What are the best Vietnam era songs?

Subject: RE: What are the best Vietnam era songs?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Feb 26 - 09:51 AM

Jack, chances are none of us can contribute anything about the music portraying the Vietnamese view of that war. And they had a much longer time to oppose that war in general - perhaps you should look to France and see how they viewed the end of their time managing that former colony. Maybe there are songs by Vietnamese in French?

The songs you heard were not the songs I heard; you had the wrong radio stations on if all you heard were easy listening crooners who masked the turmoil. It was up to you to see what else was playing. My cohort in high school was during the era when they would graduate, and if they were 18, could be drafted. I wasn't listening to Perry Como.

Subject: RE: What are the best Vietnam era songs?
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 10 Feb 26 - 10:12 AM

I didn't listen to his music but Perry could sure rock a cardigan.
Here's one from that era that needs reviving in these times Get Together , again by the Youngbloods.

Subject: RE: What are the best Vietnam era songs?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Feb 26 - 03:25 PM

I don't see any reason to presume that the entire Anglosphere is that ignorant about Vietnamese culture. Douglas Lilburn found a Vietnamese song recording to use in his electronic piece "Poem in Time of War" around 1970. I had Vietnamese friends in Auckland a bit before that. New Zealand Communists like Rewi Alley visited Vietnam during the war and reported back. I have CDs of Vietnamese classical music and a Vietnamese flutemaker is a Facebook friend. I know somebody with a Vietnamese partner in a three-months-in-the-year relationship. A Vietnamese novel about the war was a UK best seller. It's not like it's totally isolated from the West or ever was.

In terms of political effectiveness, the distractions of American middlebrow culture did far more to keep the war going than any oppositional songs did to stop it. Phil Ochs was politically insignificant compared to Frank Sinatra.

Subject: RE: What are the best Vietnam era songs?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 10 Feb 26 - 03:34 PM

Try it with a four function calculator and a calendar to see how much one set of personal consumer preferences really matter to “history.”

There was more than one “Vietnam War” in Western pop culture. If one served in The Republic of Vietnam it's 1955-1975. “In all other cases...” that would be August, 1964 through May, 1975.

On the 'other' side of the so-called Cold War, protest songs were (are) a capital crime. So no surprise, a dearth of North Vietnamese, Soviet, Mainland Chinese, Cuban &c A&R. Not that it matters.

For the other side, one of the most jarring aspects of coming back to “The World” was how completely it chose to ignore the whole affair altogether. To wit:

1964-1975, Billboard Hot 100 Year End, top 3-
1964: I Want to Hold Your Hand; She Loves You; Hello; Dolly!
1965: Wooly Bully; I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch; (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
1966: California Dreamin; 96 Tears; What Becomes of the Brokenhearted;
1967: To Sir With Love; The Letter; Ode to Billie Joe
1968: Hey Jude; Love is Blue; Honey
1969: Sugar, Sugar; Aquarius/Let the Sunshine; I Can't Get Next to You
1970: Bridge Over Troubled Water; (They Long to Be) Close to You; American Woman
1971: Joy to the World; Maggie May/Reason to Believe; It's Too Late/I Feel the Earth Move
1972: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face; Alone Again (Naturally); American Pie
1973: Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree; Bad, Bad Leroy Brown; Killing Me Softly with His Song
1974: The Way We Were; Seasons in the Sun; Love's Theme
1975: Love Will Keep Us Together; Rhinestone Cowboy; Philadelphia Freedom

Note:
1966: The Ballad of the Green Berets @#10
1970: War@#4

As you were. Carry on.

Subject: RE: What are the best Vietnam era songs?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 26 - 03:43 PM

Jack Campin, search Vietnamese boat people.

KÝ ?C THUY?N NHÂN / bài g?c

Memories of the Boat People
Author: Mai Th?o Thi H?nh
Performed by: Suno Vi?t

Then fifty years later,
the children have grown up and the parents have grown old,
but the memories of a bygone era,
have never faded into oblivion,
the day father left the country, the day mother left her homeland,
drifting on small boats, drifting…

the East Sea raged, homeland far away,
crossing the vast ocean to find a way to live,
carrying with faith and hope,
for a land of freedom…
the East Sea raged, homeland far away,
crossing the vast ocean to find a way to live,
carrying with faith and hope,
for a prosperous and peaceful future.

Life today, with so many new things,
I was born into peace and prosperity,
don't forget your grandparents, don't forget your parents,
who overcame dangers, storms and tempests, so that I could live…

The East Sea is turbulent, my homeland is far away,
crossing the vast ocean to find a way to live,
carrying faith and hope,
for a land of freedom, prosperity, and peace.

Don't forget, my dear, don't forget,
don't forget that our parents sacrificed,
so that I could be born.

Memories of the Boat People

--

A vietnamese, who was my age, came up to me in a cafe
one time. He said that things got pretty bad after we left.

^paperback