Vietnam War Song Analysis

I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag by Country Joe McDonald is one of the best-remembered anti war songs of the time. It was an almost comedic and critical look at the war. He had spent most of the early 1960s serving in the navy and had a upfront look at military life and the war. “Come on mothers throughout the land, Pack your boys off to Vietnam. Come on fathers, don’t hesitate, Send your sons off before it’s too late.” Are some of the most memorable lyrics of all time. The song was brutally honest about the war and joe thought that it sent hapless men to their deaths.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son is one of my all time favorite songs. It starts off with a simple drum beat followed by one of the most powerful guitar lines in

history. It's a heavy twang that can send chills up your spine. The first lines are “Some folks are born made to wave the flag, Ooh, they're red, white and blue” meaning some people are born to serve their country. It then goes on to say “It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no” These lines are very anti-establishment, and to me it means that the only fortunate ones in the war were those that could get out of it by having relationships with the government. Fortune son is a strong passionate statement about all the completely unjust american deaths

Neil Young’s Ohio has been called the greatest protest record ever made, the song was made right after the National Guard fired upon a group of protesters at Kent State on May 4, 1970. The protest was invoked when President Nixon announced the need for 150,000 more soldiers and the invasion of cambodia. "Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, We're finally on our own. This summer I hear the drumming, Four dead in Ohio." The tin soldiers and Nixon coming make reference to the invasion of cambodia and Nixon's foreign policy, the line were finally on our own implied the freedom and independence that the students had just gotten, and the four dead in Ohio is the 4 students that were killed by guardsmen.

Born in the U.S.A by Bruce Springsteen, this single from the biggest selling album of 1985 was a song about a blue collar working man being forced against his will, and being made to go fight and kill people in vietnam. There is a very common belief that Born in the USA was a patriotic anthem but in reality it was anything but that. The song was in reality, a slap in the face to the United States government, it brought up issues like how we treat men in battle and the MIC (military industrial complex). It is anything but a patriotic anthem as so many believe, many politicians have used it as just that, when in reality it brought light on how the United States disregarded many american soldiers.