Only a Boy
1967 · Warner Bros. 7151 · Burbank, California
- Artist
- Jan & Dean
- Title
- Only a Boy
- Release
- Only a Boy / Love and Hate
- Year
- 1967
- Label
- Warner Bros. # 7151
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- Burbank, California, USA
- Songwriter
- Berry, Wieder, Altfeld
- Genre
- Pop · Pop
- Primary theme
- Home Front Perspective / Soldier's Perspective
Annotation
In December 1967 Warner Bros. Records released the song "Only a Boy" (# 7151), taken from the album Carnival of Sound by the major rock and roll duo Jan & Dean - a group mainly associated with "surf music". Recorded before Jan Berry's serious automobile accident in April 1966, he had previously released the 1965 patriotic record Universal Coward. Berry had actually been playing and promoting "Only a Boy" for over a year before Warner released it. The song told the story of a young soldier killed in Vietnam. It took a patriotic line, with the chorus pointing out the young man's willingness to die: "He was only a boy, but had a man's job to do, willing to die for me, for you". The verses went from finishing school, to training, and then onto Vietnam, where he encountered the horrors of war. Eventually killed in action, his parents collected his medal, his girlfriend got the ring, while the US protected its freedom from communist tyranny. Suggested by psychman
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: Only last June he got his diploma / In just a short while training in Oklahoma / Learning to shoot, to salute, shine a boot / Taking orders, fixing mortals, guarding our borders / Set sail for Vietnam to help out a nation / Trying to put down the red infiltration / Fighting in trenches, out in drenches and stenches / Shooting headlong at a throng of Vietcong / He thought about his folks, he sure missed his girl / As bullets and shells around him started to swirl /One ripped through his shirt, blood spurt and it hurt / He spun around, fell face down, head to the ground /So his parents got a medal, so his girl got his ring / But to his country he left one very special thing / He helped people stay free from the misery of tyranny / He died without fright in a fight that he knew was right
Notes
Warner Bros. Records 7151 (K16092), red label; "Only a Boy" (Berry-Wieder-Altfeld), Screen Gems-Columbia Music, Inc., BMI, 2:32; produced and arranged by Jan Berry. "Warner Bros. Records, Inc., a subsidiary & licensee of Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc.", made in U.S.A. [From the record sleeve and labels]
About the artist
American pop duo formed 1958 in Los Angeles, California ('The Universal Coward'). [Source: Wikipedia]
Themes
In collections
US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs [War Years]