An Open Letter to My Dad

Annotation

The song "An Open Letter to My Dad" (Ion Records # 1-102), an interesting answer song to Lundberg, narrated from the perspective of the teenage son's sister, which to-date is the only answer record identified that is narrated by a woman. The original press release from the Ion Record Co. announced the song as "an eloquent plea for peace". But following a letter of complaint from a Maine radio station disc jockey, an Ion Records' executive sent a personal apology from the company stating that "this is a very hard letter for me to write as I know we did a great injustice to all right thinking Americans by releasing such a record....We apologize...I am afraid we were unduly influenced by the writer and did not screen this material as we should have...We realize this was a big mistake in releasing such a record and we accept the fact that we can not be criticized too harshly...I very humbly apologize again for this release, but also know we have no excuse except stupidity". The track strongly condemned the war and needless napalming of innocent children, and therefore very much an anti-war song: "we recognise that all adults are... are seeking... to napalm innocent children in the name of democracy". The narrator criticised her father for not listening and that he should not judge anyone by their hairstyle. The sister then turned to the generation gap, explaining that society had changed from when he grew-up. It displayed Cold War fears, by referencing the atom bomb and advances in space exploration: "identify with a generation that was born after the bomb and weaned on outer space". The narrator also drew attention to religious hypocrisy with regards to killing, and expressed opposition to violence. And on the draft card burning? The sister argued that her brother did it because he loved mankind. It concluded with the same line as Lundberg - "From this moment on, one less man will shoulder one less gun". The song also referenced the Civil Rights movement, noting the "murder" of "young Civil Rights workers", making a connection and tying the anti-war movement to the fight for African-American Civil Rights. Backed by "The Battle Hymn of the Republic", similar to the Lundberg track.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: Dear Dad, you told my brother that you had no son / Perhaps you might have also have told him that you would listen to his point of view / You discuss long hair and beards, isn't the measure of an American more tangible than a single strand of hair?... / I ask you dad, to identify with a generation that was born after the bomb and weaned on outer space / Yes father, some of our values have changed from those that you clung onto in your youth / But remember too that the world in which we live is not the same when you were young / One finger on one button could not destroy the world / And no man saw with his own eyes our lonely planet from the heights of outer space... Dad, you asked us to judge adults as individuals, and we will / We recognise that all adults are not drunken military imperialist, seeking to murder young Civil Rights workers, or napalm innocent children in the name of democracy / But we also know that we cannot sit silently on the side-lines in the face of such wanted acts of violence / Is god dead? / My brother asked this not because he doubted his own belief / But rather because he questioned the hypocrisy of yours / How is it that you can worship a god who has commanded 'Thou shall not kill', and then condemn your only son for refusing to go off to war... / You ask why it is my brother burned his draft card / And I would answer this, he is not anti-American, simply pro-mankind / Every war for every purpose has already been fought, ideology…

Notes

Ion Records 1-102-A, 45 RPM, pink label, 1592 Crossroads of the World, Hollywood, Calif.; "An Open Letter to My Dad" (Steven R. Wolf), 3:40, Detec Music Pub. Co. (BMI); produced by Ion Productions. [From the record sleeve and labels]

Themes

Anti-War · Answer to Open Letter · Napalm

In collections

Lundberg's "An Open Letter" & Answer Songs · Civil Rights Songs · Draft Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]