War

Annotation

Springsteen took an anti-war stance towards US involvement in Central America in the 1980s, and drew comparisons to the Vietnam War experience, through the release of the cover song "War" (Columbia Records # 38-06432). Composed by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong of the soul group The Temptations (and released on their 1970 album Psychedelic Shack), Edwin Starr made it famous with his 1970 cover (discussed in the anti-war section). His version reached # 1 in the US Billboard Hot 100, depicting the anger of the anti-Vietnam War movement, and probably the first blatant anti-war song to top the charts. Springsteen recorded this live on 30 September 1985 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and subsequently released it as a single in 1986. The single reached # 8 in the US Billboard Hot 100 on 27 December 1986.1 It also reached # 4 in the US rock tracks chart.2 Released on the album Live / 1975-85 (Columbia # C5X 40558). The promotional video for the song started with the image of a father and son watching a news report about the Vietnam conflict on TV. Then it displayed a montage of shots from Nicaragua - where the Ronald Reagan administration provided financial and military support to the Contra rebel groups, involved in the Nicaraguan Revolution. Springsteen then embarked on a spoken-word introduction, followed by the song, in which he recalled the impact of Vietnam on young people in the 1960s, and warned the youth of 1985: "blind faith in your leaders...will get you killed". Thus, with this single, Springsteen used Vietnam as way to comment on contemporary issues.3Sources1Billboard, 27 December 1986↩2Billboard, 27 December 1986↩3Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (John Storey, 2006)↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: If you grew up in the sixties, you grew up with war on TV every night / A war that your friends were involved in, and I want to do this song for all the young people out there, if you're in your teens, cause I remember a lot of my friends were seventeen or eighteen, we didn't have much of a chance to think about how we felt about a lot things, and next time there gonna be looking at you / And you're gonna need a lot of information to know what you want to do / Cause in 1985 blind faith in your leaders or anything will get you killed / What I'm talking about here is war, what is it good for, absolutely nothing

Notes

Columbia 38-06432 (ZSS 175513), stereo, 45 RPM; "War" (B. Strong - N. Whitfield), 5:10; ℗ 1986 Bruce Springsteen; from the album C5X 40558. Picture sleeve front: photograph of Springsteen with a Telecaster and "War" in red brush lettering; back lists "Merry Christmas Baby", "Taken from the Columbia LP 'Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band Live/1975-85' 40558", produced by Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and Chuck Plotkin; design Sandra Choron, photo Watt M. Casey. [From the record sleeve and labels]

About the artist

Born Freehold, New Jersey, USA (23 September 1949). Currently Rumson, New Jersey.

Themes

Anti-War · Vietnam Analogy

In collections

Bruce Springsteen Songs · Vietnam as Comparison