Credited on the record as Two & a Half with The Minutemen.
Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas
Mockingbird MR-1004 · Wilmington, North Carolina
- Artist
- Two & a Half
- Credited on the record as
- Two & a Half with The Minutemen
- Title
- Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas
- Release
- Christmas Lullaby / Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas
- Label
- Mockingbird # MR-1004
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
- Songwriter
- Harfoush, Johnson
- Genre
- Country · Country
- Primary theme
- US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs
Annotation
The song "Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas" (Mockingbird Records # MR-1004) by Two and a Half and The Minutemen - released by Coastal Carolina Music, Wilmington, North Carolina - took a patriotic stance, as well as looking at the plight of a soldier's family, missing him during Christmas time. Narrated from the mother's perspective, she explained to the children that "he's busy helping others who are fighting to stay free", and that many children in Vietnam "have no mom or dad". The mother said that the day he returned to the US would "be our Christmas day". The chorus at the end of the song sounds like a group of children.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Annotation — Children on Record
The song "Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas" (Mockingbird Records # MR-1004) by Two and a Half and The Minutemen - released by Coastal Carolina Music, Wilmington, North Carolina - took a patriotic stance, as well as looking at the plight of a soldier's family, missing him during Christmas time. Narrated from the mother's perspective, she explained to the children that "he's busy helping others who are fighting to stay free", and that many children in Vietnam "have no mom or dad". The mother said that the day he returned to the US would "be our Christmas day". The chorus at the end of the song sounds like a group of children. Released around 1967-68?
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: Children, I have something to say / I received a letter from daddy today / Now I know it is hard for you to understand why your daddy is in a far away land / What words can I use so that you will know why your daddy and others must fight and must die / Now he can't be here to tell you himself / So he asked me to tell you that he send his love and that he is thinking of you this Christmas eve / Daddy won't be home for Christmas this year... / I tell you what it meant dear, as I tuck you into bed... / He's busy helping others who are fighting to stay free / He said to tell you that there are children there that have no mom or dad... / Soon he will be home to stay and when we'll all together that will be our Christmas day
Notes
Mockingbird Records MR-1004B (SoN 39742), blue label; "Daddy Won't Be Home for Christmas" (Harfoush-Johnson), Coastal Carolina Music, Wilmington, N.C., BMI, 3:24; produced and arranged by Heber Johnson; Two & a Half with The Minutemen; "Dist. by Sound of Nashville, Inc., 160 2nd Ave. S., Nashville, Tennessee". [From the record sleeve and labels]
Themes
In collections
Children on Record · Christmas Songs · US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]