Where's My Vietnam
1983 · Toxic Shock TOXLP 01 · USA
- Artist
- Knockabouts
- Title
- Where's My Vietnam
- Release
- Barricaded Suspects
- Year
- 1983
- Label
- Toxic Shock # TOXLP 01
- Format
- LP · Compilation
- Language
- English
- Country
- USA
- Genre
- Punk · Hardcore Punk
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation
Knockabouts, Hardcore Punk band from Huntsville, Alabama, formed in 1982, featuring Greg Sklaka (drums), Donnie Sharp (vocals), Randy Sanders (bass), Rusty Jackson (guitars), and Steve Tallyn (bass).1 The song "Where's My Vietnam?" featured on this various artist compilation (Toxic Shock Records # TOXLP 01). It also originally appeared on the group's 1983 demo cassette Angry Young Men, and then on the 1995 EP On Suffering Remembered (Prank Records # PRANK 02). This song lamented the apathy and lack of social action in the narrator's generation, as the "kids today...play video games, watch TV, smoke pot". The narrator looked back to the Vietnam War generation: "hippies demanded their rights". The narrator was "looking for my Vietnam". Thus, this is a good example of an artist using the Vietnam protest movement as a historical case study to compare to the lack of contemporary protest.Sources1al.com: The story of alabamas first punk rock band↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Annotation — Punk Songs
Knockabouts, Hardcore Punk band from Huntsville, Alabama, formed in 1982, featuring Greg Sklaka (drums), Donnie Sharp (vocals), Randy Sanders (bass), Rusty Jackson (guitars), and Steve Tallyn (bass).1 The song "Where's My Vietnam?" featured on this various artist compilation (Toxic Shock Records # TOXLP 01). It also originally appeared on the group's 1983 demo cassette Angry Young Men, and then on the 1995 EP On Suffering Remembered (Prank Records # PRANK 02). This song lamented the apathy and lack of social action in the narrator's generation, as the "kids today...play video games, watch TV, smoke pot". The narrator looked back to the Vietnam War generation: "hippies demanded their rights". The narrator was "looking for my Vietnam". Thus, this is a good example of an artist using the Vietnam protest movement as a historical case study to compare to the lack of contemporary protest. Sources1al.com: The story of alabamas first punk rock band↩
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: The kids today got no real reason to exist / They play video games, watch TV, smoke pot... / They never wonder: "Is my neighbor a Commie?" / No! I really don't care! I used to want peace... / No one has a reason, no one has a cause / No one thinks that's, cause for alarm / Go turn your TV, there you'll see me / Looking for my Vietnam, looking for my Vietnam / Hippies demanded their rights / I seen them fight for them in the streets / I would have the same if people weren't so lame / So what do we get? A world as cold and dead as me / The future is red with your blood on the sand / I cannot find any Vietnams / Tell me, where the hell is my Vietnam?
About the artist
The Knockabouts were a punk rock band from Huntsville, Alabama, active during the 1980s, whose membership comprised Donnie Sharp, Greg Skalka, Randy Sanders and Rusty Jackson. Their material went largely unreleased in their own lifetime as a band and surfaced only decades later through archival issues. "Where's My Vietnam?" was recorded at Sound Cell Studios on 18 June 1983 and was eventually issued on the retrospective album 'Angry Young Men' (Music Has A Meaning MHAM02, 2025), which carries the song twice - once in the 1983 studio version and once in a live 'Boombox Nightmare' recording.…