Copperhead Road
1988 · MCA 1280 · USA
- Artist
- Steve Earle
- Title
- Copperhead Road
- Release
- Copperhead Road / Little Sister
- Year
- 1988
- Label
- MCA # 1280
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Songwriter
- Steve Earle
- Genre
- Country · Alt-Country
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation
Steve Earle, Americana, country-rock artist, born 17 January 1955 in Fort Monroe, Virginia, USA. He released the song "Copperhead Road" (Uni Records # UNI-7), a post-Vietnam War song concerned with veterans. It starts with the young man, from a moonshine bootlegging family, joining the army: "I volunteered for the Army on my birthday...done two tours of duty in Vietnam". It make a social-economic point about draft inequality: "They draft the white trash first 'round here anyway", suggesting that he would have got drafted if he hadn't have volunteered. Then it looked at the veteran back in the US, starting up a new business, possible selling marijuana, as indicated in the line: "seed from Colombia and Mexico". However, for the veteran, the sounds, smells, and visions of Vietnam still lingering on: "chopper in the air, I wake up screaming like I'm back over there" - a familiar reference to PTSD often seen in post-war songs. It had decent commercial sucess, reaching # 10 in the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks, # 45 in UK Singles, # 12 in Canada Top Singles, and # 23 in Australia charts. Less well-known on this album was the song "Johnny Come Lately", featuring the UK group The…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Annotation — Draft Songs
Steve Earle, Americana, country-rock artist, born 17 January 1955 in Fort Monroe, Virginia, USA. He released the song "Copperhead Road" (Uni Records # UNI-7), a post-Vietnam War song concerned with veterans. It starts with the young man, from a moonshine bootlegging family, joining the army: "I volunteered for the Army on my birthday...done two tours of duty in Vietnam". It make a social-economic point about draft inequality: "They draft the white trash first 'round here anyway", suggesting that he would have got drafted if he hadn't have volunteered. Then it looked at the veteran back in the US, starting up a new business, possible selling marijuana, as indicated in the line: "seed from Colombia and Mexico". However, for the veteran, the sounds, smells, and visions of Vietnam still lingering on: "chopper in the air, I wake up screaming like I'm back over there" - a familiar reference to PTSD often seen in post-war songs. It had decent commercial sucess, reaching # 10 in the US Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks, # 45 in UK Singles, # 12 in Canada Top Singles, and # 23 in Australia charts.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
American singer-songwriter, born 17 January 1955 at Fort Monroe, Virginia, raised in Texas ('Johnny Come Lately', 'Copperhead Road'). [Source: Wikipedia]