Hell No! I Ain't Gonna Go

Annotation

Matt Jones, an African-American civil rights activist and contemporary folk / blues / R&B cross-over musician, acted as field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an important Civil Rights organisation in the 1960s, taking part in sit-ins and freedom rides, and organising voter registration.1 In 1964 he joined the The Freedom Singers, who played music to raise money for the SNCC. Their 1965 album The Freedom Singers Sing of Freedom Now! included a couple Vietnam tracks. The song "Hell No! I Ain't Gonna Go" (Relevant # RP 1), written by Matt Jones and Elaine Laron, took the title from the famous slogan and chant often seem at anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s and 70s. It had a blues structure, with soul and R&B instrumentation. In the song the narrator refused the draft call, declared the war a sham, and related it back to Civil Rights issues: "the Vietcong just like I am...I got business in Harlem". Broadside magazine originally published the lyrics and music in # 82, July 1967. The song them appeared on the 1970 compilation Broadside Ballads Vol. 5: Time Is Running Out under both their names, although the single edition from the same year was attributed to Matt Jones. Sources1JSTOR↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Annotation — Draft Songs

Matt Jones, an African-American civil rights activist and contemporary folk / blues / R&B cross-over musician, acted as field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an important civil rights organisation in the 1960s, taking part in sit-ins and freedom rides, and organising voter registration.1 In 1964 he joined the The Freedom Singers, who played music to raise money for the SNCC. Their 1965 album The Freedom Singers Sing of Freedom Now! included a couple Vietnam tracks. The song "Hell No! I Ain't Gonna Go" (Relevant # RP 1), written by Matt Jones and Elaine Laron, took the title from the famous slogan and chant often seem at anti-war demonstrations in the 1960s and 70s. It had a blues structure, with soul and R&B instrumentation. In the song the narrator refused the draft call, declared the war a sham, and related it back to civil rights issues: "the Vietcong just like I am...I got business in Harlem". Broadside magazine originally published the lyrics and music in # 82, July 1967. The song them appeared on the 1970 compilation Broadside Ballads Vol. 5: Time Is Running Out under both their names, although the single edition from the same year was attributed to Matt Jones.Sources1JSTOR↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: I ain't gonna go to Vietnam / I ain't dying for Uncle Sam... / I ain't burning my brother to serve the man... / The Vietcong just like I am... / Lets run it down / Brother Brown, tell every cat just where it's at / I've had enough of Charlie's stuff / If he messes with me I'm gonna get rough / I ain't gonna go to Vietnam / That free world jazz is all a shame / I ain't gonna go to Vietnam / Cause the US army is the Ku Klux Clan / I ain't gonna go to Vietnam / I got business in Harlem, Watts, and Birmingham

Notes

Relevant RP 1-A; "Hell No! I Ain't Gonna Go", 3:22, by Matt Jones and Elaine Laron; Relevant Productions, P.O. Box 81, Lenox Hill Station, New York, N.Y. 10021 (212-BE 3-3300). [From the record sleeve and labels]

About the artist

Matthew 'Matt' Jones (born 17 September 1936 in Tennessee; died 30 March 2011 in New York City, aged 74) was an American folk singer, songwriter and civil rights activist who served as a field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from June 1963, organising in Danville, Virginia, where he founded the Danville Freedom Voices. He sang with the SNCC Freedom Singers from the autumn of 1963 until 1967 alongside Bernice Johnson Reagon and Charles Sherrod, wrote some five hundred songs drawing on the gospel tradition, was arrested twenty-nine times in the course of his…

Themes

Anti-War · Civil Rights · VC

In collections

Blues songs · Civil Rights Songs · Draft Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years] · Soul, Gospel, & Funk Songs