vietnam_songs

The Music That Won the War The Lentils Part of the Cambridge, Mass. coffeehouse folk scene in the early 1960s, Barry Keith and Rodney LeGrange always felt slightly out of place amidst the earnest young fellow travelers who met in dingy basements to strum acoustic guitars and sing Pete Seeger songs. Considered pariahs after their 1963 song "States' Rights Are Being Abrogated Talking Blues," the duo eventually found more supportive ears on U.S. military bases. Touring extensively in South Vietnam from 1965 through 1969, they delighted crowds of GIs with such hits as "Hanoi Hannah is a Mean-Hearted Woman," "Talking Eugene McCarthy Appeasement Blues," "I Stand With Johnson," and "Susie Q." Although they were popular with American soldiers, the group split up after being lightly fragged by their bass player. The Young Americans for Freedom Blues and Mixer Revue Showband Founded in 1960, Young Americans for Freedom was a collegiate organization devoted to upholding the ideals of anticommunism and wearing ties to the beach. As part of its effort to draw in new members, the group sponsored a popular rock and roll showband, which played the hits of the day in the fashion of such perennial masters of showmanship as Arthur Godfrey and Lawrence Welk. Particularly popular with audiences were the YAFettes, three young Swarthmore coeds who sang backing vocals and wore form-fitting dresses imprinted with the words, "Petting for Eisenhower." In her memoir "Never Put Out for a Pinko," former YAFette Maryanne Elizabeth "Mumfy" Burgess remembered those days of whirlwind tours and appearances on the Art Linkletter show as among the happiest of her life. Sadly, the group split amidst tremendous acrimony in 1968 in a dispute that pitted libertarians against conservatives, with the former wanting to pursue a more "psychedelic" direction, and the latter insisting on doing nothing but barbershop. Tennis Lee Guthance While beat groups and acid rock combos unstintingly supported the Viet Cong, country music largely remained a bastion of pro-American sentiment (with a few exceptions, like George Jones' anomalous 1969 hit "Look Out, Running Dogs, Here Comes Ho!"). Few were more consistently supportive of conservative ideals than Guthance, a former drifter who learned to play guitar while serving a sentence in California's Folsom Prison for robbing a fire hydrant. Not concerned with matters of foreign policy per se, Guthance's songs were sharp darts flung at the American counterculture. In hits like 1965's "I'd Rather Kiss a Steer Than Grow a Beard" and 1967's "You Look Like a Girl (Are You a Girl? Are You?)," he delighted audiences by skewering hippies. In 1971, he was given a special citation by President Richard Nixon for his anti-drug song, "Marihuana Is Not a Party," although years later, Guthance admitted he was continuously stoned from April 1964 to late August, 1987. The Zippo Raiders Young Americans all over the country were inspired to start bands in the 1960s, and their counterparts in the military were no different. Among the standout groups started in the armed forces were the Zippo Raiders, five infantrymen who fought extensively on "in-country" tours in the late 1960s. They formed a band in a Bangkok brothel and went on numerous USO tours, playing variations on popular songs, for instance, changing the Beatles' "All You Need is Love" to "All You Need Is Commie Corpses" and the Rolling Stones' "Stupid Girl" to "All You Need is Commie Corpses." Later, the band broke up after its drummer and organist were tried for participation in the My Lai massacre. The Byrds Although remembered today for hits like "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Eight Miles High," and their role in popularizing country rock, the Byrds were once a staunchy pro-war group, playing Goldwater rallies on the backs of flatbed trucks during the 1964 campaign. In an issue of teen pop magazine These Hurts Hit! published in late 1965, guitarist David Crosby said his favorite food was cheeseburgers and his fondest wish was to strangle the last Communist with the entrails of the last liberal. To this day, founder Roger McGuinn often fills the space between songs at concerts with rants about how Vietnam could have been won if the Democrat Congress hadn't tied the hands of the military.