietnam / Now we all grown up and hold heavy on the cops control [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Violence Metaphor

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Hardcore Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2005

#110 Nipple Creek / Can't New Vietnam Blues 2005 · Compilation · New Vietnam Blues / Messy Mystery · U-Sound Archive # U-Sound Vol. 27 · USA

Notes

New Vietnam Blues (Nipple Creek) [From Justin A. Brummer notes from RYM]

Themes: Violence Metaphor Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Rock Noise Rock

2007

#111 Científicos del Palo Vietnam 2007 · Album · Indigencia y distancia · MDR # MDR 1475 · Argentina

Credited on the record as Cientificos Del Palo.

Annotation

Científicos del Palo, rock group formed in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Members are "Pepo" San Martín Braile (vocals, guitar), Carlos "Popete" Andere (bass), Nicolás Terrén (drums). They released the song "Vietnam" ( MDR Records # MDR 1475) is an example of using the Vietnam War as a commentary on contemporary issues: "this is not how Vietnam was won...not how the Viet Cong thought".

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Track 11; lyrics and music by Pepo San Martín; guest guitar Ricardo Mollo (Divididos).

Lyrics

English

Warning: don't look even a centimetre too far

Watch out, step only where you won't slip

You run along happily and go as far as the rope reaches

And you go back to your place

And that leash that walks you

Is the same one that hangs you

Enough, it's time to wake up

Let's go to the rifles and stop with the cell phones

That's not the way, pal

That's not how Vietnam was won

That's not it, dude

That's not how the Viet Cong thought

It's all your fault

You see?

This is all our fault

Nobody wants to see pigs

But everyone wants ham

We sold the remedy for fear of the cure

And we bought the disease

Spanish

Warning con no mirar ni un centímetro de más

Guarda con pisar sólo donde no resbalás

Corrés contento y vas hasta donde da la soga

Y te volvés a tu lugar

Y esa correa que te pasea

Es la misma que te ahorca

Basta ya es tiempo de despertar

Vamo a lo fusile y paremo con el celular

Así no es papá

Así no se ganó Vietnam

Así no es, chabón

Así no pensaba el Viet Cong

Todo es tu culpa

¿Ves?

Todo esto es por nuestra culpa

Nadie quiere ver chanchos

Pero todos quieren jamón

Vendimos el remedio por temor a la cura

Y compramos la enfermedad

Show full lyrics (41 lines) ▾

Themes: Vietnam Analogy VC

Genre: ♪ Rock

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

2008

#112 Immortal Technique Hollywood Drive By 2008 · Mixtape · The 3rd World · Koch · Peru

Annotation

Artist background

This mixtape (Koch Records) featured two references to the Vietnam War. Firstly, the song "Hollywood Drive By" , which used Vietnam as a comparison for alleged government lies: "like government officials trying to justify Vietnam" . Secondly, the song "The 3rd World" - an outdated term for developing countries, that originated during the Cold War in the 1950s - the artist discussed his home area, describing it as being worse than the US: "from where police brutality is not half as nice, it makes the hood in America look like paradise" . He used Vietnam as a metaphor for a war zone: "from where the bombs that they used to drop on Vietnam" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I’m from where the gold and diamonds are ripped from the earth

Right next to the slave castles where the water is cursed

From where police brutality is not half as nice

It makes the hood in America look like paradise

Compared to the AIDS-infested Caribbean slum

African streets where the passport's an American gun

From where they massacre people and try to keep it quiet

And spend the next 25 years tryin' to deny it

I’m from where they cut your hands off if you make a fist

And niggas grow coca, 'cause the job market doesn’t exist

Except slave labor, modern-day company store

And peacekeepers don’t ever ever ever come here no more

From where the bombs that they used to drop on Vietnam

Still has children born deformed, eight months before they gone

Show full lyrics (15 lines) ▾

Themes: Anti-Government Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop Political Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#113 Immortal Technique The 3rd World 2008 · Mixtape · The 3rd World · Koch · Peru

Annotation

Artist background

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I’m from where the gold and diamonds are ripped from the earth

Right next to the slave castles where the water is cursed

From where police brutality is not half as nice

It makes the hood in America look like paradise

Compared to the AIDS-infested Caribbean slum

African streets where the passport's an American gun

From where they massacre people and try to keep it quiet

And spend the next 25 years tryin' to deny it

I’m from where they cut your hands off if you make a fist

And niggas grow coca, 'cause the job market doesn’t exist

Except slave labor, modern-day company store

And peacekeepers don’t ever ever ever come here no more

From where the bombs that they used to drop on Vietnam

Still has children born deformed, eight months before they gone

Show full lyrics (15 lines) ▾

Themes: Police Brutality Poverty Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop East Coast Hip Hop Political Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#114 Antonio Pinto Vietnam à Brasileira 2008 · Soundtrack · City of Men (Cidade dos Homens) · Bodog # 0189370BDM · Brazil

Annotation

Film score of Cidade dos homens [City of Men], it featured the song "Vietnam a Brasileira" (Miramax Records # 0189370BDM) by Antonio Pinto, born in 1967 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The vocal was by Brazilian rapper Rappin' Hood, birth name Antônio Luiz Junior - born on 7 November 1971 in São Paulo, Brazil.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Track 2, printed "Vietnam A Brasileira"; written and performed by Antonio Pinto and Rappin' Hood. Brazilian edition Lakeshore LKS 33978.

Themes: Vietnam Analogy Film City & Community Violence

Genre: ♪ Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2012

#115 Eyehategod New Orleans Is the New Vietnam 2012 · Single · A389 # A389-110 · USA

Annotation

Sludge Metal group Eyehategod, formed on 20 April 1988 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, founded by Jimmy Bower (guitar) and Joey LaCaze (drums), and a somewhat revolving line-up of bass players and drummers. The song "New Orleans Is the New Vietnam" (A389 Recordings # A389-110) used Vietnam as a comparison to contemporary problems, both in the local environment: "downtown mess, uptown wreck... east bank mess, west bank wreck" , as well personal frustrations: "put down, burned up... this shit don't quit" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Uptown mess, downtown wreck

Frostbite sweat, your guilt on fire

Downtown mess, uptown wreck

Frostbite sweat Your guilt on fire

Shoes don't fit, I don't fit

East bank mess, west bank wreck

Frostbite sweat, your guilt on fire

Shoes don't fit, you don't fit

Shoes don't fit, this shit don't quit

You don't fit, we don't fit

You don't fit, you don't fit

Put down, burned up, burned up

Burned up, turned back, crept up

Put down, burned up

Put down, crept up, burned up

Broke down, step down

No way, back door, pissed off

Show full lyrics (19 lines) ▾

Themes: Violence Metaphor City & Community Violence Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Metal Sludge Metal

Also in: ▤ Metal Songs

2013

#116 Emis Killa Vietnam Flow 2013 · Album · Mercurio · Carosello Records & Tapes · Italy

Annotation

Emis Killa, Pop Rap born Emiliano Rudolf Giambelli on 14 November 1989 in Vimercate, Italy, released the song "Vietnam Flow" (Carosello Records & Tapes), compared gang land violence in Lombardi, Italy to Vietnam War and other wars, including a reference to the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It also referenced the 1994 film Forrest Gump which contained a Vietnam War segment: "I go to war like a soldier... I crush the Lombard territory... face in the mud Viet Cong, I light this bomb on Saddam, run like Forrest Gump from fucking Viet Nam" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I go to war like a soldier, on the beat I bomb the State

I crush Lombard territory, I go on tour on top of a tank...

For the getaway I've got a perfect plan, John Dillinger pushed to the limit

À la Mike Le Bon, face in the mud, Viet Cong

I light this bomb on Saddam, run like Forrest Gump from fucking Viet Nam

The devil's outcast, the perfect son

I've got war in my eyes, a hole in my chest

Italian

Scendo in guerra come un soldato, sul beat bombardo lo Stato

Schiaccio il territorio lombardo, parto in tour sopra un carro armato...

Per la fuga ho un piano perfetto John Dillinger spinto al limite

Al Mike Le Bon, faccia nel fango Viet Cong

Accendo sta bomba a Saddam, corri come Forrest Gump dal Viet fottuto Nam

Il reietto del diavolo, il figlio perfetto

Ho la guerra negli occhi, un buco nel petto

Show full lyrics (17 lines) ▾

Themes: City & Community Violence VC Film Tanks Saddam Hussein Forrest Gump

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Pop Rap

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#117 Eminem Headlights 2013 · Single · Interscope · USA

Annotation

Notes

Influential Hip Hop artist, associated with Hardcore Hip Hop and Conscious Hip Hop genres, said to have helped popularized the genre with Middle America in the late 1990s / 2000s, and contributed towards crossing over racial barriers.¹ Born on 17 October 1972, Saint Joseph, Missouri, USA. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He played himself in the film 8 Mile, set in Detroit. Eminem frequently used Vietnam as a reference point for city and community violence, including "Bad Meets Evil" (1999) (with Royce da 5'9"), "Under the Influence" (2000) (with D12), "Crack a Bottle" (2009) (with Dr. Dre and 50 Cent), "On Fire" (2010), "Headlights" (2014), and "Stepdad".

The song "Headlights" (featuring Pop Rock artist Nate Ruess) used Vietnam, as well as the First Gulf War, and the atomic bomb to describe a violent / confrontational situation, in this case a domestic, home setting: "our house was Vietnam, Desert Storm, and both of us put together could form an atomic bomb".

Sources

1 Wikipedia: Eminem ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I went in headfirst, never thinkin' about who what I said hurt

In what verse, my mom probably got it the worst

The brunt of it, but as stubborn as we are, did I take it too far?

"Cleanin' Out My Closet" and all them other songs

But regardless, I don't hate you ‘cause, Ma

You're still beautiful to me, ‘cause you're my mom

Though far be it from you to be calm

Our house was Vietnam, Desert Storm

And both of us put together could form an atomic bomb

Equivalent to chemical warfare

And forever we could drag this on and on

Themes: Violence Metaphor First Gulf War Atomic Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Hardcore Hip Hop Conscious Hip Hop

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

2017

#118 Silva de Alegría Vietnam 2017 · Album · Silva de Alegría · Núcleo Distante · Mexico

Credited on the record as Silva de Alegria.

Notes

Track 8 of the CD (track 7 on Bandcamp); released 20 October 2017. The album includes covers, so the song may be a cover.

Lyrics

English

It all ends in just another memory, in the nostalgia of looking back

The emptiness of letting die the battles I lived for

If you wanted war, we were a Vietnam, a river that feeds the sea

Every morning to be reborn, to sleep and forget

How many lives did I have to live?

And how much karma to be happy?

We consented to loneliness, the promise of one more mystery

Make a kaleidoscope with the sun to see its interior

(There was a song in every heart)

Look at the mirror of your heart on your skin

(And on your lips a melody)

We will forget in order to forgive, the cruel pain upon waking

We survived that Vietnam more than once

Spanish

Todo acaba en un recuerdo más, en la nostalgia de mirar atrás

El vacío al dejar morir las batallas por las que viví

Si querías guerra fuimos un Vietnam, un río que alimenta al mar

Cada mañana volver a nacer, dormir y olvidar

¿Cuántas vidas tenía que vivir?

¿Y cuánto karma para ser feliz?

Consentimos con la soledad, la promesa de un misterio más

Haz un caleidoscopio con el sol para ver su interior

(Había una canción en cada corazón)

Mira el espejo de tu corazón sobre tu piel

(Y en los labios una melodía)

Olvidaremos para perdonar, el cruel dolor al despertar

Sobrevivimos más de una vez aquel Vietnam

Show full lyrics (29 lines) ▾

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Pop Indie Pop

Also in: ▤ Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

2018

#119 Civic New Vietnam 2018 · EP · Anti Fade # ANT - 042 · Australia

Annotation

Garage Punk group formed in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its line-up included Jim McCullough (vocals), Lewis Hodgson (guitar), David Forcier (drums), Darcy Grigg (guitar), and Roland Hlavka (bass). This EP had the song "New Vietnam" (Anti Fade Records # ANT - 042), which appears to be about a drug addict - does this have any connection to the war?& Vietnam War: Australian & New Zealand Songs.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

...Drive by, they teach you how to live for nothing

I'm the new Vietnam

Tell you what I am

We need a friend

And I need a pick me up

The least you could do is fix me up

I need you under my skin baby

I promise not to love another...

I'm the new Vietnam

Tell you what I am

Themes: Drugs Violence Metaphor Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Garage Punk

Also in: ▤ Australian & New Zealand Songs ▤ Punk Songs

2020

#120 Stonewielders Quarantine Is the New Vietnam 2020 · Single · Not On Label · Germany

Notes

Sludge Metal group, formed in 2018 in Bielefeld, Germany. Its members were Timm (guitar, vocals), Björn (bass), and Tobias (drums, vocals). The track "Quarantine Is the New Vietnam" (digital release-only) is a part-cover of "New Orleans Is the New Vietnam" (2012) by Eyehategod, updated for the COVID-19 crisis.

Themes: Violence Metaphor COVID-19 Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Metal Sludge Metal

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ Metal Songs

#121 Lil Wayne Wild Dogs 2020 · Album · Funeral · Young Money # B0030882-02 · USA

Annotation

Artist background

Lil Wayne, influential Southern Hip Hop / Gangsta Rap artist, born Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. on 27 September 1982 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, said to have sold 120m+ records worldwide. He frequently referenced the Vietnam War, as a metaphor for violence, including: "Blood Line" (2002), "Problem Solver" (2006) (with Birdman and DJ Khaled), "Wasted" (2009), "Thinking Bout You" (2015), "Bing James" (2020) (with Jay Rock), and "Wild Dogs" (2020).

This album featured two tracks referencing the Vietnam War. The song "Wild Dogs" (Young Money Entertainment # B0030882-02) used Vietnam as a comparison to violence in the US: "bust up in your home... home sweet homicide... it's war like Vietnam" . The song "Bing James" , featuring Jay Rock (Gangsta Rap artist, born Johnny Reed McKinzie, Jr. on 31 March 1985 in Watts, California, USA) referenced Vietnam, used as a metaphor for flashbacks (usually associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) - frequently referenced in post-war 1980s songs about US veterans, often connected in songs to stress, shell shock, flashbacks, nostalgia, and feelings and dreams related to an event: "we from the projects, we got that PTSD like some Vietnam vets" .

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

Motion picture shit, (Woo) at you with my .40 Glock

When I'm on my savage shit, bodies on that blacktop (Yeah)

Weapons in the stash box, (Yeah) keep a couple lamb chops (Yeah)

All we serve is hearses, you don't get no ambulance ride

All we know is big B's, yeah, you know, that's gang, gang

This ain't what you want, you don't wanna lose your brain, brain

Focused on this bag now, yeah we from the projects (Yeah)

We got that PTSD like some Vietnam vets

Miss me with that bullshit, I'm just tryna make a play

White Lamborghini truck, bitches call it yola-yay

Sharp as razor blades, Smith N' Wesson in my breakaway

Peep the different shit from behind these Aviator shades

Themes: City & Community Violence Violence Metaphor Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Hip Hop Southern Hip Hop Gangsta Rap

Also in: ▤ Rap / Hip Hop Songs

#122 Post Nebbia Vietnam 2020 · Album · Canale Paesaggi · Dischi Sotterranei / La Tempesta Dischi # STT0320 / LTD-146LP/20 · Italy

Notes

"Vietnam". From Italy

Notes

Limited edition of 250 copies (LP). Written, produced, recorded and mixed by Carlo Corbellini; mixed by Exit Exit; mastered by Giovanni Versari at La Maestà. Also a 2020 cassette and 2025 LP repress. Uses a 'Vietnam flashback' as a metaphor for waking to reality; from the LP 'Canale Paesaggi', limited to 250 copies.

Lyrics

English

I'm about to have a Vietnam flashback

And I don't want to know the truth

The alarm clock brings me back to reality, but it's late

And they've been waiting for me for a while

I'm about to have a Vietnam flashback

And I don't want to know the truth

The alarm clock brings me back to reality, but it's late

And they've been waiting for me for a while

Italian

Sto per avere un flashback del Vietnam

E non voglio sapere la verità

La sveglia mi riporta alla realtà, ma è tardi

E mi aspettano da un po'

Sto per avere un flashback del Vietnam

E non voglio sapere la verità

La sveglia mi riporta alla realtà, ma è tardi

E mi aspettano da un po'

Show full lyrics (19 lines) ▾

Themes: Vietnam Analogy PTSD Violence Metaphor

Genres: ♪ Rock Indie Rock

Also in: ▤ European Songs ▤ PTSD Songs

#123 Tricky Vietnam 2020 · Album · Fall to Pieces · False Idols # K7S391CD · UK

Annotation

Born 27 January 1968, Bristol, City of Bristol, United Kingdom

Vietnam (Tricky)

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

LP editions also exist (EU, UK ltd, UK 2xLP+7"). Marta Zlakowska credited on tracks 1, 2, 6-11; Nanna Øland Fabricius (Oh Land) on 3-4. From the album 'Fall to Pieces', with Marta Zlakowska credited on the track; Vietnam is invoked as shorthand in a lyric about making bombs.

Lyrics

English

And I'm that toy

I make bombs and you know

Anyone, Vietnam

I'm black boy and you hear my song

And I'm that toy and we carry on

Keep it down a minute

I say I never sin now

It only takes a minute

Listen to me sing now

I make bombs and you know

Anyone, Vietnam

I'm black boy and your hear my song

And I'm that toy and we carry on....

Keep it down a minute

I say I never sin now

It only takes a minute

Listen to me sing now

I make bombs and you know

Anyone, Vietnam

I'm black boy and your hear my song

Show full lyrics (22 lines) ▾

Themes: Violence Metaphor Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Electronic Trip-Hop

Also in: ▤ European Songs

(11) "We Need Another Vietnam": Nostalgia, Satire & the Generation Gap

Punk bands from the late 1970s onwards turned the comparison on themselves: their generation, unlike the one before, had no cause, and needed "another Vietnam". These songs are satire, about boredom and the generation gap, not calls for war. The Italian singer-songwriter Pierangelo Bertoli looked back on 1967 and what the protest years had meant.

1977

#124 Pierangelo Bertoli 1967 1977 · Album · Il centro del fiume · Ascolto # ASC 20030 · Italy

Credited on the record as Angelo Bertoli.

Notes

Track A2 of the LP manufactured by Compagnia Generale del Disco; credited to "Angelo Bertoli". Looking back ten years on the protests of 1967. Reissued on LP 1982 and 1985, cassette 1982 and CD.

Lyrics

English

I said to my father: 'I might be home late, but don't you worry!'

And so I returned home like a mouse—only ten years later.

At first, my father wasn't pleased with my behavior,

But I was wearing a tie, so I showed it to him, dangling beneath my chin.

He looked at it with satisfaction, greeted me, and then gave me a hug.

After dinner, he casually asked why I had been so late.

I told him I had wandered through many places—mountains, valleys, and woods.

He asked me to describe the lands I had visited, as he had only ever dreamed of them.

I sang of the mountains, the infinite ocean, and the boundless sky.

I spoke of the ancient hunger of the East and the vices of the West.

I accused and cursed the Jews and the Americans for their vile genocide,

The plight of Black people—treated like dogs—and the anguish of the Indigenous peoples.

I wept in despair for ancient Palestine, now reduced to a slaughterhouse,

For clerical racism cloaked in lies and covered in shame,

And for the sadism of a legal system that abuses its power and thrives on violence.

I wept for Vietnam, the stage for an absurd confrontation between the powerful.

My father fed only on newspapers and television,

So, despite everything I said, I could never reach his reason.

He called me a liar, then fixed me with a harsh stare and nearly struck me.

And then—refusing to hear another word—he called in the military.

The *carabinieri*, too, insisted on asserting their jurisdiction.

They claimed I was an anarchist, that I was out to blow up power pylons,

That I went around the world unproductively, and that I was scattered.

So, they sent me to be evaluated at a criminal asylum.

I await my fate, while curiously scrutinizing their faces.

Perhaps they’ll hang me—though it’s not certain, as they can’t quite decide.

The Jews want to burn me sixty-six million times over for Nazism,

While the Americans think it’s far better to finish me off for being a filthy communist.

The priests have said they want to nail me to a cross,

And the children of affluence would like to strangle me to silence my voice;

The rich want to turn me into chemical fertilizer to exploit me,

And the lawyers want to hang me until the very end.

If I wear blinders—my father swore to me, showing me a document—

I can go back home to my mother and watch TV!

Italian

Ho detto con mio padre: "Forse rincaso tardi, ma tu non preoccuparti!",

così sono tornato a casa come un topo, però dieci anni dopo.

Dapprima il genitore non era contento del mio comportamento,

ma avevo una cravatta e allora l′ho mostrata, pendente sotto al mento.

L'ha guardata soddisfatto, e poi mi ha salutato, e quindi mi ha abbracciato.

Finito di cenare, mi ha chiesto noncurante perché del mio ritardo.

Gli ho detto che ero stato in giro in tanti posti, tra monti, valli e boschi.

Mi ha chiesto di descrivere, per lui che le ha sognate, le terre visitate.

Ho cantato le montagne e l′oceano infinito, il cielo sconfinato.

Ho parlato della fame antica dell'Oriente, del vizio in Occidente.

Ho accusato e maledetto gli ebrei, gli americani, di vile genocidio,

l'epidemia dei negri trattati come i cani e l′angoscia degli indiani.

Ho pianto disperato l′antica Palestina, ridotta ad un macello,

il razzismo clericale vestito di menzogna, coperto di vergogna,

il sadismo della legge che abusa di potenza e vive di violenza.

Ho pianto per il Vietnam, teatro del confronto assurdo dei potenti.

Mio padre si nutriva soltanto di giornali e di televisione,

così, per quanto ho detto, non sono mai riuscito a toccargli la ragione.

Mi ha dato del bugiardo, poi duro mi ha guardato e quasi mi ha picchiato.

E poi, per non sentire nemmeno una parola, l'esercito ha chiamato.

Ed i carabinieri non vollero esulare la loro competenza.

Dissero che ero anarchico e andavo a bombardare i tralicci della luce,

che andavo per il mondo in modo improduttivo ed ero dispersivo.

Così mi hanno mandato a farmi analizzare al manicomio criminale.

Aspetto la mia sorte e intanto sto scrutando curioso i loro visi.

Forse mi impiccheranno, però non è sicuro, perché sono indecisi.

Gli ebrei son per bruciarmi sessantasei milioni di volte per nazismo,

e per gli americani è meglio assai cassarmi per sporco comunismo.

I preti mi hanno detto che vogliono inchiodarmi appeso ad una croce,

e i figli del benessere vorrebbero strozzarmi per togliermi la voce,

i ricchi per sfruttarmi mi voglion trasformare in chimico concime,

e invece gli avvocati mi vogliono impiccare, finché giunga la fine.

Se indosso il paraocchi, mio padre mi ha giurato, mostrandomi una carta,

posso tornare a casa insieme alla mia mamma, a vedere la tivù!

Show full lyrics (71 lines) ▾

Themes: Demonstration Counter-Culture & Hippies Protest Anti-War Vietnam Analogy

Also in: ▤ European Songs

1983

#125 Knockabouts Where's My Vietnam 1983 · Compilation · Barricaded Suspects · Toxic Shock # TOXLP 01 · USA

Annotation

Knockabouts, Hardcore Punk band from Huntsville, Alabama, formed in 1982, featuring Greg Sklaka (drums), Donnie Sharp (vocals), Randy Sanders (bass), Rusty Jackson (guitars), and Steve Tallyn (bass).¹ The song "Where's My Vietnam?" featured on this various artist compilation (Toxic Shock Records # TOXLP 01). It also originally appeared on the group's 1983 demo cassette Angry Young Men, and then on the 1995 EP On Suffering Remembered (Prank Records # PRANK 02). This song lamented the apathy and lack of social action in the narrator's generation, as the "kids today...play video games, watch TV, smoke pot" . The narrator looked back to the Vietnam War generation: "hippies demanded their rights" . The narrator was "looking for my Vietnam" . Thus, this is a good example of an artist using the Vietnam protest movement as a historical case study to compare to the lack of contemporary protest.

Sources

1 al.com: The story of alabamas first punk rock band ↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

The kids today got no real reason to exist

They play video games, watch TV, smoke pot...

They never wonder: "Is my neighbor a Commie?"

No! I really don't care! I used to want peace...

No one has a reason, no one has a cause

No one thinks that's, cause for alarm

Go turn your TV, there you'll see me

Looking for my Vietnam, looking for my Vietnam

Hippies demanded their rights

I seen them fight for them in the streets

I would have the same if people weren't so lame

So what do we get? A world as cold and dead as me

The future is red with your blood on the sand

I cannot find any Vietnams

Tell me, where the hell is my Vietnam?

Show full lyrics (16 lines) ▾

Themes: Counter-Culture & Hippies Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Hardcore Punk

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

1993

#126 Citizen Fear We Need Another Vietnam 1993 · Bootleg / Unauthorized · Killed by Death #13 · Redrum # KBD 13 · USA

Annotation

Citizen Fear, Punk Rock group from California, USA, had the song "We Need Another Vietnam" (Redrum Records # KBD 13) on this various artist bootleg compilation - although released in the 90s, all tracks on this record were actually recorded between 1978 and 1983.. The back of the LP said:

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

This volume of Killed By Death differs from the others in a few ways. It concentrates on just one region, California. And instead of containing previously released rare records, this one is culled from demo tapes, mostly from bands that never had any releases... Andy, Mike, Don, and Erik of Southern California's Citizen Fear never put out vinyl, but had such a distinctive early hardcore sound that it's definitely I'll loss. Whatever happened to them remains a mystery".

Theme: Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Punk Rock

Also in: ▤ Punk Songs

2000

#127 The Hard Feelings (We Need Another) Vietnam 2000 · Album · Fought Back and Lost · Sympathy for the Record Industry # SFTRI 604 · USA

Annotation

The Hard Feelings, Garage Punk group formed in Austin, Texas, USA, led by John Schooley, released the song "(We Need Another) Vietnam" (Sympathy for the Record Industry # SFTRI 604), recorded at Sweatbox Studios, Austin TX 15-17 January 2000, criticised its current generation: "I think my generation stinks, all the kids without a clue" . And thus they called for "another Vietnam...let's drop some napalm" - a reference to chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.¹²³

Sources

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English

I think my generation stinks...

All the kids without a clue

It's time we had something to do

Let's go

We need another Vietnam

Let's drop some napalm cluster bomb

All the kids without a clue

It's time to go...let's go

War was good, if I tell the truth

Ain't good for nothing and neither are you

In '69 you might have laughed

But this time no one beats my draft

Let's go

Themes: Napalm Draft Vietnam Analogy

Genres: ♪ Punk Garage Punk