There Won't Be Many Coming Home
1966 · London HLU 10096 · USA
- Artist
- Roy Orbison
- Title
- There Won't Be Many Coming Home
- Release
- There Won't Be Many Coming Home / Going Back to Gloria
- Year
- 1966
- Label
- London # HLU 10096
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Pop · Pop
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
The track "There Won't Be Many Coming Home" (MGM Records # K13760), originally written for the American Civil War, evolved into a song about war in general. However, its release coincided with the Vietnam War, and thus many people interpreted it as a Vietnam song. Orbinson said that: "It's a reflection on all war, people take it as applying to the Vietnam fighting if they wanted to, but in fact I wrote the song for my first film. It really refers to the Civil War period, but it could also apply equally to the Third World War". (1) The lyrics largely look at the impact of war, and perhaps lean slightly to the anti-war side in presenting the negative after-effects of war and suggesting it may not have be justified: "now the glory is all gone".
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
About the artist
American singer, born 23 April 1936 in Vernon, Texas; died 6 December 1988 in Hendersonville, Tennessee. [Source: Wikipedia]