It's Got to Be Done

Annotation — US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs

The country group The Lonesome Valley Singers produced a whole album in support of the soldiers fighting in South East Asia (Diplomat Records # D 2376). They also released two other Vietnam themed albums, discussed below - Men in the Green Berets (1966) and God Bless the Working Man. This album included a version of two Tom T. Hall songs discussed above - the track "Hello Vietnam" (made famous by Johnnie Wright) and "What We're Fighting For" (released by Dave Dudley and others). The track "It's All Worth Fighting For" looked at the objectives of the war. The lyrics propagated the "domino theory" - that the collapse of South Vietnam into the control of the communist north would trigger the collapse of democracy in other countries and threaten the US - the idea of which came from President Eisenhower, during a press conference on 7 April 1954.1 The group sung that if the US "give Vietnam to the enemy", then there would be "no stopping" them. Thus, the US needed to "call a halt to this transgression". The end of the song compared Vietnam to the Second World War and Korea, as examples of worthy conflicts: "World War Two and Korea...it's all worth fighting for".Sources1The American Presidency Project: The President’s News Conference, 7 April 1954↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Notes

Diplomat D 2376 (labels 2376 A / 2376 B), black label with a magenta sunburst over the Diplomat logo, "Long Playing, 33⅓ RPM — High Fidelity Record Mfd. by Synthetic Plastics Co., Newark, N.J., U.S.A."; labels are titled "Country and Western War Songs". Side 1: Hello Vietnam, Jungle War, Tell the Folks I Miss 'Em, I'm Just a Lonesome Soldier, It's All Worth Fighting For; Side 2: Don't Worry, Just Pray, It's Got to Be Done, What We're Fighting For, Why Doesn't Someone Write to Me, Goodbye Curly Head. No writers, publishers or times are printed. The front cover shows a rifle with bayonet, steel helmet, field pack and grenades propped against a tree trunk under the title "Country & Western War Songs — Hello Vietnam". The back cover carries Diplomat's house text ("Fine records need not be expensive"), a note that all songs are listed on the front cover and label, a Diplomat catalogue list…

About the artist

Anonymous budget-label studio group that recorded for Diplomat Records; Discogs links the name to aliases including Tex Johnson & His Six Shooters, Billy Bond and The Badmen. [Source: Discogs]

Themes

Patriotic · Anti-Communism

In collections

US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]