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Drew Wendel
MUSC 0065
11 December 2015
Media and Music in the Vietnam War
As the United States became involved in the Vietnam War, a large social protest
movement began growing amongst the counterculture of the 1960s. The young counterculture
grew more resentful of the aging government and its conservative policies as it continued to send
troops into Vietnam to fight communism. Ultimately, most Americans resented participation of
the United States in the increasingly costly conflict. This paper will examine how protesters
turned to the media and music as a way to express their disagreement of the involvement of the
United States in the Vietnam War, leading to a plethora of songs created during the 1960s and
70s that were outspoken about the disapproval of U.S. troops being sent to fight North Vietnam,
which helped lead the government to call for peace. It will also focus on how Woodstock
provides evidence of the impact of rock music on the protest movement itself, and how the songs
“I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-To-Die-Rag”, “Fortunate Son”, and “Give Peace a Chance” are three
examples of the various songs produced during the protest movement that targeted different
aspects of the controversial war.
The involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War was due to the Cold War
between the United States and the Soviet Union during the late 1940s into the 1990s, ending
shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 (Lind).
After World War II, the United States had a fear of communism taking over various parts of the
world and ultimately making its way into North America itself. Thus, the U.S. developed a
policy of containment, in which it would prevent communism from spreading further than it
already had post World War II. Vietnam was a French colony until communist leader Ho Chi
Minh came into power in northern Vietnam in the late 1940s and declared Vietnam as
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independent. Communist powers such as the Soviet Union and China recognized Vietnamese
independence, and the French therefore turned to its allies for support so that it could keep
Vietnam as a colony. The United States, for fear of communism spreading into Vietnam, agreed
to aid the French in its fight by providing supplies such as guns and other weapons, but initially
no troops (Lind). North Vietnam began mobilizing even further during the fifties, creating the
Viet Cong army that launched a series of guerilla warfare attacks against those who were anticommunist in the South.
In 1960, president John F. Kennedy was elected to office as a nominee who was hard on
communism. When South Vietnam’s anti-communist dictator Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated
in 1963, the Kennedy administration became weary. After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Vice
President Johnson took over the presidency as someone who was anti-communist. The first
major incident that led to the United States sending troops into Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin
incident in 1964, where the Vietnamese allegedly shot at a U.S. ship, the USS Maddox. This
conflict as well as the increasing gains of the Viet Cong in South Vietnam led Johnson to send
thousands of troops to Vietnam to fight the communist North (Lind). The soldiers sent to
Vietnam struggled to fight the guerrilla warfare attacks the North launched, and the increasing
numbers of U.S. troops being sent to Vietnam as well as the increasing death toll made many
Americans uneasy.
In the late 1960s, the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam reached a new high. Johnson
launched his series of bombing strikes in an attempt to wipe out the communists in North
Vietnam. Operation Rolling Thunder, the first of the airstrikes that lasted from 1965-1968, was
detrimental to both Vietnam and the United States, killing thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Tensions reached an all time high when the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army launched
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their Tet Offensive in January of 1968. The United States army under General Westmoreland
and the South Vietnamese were quick to react to the massive attacks on various non-communist
cities. While the U.S. and the non-communists in the South were fairly successful in their push
against the Tet Offensive, the cost of American and Vietnamese lives was far too high. In
America, weariness was rising and anti-war protests were becoming larger. People began
questioning why the United States was waging war against struggling Vietnamese citizens and
killing innocent civilians (Lind). Eventually, the public’s strong disapproval in America of U.S.
troops fighting in Vietnam led president Nixon, who replaced president Johnson in 1969 and had
an equally strong anti-communist policy, to begin peace talks with the North Vietnamese. Nixon
hoped that the South Vietnamese would be able to keep their independence from the communist
North but the North invaded the South once all U.S. troops were removed from Vietnam in 1973,
and the South fell under the rule of Ho Chi Minh who put it under a system of Marxist-Leninist
totalitarianism (Lind).
One of the main reasons that Americans developed such strong anti-war feelings was
because of the large media coverage the Vietnam War attracted. The Vietnam War was “the first
conflict to have been globally televised, which led to anti-war protests in the US and around the
world. Governments [learned] lessons from allowing such free access to conflict zones” (M.S.S.
1795). Any American could see events from the war on TV, including clips of battle and the
deaths of troops overseas. Americans were disturbed by the images and videos they saw of mass
destruction. Scholar Melvin Small acknowledges that “as the size of the anti-war movement and
the number of critical newspapers and magazine increased, so too did the anti-war attitudes of
the public” (186). With the public growing in solidarity against the war in Vietnam, they began
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working together to figure out how to convince president Johnson and Nixon that the United
States involvement in Vietnam should come to an end. People began to realize that:
any media coverage of dissidence is recognized by officials as important, not only
because it might lead to the contagion of others but also because they fear that the
‘enemy’ does not understand the American system and sometimes misinterprets the
comments of one senator or the activities of 100,000 marchers in New York as reflecting
general lack of support for the president’s policies… Thus, when the media cover the
movement or otherwise serve as a platform for protest, they undoubtedly affect foreign
policy indirectly since the American government constructs its own policies convinced
that the enemy is influenced by what it picks up on nightly television newscasts. (Small
190).
The most active participants in the anti-war movement were college students and members of the
counterculture, and “while college students were not the only ones to protest, student activism
played a key role in bringing anti-war ideas to the broader public” (Kindig). They decided to use
their knowledge of the media’s impact on the government and organize a series of protests and
demonstrations as a way to not only grasp the attention of the media but to influence the
presidency by making the president fear how foreign countries would view the instability within
the United States, influencing the government to bring the war to an end.
One of the first anti-war protests that gathered a large group of people occurred in 1965
and was organized by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SDS “took its inspiration
from the civil rights movement organizing in the South, and many of its activists were involved
with voter registration and other civil rights campaigns... SDS’s all-purpose progressivism
helped them spread on campuses around the country, and by 1966, they had begun to focus
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nationally on anti-war efforts” (Kindig). SDS organized a series of teach-ins during the spring of
1965, which received a lot of media coverage and put college students in the position as
forerunners of the anti-war movement (Small 189). SDS also led a series of campaigns about
resisting the draft and travelled to various high schools to engage in anti-draft work and aid
students that would be facing the draft soon after graduation (Kindig).
Furthermore, in October of 1967, over 50,000 people gathered around the Pentagon to
protest the United States sending over 400,000 troops to Vietnam, following many other
demonstrations against the draft. With the number of protesters increasing, the government grew
weary and “feared for their safety” (Small 190). During one of the various protests that occurred
in Washington, Lyndon Johnson was described as “sitting up in his living quarters, the windows
shut, the shades drawn, still able to hear the raucous chants from the protesters across the street,
‘Hey, Hey, LBJ, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?’...And it pained him” (Small 191). As
the years carried on and troops continued to be sent to Vietnam, the protests only grew larger. On
October 15, 1969, millions of people across the United States participated in protests for peace,
known as the U.S. Vietnam Moratorium. In Washington D.C. alone, over 250,000 people
gathered to protest and participate in demonstrations, marking what “is believed to have been the
largest demonstration in US history” (“1969”). The protests for peace even made their way
overseas to U.S. embassies in Europe (“1969”).
In May of 1970, student strikes reached an all time high after a series of detrimental
events. President Nixon decided to extend the war and invade Cambodia, which led to protests
on college campuses. At Kent State, as the intensity of the protest heightened, the National
Guard was ordered to contain the protest, which led to the death of two students on May 4, 1970.
This led to outrage amongst students at the university and across the U.S., causing over 6,000
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students and others to march together in a rally on the campus and across the freeway. Due to the
power in numbers, “the campus, the university district, capitol hill, and parts of downtown
Seattle felt the effects of this extraordinary mobilization” (Kindig). Additionally, all of the largescale protests over the five years “captured the attention of the decision makers and their
intelligence services” (Small 191). Eventually, President Nixon called for peace after tensions
continued to rise in the United States and relentless protesters refused to give up their fight.
Without the protesters questioning the point of the Vietnam War and thus leading mass marches
on the capital and various other parts of the United States, the war in Vietnam may have
continued for longer and the death toll could have continued to climb.
At almost all of the anti-war protests there was music, and this music that was produced
during the Vietnam era had a great impact on the advancement of the protest movement and its
success in ending the war. Not only did the marches “[energize] antiwar citizens” and make them
feel that “their side was powerful”, they also had their “entertainment component, a component
guaranteed to draw in the crowds in large population areas” (Small 192). Music has the ability to
unite groups of people, and this was exemplified during the anti-war protests, seeing as “group
singing during marches, demonstrations, and eventually in GI coffee houses became one of the
antiwar movement’s important rituals of social bonding” (James 123). There were various
demonstrations during the anti-war movement that relied solely on music to initiate peace. On
September 24, 1965, there was the “Sing-In For Peace” held at Carnegie Hall, comprised of “60
performers and attended by 5,000 people… the concert lasted in two shifts until 3 am, after
which over 360 people marched to Washington Square, where they continued to sing until dawn”
(James 123). Additionally, there was a Vietnam Songbook created that contained anti-war songs
from various parts of the world, and was handed out to people as they gathered for
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demonstrations to encourage participation and unity while singing (James 123). People viewed
music as a way to express their unrest and disagreement with the government, and they often
used music to make their protests heard by everyone.
David James argues that “rock and roll and the Vietnam War were born at the same time”
and that “the impact of the political and the musical crises upon each other has incoming and
outgoing international ramifications for the world-historical fate of capitalism itself” (123). The
music that was produced during the Vietnam era was so powerful that it helped to reverse a
governmental policy, and it questioned the capitalist authority in power. While folk was still a
prominent genre during the sixties, other artists turned to rock and roll as a way to express their
feelings on the war in Vietnam.
An example of the culmination of rock music being created during the sixties as a result
of anti-war feelings is Woodstock, the massive rock festival known as “three days of peace and
music” that took place on August 15-17, 1969. The creators faced many obstacles in the months
leading up to the festival, including regulations that caused the creators to change the location of
the festival three times before settling in Bethel, New York. Once the festival was finally up and
running, “somewhere between 250,000 to 750,000 concertgoers came to Bethel seeking a
countercultural utopia” (Helfrich 229). The overwhelming amount of people in attendance
created many unforeseen issues- those of traffic jams, lack of food supplies, and lack of space to
support all the attendees. While the festival was not explicitly a protest against the Vietnam War,
all artists and concertgoers were part of the new counterculture that was taking shape against the
more conservative society in power, and all harnessed anti-war feelings. Woodstock “paralleled
the American cultural wars of the 1960s in general” that “divided politicians, economic elites,
families, and neighbors” (Helfrich 240). Woodstock exemplifies the younger generation using
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music as a way to rise in solidarity against authority, seeing as concertgoers spent days listening
to music that often spoke against the Vietnam War and other societal issues. The artists and the
audience came together in a rock festival that created a lasting legacy. There were many songs
during the Vietnam War era that created lasting legacies, too.
Country Joe and the Fish wrote the song “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-To-Die-Rag” in 1967,
which was a folk turned rock song about the Vietnam war, and was one of the first and most
popular songs sung during the anti-war protests (James 132). The lyrics of the song side with the
GIs fighting in the war, as exemplified with “One, two, three, what are we fighting for?/ Don’t
ask me I don’t give a damn/ Next stop is Vietnam/ And it’s five, six, seven open up the pearly
gates/ Well there ain’t no time to wonder why/ Whoopee, we’re gonna die”. These lyrics show
that even the soldiers did not understand why they were fighting overseas in Vietnam, but they
had no choice in the matter. Furthermore, the song makes sarcastic remarks such as “Well, come
on generals, let’s move fast;/ Your big chance has come at last/ Now you can go out and get
those reds/ ‘Cause the only good commie is the one that’s dead/ And you know that peace can
only be won/ When we’ve blown ‘em all to kingdom come” which call out supporters of the war.
These lyrics explain how some justified the war as an effort to contain communism and therefore
it was okay to kill innocent and struggling civilians in Vietnam because it would ultimately lead
to peace. Additionally, the calling out of the numbers in the lyrics created a participatory
response because everyone knew when to join in and sing, as demonstrated by the massive
crowd singing along to the song at Woodstock, which provided an immense platform for
Country Joe and the Fish to spread their message about the war. The crowd found solace in the
song dripping with sarcasm and it “received anthemic status” as the war ensued (Pratt).
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“Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Revival was an equally popular rock song
written about the Vietnam War. Differing from Country Joe and the Fish’s song that tackled the
war as a whole, “ ‘Fortunate Son’ took on class bias in the draft” (Pratt). During the war, there
were “draft deferments” given to college students, and “once drafted, Americans with higher
levels of education were often given military office jobs” (“The Antiwar Movement”).
“Fortunate Son” speaks on this issue with its lyrics “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/ Some folks are born, silver spoon in
hand.” The song was meant to empathize with the soldiers fighting in the war who were not able
to avoid the draft like those of the upper class who could afford a higher education or who had
families with power (the “senator’s son”), and the anger over this class bias is exemplified by the
edgy tone of the guitar in the song as well as the raspy tone of Fogerty’s voice. In 2014, Bruce
Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and Zac Brown sang “Fortunate Son” at “The Concert for Valor” in
Washington D.C. on Veteran’s Day. Many people were uncomfortable with the performance
because they believed the song to be an overall anti-war protest song, and thus anti-veterans. The
song was indeed intended as a protest song, but it was written in support of soldiers fighting a
war they should not have had to fight, it was not against them (Grow).
As the war continued, John Lennon wrote “Give Peace a Chance”, which became an
anthem for the peace movement. John Lennon himself was an activist during the Vietnam War.
He and his wife Yoko Ono held “Bed-Ins for Peace”, in which they utilized the attention they
received from the paparazzi to host anti-war protests. During a bed-in in Montreal in 1969,
Lennon wrote the song “Give Peace a Chance” with the explanation that, “What we’re really
doing is sending out a message to the world, mainly to the youth…or anybody, really, that’s
interested in protesting for peace or protesting against any forms of violence” (Whitehead). The
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chorus of people singing the refrain of the song on the recording encourages participatory action,
and the stomps and claps in the recording makes “Give Peace a Chance” the perfect song to sing
while marching, which made it easy for Pete Seeger to get hundreds of thousands of people to
sing its refrain during the U.S. Vietnam Moratorium in Washington D.C. (Whitehead).
“I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-to-Die-Rag”, “Fortunate Son”, and “Give Peace a Chance” are
only three of the many successful protest songs produced during the Vietnam War era. Each of
these songs had lyrics that targeted the Vietnam War and questioned its purpose, or questioned
the inequality within the draft, or called for peace. The songs were successful protest songs
because the lyrics directly challenged authority, and their audience was passionate about the
social protest movement the songs were intended for.
The Vietnam War and the United States’ involvement was highly controversial, and the
media coverage as well as the protest music during the war were successful in making
Americans question why the United States was involved, eventually leading the government to
call for peace. The media showed the realities of what was going on in Vietnam and encouraged
people to join in marches and rallies held across the nation. At these protests, songs were sung
that questioned the validity of the war and demanded peace. Woodstock was a culmination of
these songs and inspired those of the counterculture to continue to fight the regime sending
troops to Vietnam. The music during the Vietnam War era solidified the anti-war protest
movement because it expressed the feelings of the millions of Americans against the war, and
made it possible for those millions to come together in solidarity. Many of the songs are still
relevant today as the United States continues to fight in costly wars. The power of music comes
from its abilities to be stretched over decades and remain relevant, making music and its
universality timeless.
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Works Cited
Grow, Kory. “John Fogerty Addresses ‘Fortunate Son’ Concert for Valor Controversy.”
Rollingstone. Rolling Stone, 13 November 2014. Web. 16 November 2015.
Helfrich, Ronald. “ ‘What Can a Hippie Do to Contribute to Our Community?’ Culture Wars,
Moral Panics, and The Woodstock Festival.” New York History 91.3 (2010): 221-244.
Jstor. Web. 16 November 2015.
James, David. “The Vietnam War and American Music.” Social Text 23 (1989): 122-143. Jstor.
Web. 16 November 2015.
Kindig, Jessie. “Vietnam War: Student Activism.” depts.washington.edu. University of
Washington, 2008. Web. 16 November 2015.
Lind, Michael. “Why We Went to War in Vietnam.” Legion.org. The American Legion, 20
December 2012. Web. 16 November 2015.
M.S.S. “Vietnam War and US: Haunting Legacy.” Economic and Political Weekly 36.1 (2001):
1793-1795. Jstor. Web. 16 November 2015.
Pratt, Ray. “Vietnam War.” The Grove Dictionary of American Music 2 (2013).
Oxfordreference. Web. 16 November 2015.
Small, Melvin. “Influencing the Decision Makers: The Vietnam Experience.” Journal of Peace
Research 24.2 (1987): 185-198. Jstor. Web. 16 November 2015.
“The Antiwar Movement.” Ushistory. Independence Hall Association, 2015. Web. 16 November
2015.
Whitehead, John. “John Lennon: The Last Great Anti-War Activist.” Rutherford.org. The
Rutherford Institute, 8 October 2012. Web. 16 November 2015.
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“1969: Millions March in US Vietnam Moratorium.” News.bbc.co. BBC, n.d. Web. 16
November 2015.