Happy Birthday, Son
1968 · Sound Town 500 · Texas
- Artist
- Mrs. Dorothy Gorman
- Title
- Happy Birthday, Son
- Release
- Happy Birthday, Son
- Year
- 1968
- Label
- Sound Town # 500
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- Texas, USA
- Songwriter
- Dorothy Gorman
- Genre
- Fanfare · Fanfare · Spoken Word
- Primary theme
- Home Front Perspective / Soldier's Perspective
Annotation
"Happy Birthday, Son" "Because he observed his anniversary in Vietnam, a Texan at war is having his 21st birthday greetings broadcast over radio stations to thousands of listeners. Mrs. Dorothy Gorman of Fort Worth couldn’t find a birthday card that said all she wanted to say to her son Gerald Wayne Gorman, so she wrote a poem to him and sent it to him in her own voice, on tape. A Dallas recording studio heard, and got her to read her poem against a musical background. Texas broadcasters tried the record on the air and soon a national record distributor made an offer to distribute "Happy Birthday Son." In part, the poem says: "When my days seem blue, and I feel down and out, I go to my room and start to pout. Then I say to myself, look up, then things are bright, you helped make it that way, son, when you went away to fight. “To fight for your country, the land of the free—to make it a better place for you and me. I am proud of you, son, yet I shed a tear, but you will be back with us in one short year." Gorman expects to observe his 22nd birthday as a civilian. One birthday present is likely to be a college fund formed by the royalties his mother expects from her new recording career." -- The Eagle (Bryan, TX), 12 March 1968, via OCR scan at newspapers.com. 12Sources145cat↩2Kennedale News, 28 December 1967: “Mrs. Robert Gorman’s Recording to Son Gerald Gorman” (The Portal to Texas History)↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Notes
Original issue on Sound Town 500, white "DJ Copy" label: A-side "Happy Birthday, Son" (Mrs. Dorothy Gorman), vocal (500A); B-side the same as an instrumental (500B); both 1:56, Bill Petty Music BMI, "A Sound Town Production". Reissued nationally on Tower 391 (45-61799), white promotional label marked "Promotional — Not for Sale". The picture sleeve shows Dorothy Gorman writing at a table beside a framed photograph of a young soldier in dress uniform. The back carries a note stating that there are more than 500,000 mothers like her whose sons are in Vietnam; that she sent her son to Vietnam in June and that this message is for his 21st birthday on December 18; and that her husband left with the 85th Division in 1942. It ends: "There are wars that must be fought and our sons must go to fight them." [From the record sleeve and labels]
About the artist
From Fort Worth, Texas, USA. Also on (Tower 391 / US / 7")
Themes
In collections
US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]