Hair During The Vietnam War

Throughout history, music has been influenced by the events and politics during a specific era, for instance, the Vietnam War. One of the most notorious wars the United States has been involved in was the Vietnam War, which spanned from the early 1960s to around 1973. However, the United States started to deploy U.S regular combat units beginning in 1965, in which was can say the “official start date” of the war began for the United States and their citizens. During American involvement in the Vietnam War, a large portion of the population was opposed to U.S. involvement in South Vietnam. The American public turned against the war in 1967 and by 1970, two-thirds of Americans believed that the government had made the wrong decision by sending

Hair challenged many norms of 1968 Western society and caused controversy when it was first staged. The Act I finale ended with the performers standing nude before the audience, that and the show was filled with the desecration of the American flag and used obscene language. Many of the controversies, including the anti-war theme attracted threats and violence in the show’s earlier years and forced legal action of occur, two of the cases reaching the Supreme Court. However, the reception of Hair upon its Broadway premiere was mainly positive, with a few exceptions. When it premiered, a New York Times journalist stated in a review "What is so likable about Hair...? I think it is simply that it is so likable. So new, so fresh, and so unassuming, even in its pretensions." The musical was even nominated for Grammy awards and Tony awards in 1968 and 1969. In my opinion, Hair deserved every positive review it had received because of its brave depiction of the counterculture and anti-war movements which was a very prominent population in this era and would have never been depicted if it wasn’t for this rock

The song uses a unique mixture of battlefield sound effects such as guns firing and trumpet fanfares. These military-like sound effects really accentuate the meaning of the song and really gets the song’s message across, as it is a draft and war protest song and one of the most underrated songs performed by The Byrds. This song is so powerful because it is simple and short, but really depicts the horrors of what the men in Vietnam experience. The last stanza of the song is “Today was the day for action/Leave my bed to kill instead/Why should it happen?” These lines in the song are in my opinion the most important because the solider is asking himself why his killing should even happen because he assumingly doesn’t see a reason for