Open Letter to Dad
1967 · Carole CAR-1005 · USA
- Artist
- Chris Howard
- Title
- Open Letter to Dad
- Release
- An Open Letter to Dad / Dear Dad
- Year
- 1967
- Label
- Carole # CAR-1005
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Spoken Word · Spoken Word
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
Double-sided response record to Victor Lundberg's "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son". First up was the song "An Open Letter to Dad" by Chris Howard (Carole Records #CAR-1005), distributed by the larger, Los Angeles, California-based label GNP Crescendo Records. The narrator focused on religious hypocrisy, recalling going to church and Sunday school, and memorising the 10 commandments with his father, noting: "there wasn't one that said... though shall not kill, unless it's a communist". The narrator moved on to questioning whether war is necessary: "I don't think if I lived a million years I could prove that mass killing is necessary". It took an isolationist perspective, arguing that the money spent in Vietnam should be used at home in the US: "spending $35 billion a year in Vietnam while not spending enough here at home". The song also contained a Civil Rights message: "I'm fighting against the bigotry and prejudice which almost had this country in a Civil War, black against white".
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Annotation
The second song, on the B-side was "Dear Dad" by Michael Paul (Carole Records #CAR-1005) which took an anti-war position - as mentioned above, distributed by GNP Crescendo Records. Similar to Dick Clair's "Hi, Dad (An Open Letter to Dad)", it began with a comedy approach, with the narrator expressing surprise that his father decided to share a letter over the radio. The father in this case, was apparently in charge of "missiles production", and so part of the war machine. On the issue of draft card burning: "I didn't say anything about burning my draft card", however, he didn't want "to drop bombs on women and children". At the end of the song, the narrator declared that he would be joining the Peace Corps: "I hope you won't really burn my birth certificate... I'm going to need it... when I sign-up for the Peace Corps".
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
Unknown - no citable source documents this artist or the record. 'An Open Letter To Dad' appears to be a 1967 answer disc to Victor Lundberg's 'An Open Letter to My Teenage Son', but it does not surface on 45cat, Discogs or RateYourMusic. [Source: Discogs (negative search)]
Themes
In collections
Lundberg's "An Open Letter" & Answer Songs · Civil Rights Songs · Draft Songs