I Don't Wanna

Annotation — Draft Songs

Although released in 2004, the group recorded this album in 1966. It documented the garage punk band the Insurrections, which featured Henry Flynt (who had guitar lessons with Lou Reed), Walter De Maria and Paul Breslin.1 The first track on the album, "Uncle Sam Do", referenced the Vietnam War and the use of napalm, suggesting a contradiction in US government foreign policy: "nobody talk peace like Uncle Sam do; Uncle Sam talk the peace and drop napalm on you". Napalm referred to the chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.234 The Dow Chemical Company, the largest suppler of napalm to the US military, became a target of Vietnam protests (such as boycotts), particularly on university campuses.5 In the song "I Don't Wanna", a bluesy track, the group focused on the possibility of being drafted to fight in Vietnam. As suggested in the title, the narrator did not want to leave his home, facing death, and being responsible for the death of Vietnamese. He called on the government to give him a job at home.Sources1dustedmagazine.com↩2Napalm: An American Biography (Robert M. Neer, 2013)↩3Times Higher Education: Napalm an american biography by robert m neer↩4Napalm, An American Biography (book website)↩5The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam (Tom Wells, 2005)↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Annotation — Garage Rock Songs

In the song "I Don't Wanna", a bluesy track, the group focused on the possibility of being drafted to fight in Vietnam. As suggested in the title, the narrator did not want to leave his home, facing death, and being responsible for the death of Vietnamese. He called on the government to give him a job at home.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: I don't wanna go to South of Vietnam / I don't wanna fight a million miles from home / I don't wanna kill the Vietnamese / I don't wanna be shot down in a bomber plane / Give me a job right here at home / Give me a government a call my own Go down to the picket line and let Johnson know / You won't fight his dirty wars no more / You won't burn a peasant, napalm bomb / You won't find girls in the bars of Saigon / You don't want to see the hatred.... / They're sending folks away, and you have to pay / The draft board call up and you have to die / Go down to Washington and let Johnson know

Notes

Although released in 2004, the group recorded this album in 1967

About the artist

Born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina

Themes

Soldier's Perspective · Anti-War · Draft

In collections

Draft Songs · Garage Rock Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]