We Didn't Know
1965 · Elektra EKL 298 · New York City, New York
- Artist
- Tom Paxton
- Title
- We Didn't Know
- Release
- Ain't That News
- Year
- 1965
- Label
- Elektra # EKL 298
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- New York City, New York, USA
- Songwriter
- Tom Paxton
- Genre
- Folk · Contemporary Folk
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation
Also on this album, the song "We Didn't Know" contained a verse on Vietnam that dealt with the "credibility gap". It presented a "puzzled voter" watching President Johnson on TV, explaining the threat of communism in Vietnam, and the need to "keep South Asia free". The voter blindly accepted the president's view, assuming that he had a plan and that the US needed to "drop those bombs". The lyrics also back the results of multiple public opinion polls, which revealed that people tended to agree with presidential policy on the issues of war and foreign relations. The lyrics and notations of this songs also appeared in the publication Broadside # 62, 15 September 1965.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: We didn't know said the puzzled voter / Watching the President on TV / I guess we've got to drop those bombs / If we're gonna keep South Asia free / The President's such a peaceful man / I guess he's got some kind of plan / They say we're torturing prisoners of war / But I don't believe that stuff no more
About the artist
Born 31 October 1937, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Folk singer-songwriter central to the 1960s Greenwich Village scene; his Vietnam-era songs include Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation (1965) and Jimmy Newman. [Source: Wikipedia]
Themes
From the release Ain't That News