2+2=?
1968 · Capitol 2143 · Los Angeles, California
- Artist
- Bob Seger System
- Title
- 2+2=?
- Release
- 2 + 2 = ? / Death Row
- Year
- 1968
- Label
- Capitol # 2143
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- Los Angeles, California, USA
- Songwriter
- Bob Seger
- Genre
- Garage Rock · Garage Rock
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
Bob Seger in the song "2 + 2 = ?" (Capitol Records # 2143) took an anti-war position. It featured on the album Ramblin' Gamblin' Man (Capitol # ST-172). Interestingly, Bob Seger, born in Detroit, Michigan (6 May 1945), earlier in 1966 released a novelty Vietnam record with the group The Beach Bums, called The Ballad of the Yellow Berets (Are You Kidding Me? Records # H-1010), in which Seger (credited as "D.Dodger", for draft dodger), both mocked Barry Sadler (for Ballad of the Green Beret), as well as perhaps taking a hawkish view of the war and laughing at the protest movement (see draft section). Two years later in 1968, after the major escalation of the war in Vietnam and a large increase in US casualties, no ambiguity, lightheartedness, or tongue-in-cheek existed on this single, as Seger invited people to "go ahead and call me yellow", for expressing his strong reluctance to go to war: "I don't wanna kill nobody...why it is I've got to die". He then told the story of a "guy in high school" drafted to war, but who ended up "buried in the mud over foreign jungle land" (i.e. Vietnam), leaving behind a grieving girlfriend and family, thus displaying sympathy for the soldiers and…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
American rock band formed in 1968 in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area of Michigan, led by Bob Seger (b. Detroit, 1945); recorded the anti-war hit '2+2=?' (1968); disbanded 1971. [Source: Wikipedia]
Themes
In collections
Draft Songs · Garage Rock Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs