Gotta Go to Viet Nam
1966 · Aertaun 1106 · USA
- Artist
- Ray Holland & The Lilly Cups
- Title
- Gotta Go to Viet Nam
- Release
- Gotta Go to Viet Nam / King of the Beasts
- Year
- 1966
- Label
- Aertaun # 1106
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Soul, Gospel & Funk · Soul
- Primary theme
- US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs
Annotation
In the R&B / soul track "Gotta Go to Viet Nam" (Aertaun Records # 1106) it seems that the narrator may have volunteered to go to war: "held up my hand...sure stuck my head out". Whether a volunteer or draftee, the narrator swore that "for my country I'd fight". So he goes to boot camp for training, and rather than being stationed in Japan, he is sent to Vietnam.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
Unknown - Discogs carries an artist entity for Ray Holland with the documented name variant "Ray Holland And The Lilly Cups", confirming the composite billing (the same entity has a separate 1964 single, "King Of The Beasts"), but "Gotta Go to Viet Nam" did not resolve to a label, catalogue number or year - the discography list is JavaScript-gated and the API rate-limited. No biography for Holland, and the Lilly Cups' composition is undocumented. [Source: Discogs]
Themes
In collections
US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs · Soul, Gospel, & Funk Songs