Wild Oak Academy: Vietnam War

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Vietnam Protest Songs

0 comments Posted by Kristine at 8/20/2012 06:21:00 PM

Hey, Hey LBJ...Songs of the U.S. Anti-War Movement (1967 - Crisis Records, Monterey Park, CA) *Song descriptions are from the back of the album cover.

Ship Ahoy - "Ship Ahoy" was provoked at an anti-war demonstration. A heckler submitted that well honed ethereal question: "Sure we want out...but how do we get out?" "By boat," replied the demonstrators.
Empty - "Empty" is an on-the-spot interview with the individual citizen of Vietnam and his dilemma; which is to live in spite of U.S. aid, and Marshall Ky's ambitions. Survival is his way of life. His modern history documents that his current war has endured for a hundred years.
The Dean Rusk Song - "The Dean Rusk Song" sings for itself, but its touchstone is worth reciting: New York Times, January 26, 1966, page one..."Weary, Rusk Tells of World's Mischief." "Weary looking and harried, Secretary of State Dean Rusk offered the House Foreign Affairs Committee this wry comment on the troubles that beset him: 'The world is round. Only one third of the human beings are asleep at one time, and the other two thirds are awake and up to some mischief somewhere.'"
Hitler Ain't Dead - "Hitler Ain't Dead" was generated durin gthe Dominican crisis. LBJ received a rousing hand from 4,000 labor leaders, when he quoted a 19th century Senator, George Frisbie Hoar: "I have seen the glories of art an architecture, and mountain and river. I have seen the sunset on the Jungfrau, and the full moon rise over Mont Blanc. But the fairest version on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land."
Just Another Day - "Just Another Day" is a heart-blow in the solar region. Student demonstrations forced the Board of Trustees to get the University of Pennsylvania out of the Germ Warfare research business. The song grew out of the two year fight.
R. and R. - "R. and R." is G.I. jargon for 'Rest and Relaxation.' The G.I. in this song has a few comments to make, apropros of the status quo.
Hands Off - "Hands Off" is dedicated to the G.I.'s couragous enough to oppose the war and take the consequences. Privates Petrick, Johnson, Mora, Samas, and Capt. Levy...and the many more to come.
Quiet Sound - "Quiet Sound" has an evocative and haunting melody. Bill's mother participated in a silent WSP demonstration in February, 1965 when the bombings of North Vietnam began. Since then the silence has declined.
And Freedom Too - "And Freedom Too is a Groove In. President Eisenhower, in 1953, confided: "Now let us assume we lost Indo China. If Indo China goes, several things happen right away. The peninsula, the last bit of land hanging on down there, would scarcely be defensible. The tin and tungsten that we so greatly value from that area would cease coming. So when the U.S. votes $400,000,000 to help that war, we are not voting a giveaway program. We are voting for the cheapest way that we can prevent the occurence of something that would be of a most terrible significance to the U.S.A., our security, our power and ability to get certain things we need from the riches of the Indo-Chinese territory and from South-East Asia."
Exploitation Blues - "Exploitation Blues" is what they have all over the world where the U.S. exports freedom and justice, and an equal opportunity to be napalmed in your yard.
Hey, Hey LBJ - "Hey, Hey, L.B.J." is an offspring of the chant punctuating the April 15th Spring Mobilization in New York and San Francisco
How Far We Have Come - Sums up 200 years of American history.