Goodbye Viet Nam

Annotation

Country song "Goodbye Viet Nam" (Gold Standard Records # GS-283) by Jimmy Hydrick is about the plight of a soldier - returning home from Vietnam where he has "had all I can take", to California, where "we'll gonna be so happy...I gonna really spread my wings", and therefore a song reflecting on a soldier finishing his stint in Vietnam and looking forward to embracing life back home.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: Well goodbye Vietnam, California here I come / I guess I'm just a lucky son of a gun / I got my order yesterday, I will soon be on my way / I Just can't wait until I get back to you / When I get home I know we'll gonna be so happy / I just can't wait to kiss your lips again / When I get home, I'm gonna call you honey / And take you to some place I know you've never been / When I step of that plane and I gonna really spread my wings / Me and this girl of mine are gonna paint this town... / So goodbye Vietnam, California, here I come... / I've had all I can take, I need you love for goodness sake

Notes

Gold Standard Records, Record No. GS-283-A, gold label with "Au Gold" ingot logo, "Music Row", Nashville, Tenn.; "Goodbye Viet Nam" (Hydrick), 2:25, Junellin Music Co., BMI. [From the record sleeve and labels]

About the artist

Jimmy Hydrick was an American country singer and songwriter active as a recording artist from at least 1968 to 1974, cutting a run of singles for the Nashville label Gold Standard and later for Universal Records HVH Inc.; several of his sides were written or co-written by Mary Lee, identified on Discogs as the songwriter Mary Hydrick and described there as his wife, and his 1974 single was mastered at Nashville Record Productions under the production of Kelso Herston. "Goodbye Viet Nam", which he wrote himself, was issued on Gold Standard GS-283 in 1968, backed with 'Just Let Me Know'; Gold…

Themes

Soldier's Perspective

In collections

US Combat Perspective Songs [War Years]