By 1960 the number of undergraduates in colleges and universities had doubled in twenty years to 3.6 million young men and women. The soldiers drafted to fight in Vietnam were born during the massive baby boom that began in 1946, following the victory of World War II. The anti-war movement, and the anti-war music, that ran parallel to the increasingly large numbers of young men drafted into the Army was also rooted in broader changes that were taking place in America. By early 1968 there were 550,000 combat troops in Vietnam and rising casualties with no end in sight. Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy’s vice president and successor, escalated American involvement in Vietnam throughout 19. By the time of his assassination in November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel stationed in Vietnam. After being elected president in 1960, Kennedy increased military aid. The United States saw the anti-communist Viet Diem and his regime as a “proving ground for Democracy,” in the words of then US senator from Massachusetts John F. While there were patriotic songs that did very well, most notably Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler’s million-selling number-one hit “Ballad of the Green Berets” in 1966 and Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” in 1969, the vast majority of Vietnam War songs fell into the category of anti- rather than pro-war songs.Īmerican involvement in Vietnam had evolved through the United States’ support of French colonial rule after World War II. Given this era’s unique historical circumstances, the musical soundscape to the Vietnam War was strikingly different from the music that accompanied World War II. This was particularly true of the war in Vietnam. Composers such as Marc Blitzstein and Samuel Barber were enlisted to write upbeat songs for the Office of War Information during World War II.īut wars also create their unique antagonists who transform their empathy, concern, anger, and other emotions into poetry, prose, or in our time, popular music. In 1918, in the middle of World War I, Irving Berlin gave us “God Bless America,” considered by many to be the unofficial anthem of the United States. “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Lincoln’s favorite song during the Civil War, was countered by “Dixie” in the Confederate States.

During the Revolutionary War, “Yankee Doodle” and many other songs set to reels and dances were sung to keep spirits alive during dark hours. Music has always kept company with American wars.

Old songs 1960 1970