Letter to Dad

Annotation

On 11 November 1967 the surprise hit song "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son" (Liberty Records # 55996) entered into the Billboard charts, selling over 1 million records in six weeks. Narrated by Victor Lundberg, a conservative American, the record heavily criticised draft dodgers and the counter-culture. Most memorable of all, Lundberg had told his son that if he burned his draft card, then he might as well burn his birth certificate, because from that moment onwards "I have no son". Soon afterwards several "answer records" appeared, including the track "A Letter to Dad" (Buddah Records # BDA 25), entering the charts on 25 November 1967 (just 13 days later). Billboard reported that "this teen rebuttal of the Victor Lundberg smash comes off as a well-thought-out answer, performed and arranged in the best of taste. It represents the young idea and should be given equal air time with the original with sales following the same successful pattern". (1) Written by Bill Dean and Ron Marshall, and narrated by Jim McCurdy, a 19 year old recording engineer, it addressed each point that Lundberg had raised. McCurdy told the Daily Record on 18 November 1967 that he played the record for his…

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

About the artist

Unknown - the record is well documented but the performer is not. 'A Letter to Dad' (Buddah BDA-25, 1968; written by Bill Dean and Ron Marshall, produced by Inherit Productions) was an answer record to Victor Lundberg's 1967 spoken-word hit 'An Open Letter to My Teenage Son'; the performer behind the one-off studio credit Every Father's Teenage Son is not publicly identified. [Source: Discogs; Wikipedia ('An Open Letter to My Teenage Son')]

Themes

Draft · Anti-War · Answer to Open Letter

In collections

Lundberg's "An Open Letter" & Answer Songs · Draft Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs