War By Edwin Starr: Song Analysis

The Vietnam war heightened social, political, and economic tensions in America because there wasn’t a clear reason for fighting in it. In World War Two, the reason was clear. A evil dictator was trying to take control over the world, so the solution was to stop him. In Vietnam America tried to stop a political idea from spreading by attacking it. As said in Document E, “It is like sending a lion to half an epidemic of jungle rot”. While in WW2 people were happy to fight and work for their country, with half of the population contributing in some way to the war effort, according to Document F people drafted would purposely fail the tests to get out of fighting. Document B, the song “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die”, the singer makes fun of how

The War not only affected those in Vietnam, but those still at home in America. Americans had split into two groups, known as the hawks and the doves. The hawks were people who supported the war and wanted the country to be victorious in its fight with Communism. The doves were the people that disagreed with the war. These were traditionally students, and people of the younger generation. Many veterans when they would return home, would join in these mass protests. One popular protest, which took place at Kent State University, resulted in 9 wounded people with 4 dead. The police at Kent State took action against a mass protest by opening fire. This is the evil that is created through war. Without the Vietnam war, there is no protest at Kent State. Without the Vietnam war, the college kid’s lives are spared. Without the Vietnam War, thousands of lives could have been saved. Neil Young said it best in his song Ohio. Ohio discussed the brutality of war but mainly the police brutality against the kids at Kent State. Vietnam was a tragic stain in American history.

2. Is the intent of this song to promote or protest the Vietnam War? Why?

As the United States became more involved in the Vietnam War, the American society became fired up, not supporting the war, and questioned the United States foreign plan. The American people spread their messages in many ways from protest songs to protests. Protest songs were used as propaganda to send negative messages about the US and the war. One of the iconic protests songs at the time came out in 1965 by Country Joe and the Fish, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die” (Doc B). This song gave off the message to America that there are other things then just enlisting in the war and that there is a lot of money to be made in America, while still being supportive, like helping supply the Army with the equipment needed to fight (Doc B). This 1965

The Vietnam War was one of the most hated wars in United States history, for the primary reasons that we did not win and the draft destroyed countless men, physically and mentally. The end result of the war did not justify the means and this made a lot of people very upset. This war was also the most televised war, showing incredibly gruesome, uncensored images on the evening news at dinner time. The political protest for the

The Vietnam war was one of the most disliked wars that forced many young men to report for duty and fight for their country. The war called for men all around the US to head out to war to fight in Vietnam. This war was very disliked by US citizens all over the state. When the Vietnam soldiers returned back to their country after about a year of fighting everyone was giving them shame and despising them. Adding on to that these soldiers didn’t even want to go to war they were forced to. Even though these soldiers risked their lives for our country, the vietnam soldiers were treated unfairly when they returned home from war.

For example, “ I feel like I'm fixing to die” a song by Country Joe and The Fish, 1965, was one of the popular protest songs. The song was an anti-war song that drew people's attention to the point that the war was a bad idea. The author includes antiwar lyrics like “Whoopee! We’re all gonna die” and “Be the first one on your block, to have your boy come home in a box.” people hearing lyrics like that made them rethink their kids going into war as it seemed like they were going just to die and come home in boxes.

The Vietnam war was an absolutely brutal time in American history. The war lasted for the majority of the 1960s and left many young men dead. The short story “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien and the film Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam give us just a glance into the war by giving using the three themes of fear, pressures, and blame/guilt to embody the concept of war and how it absolutely changes a person. War not only destroys countries, but it destroys people.

The war was different than any other America had fought in the past because many Americans didn’t even know why we were fighting in the war and many people didn’t support the decision for America to get involved in another nation’s problems. Also because this was a war many people died and these soldiers didn’t even know what they were dying for. This war caused a lot of damage to families and community in both nation and people started to take notice. In a song by the Rolling Stones the songs says “War, children, it's just a shot away It's just a shot away”(Doc J) To any American,no matter white or black, hearing theses lyrics come from a world renowned band would really it home and make you not like the war. As well as songs being writing about the war there were also painting demstrontig the dislikement for the war. In document E you see a picture of a flower and text stating “war is not healthy for our children and other living things”. This kind of photos made American think about the war a question it. No matter white,black.mexican or any other races all Americans can agree on that the most important thing to this nation and to them is the betterment of their

Initially, wars involving the United States were typically well supported by the people, but the abhorrence towards the military 's actions in Vietnam lead musical artists to stand in opposition to the war, encouraging the anti-war movement.

Every war will have those who support the war and those who are against the war. In 1965, those who were against the Vietnam War made their views known by many forms of protesting such as forming organizations, rallying, and anti-war protest music. Anti-war protest music was an opportunity to put people’s perspectives into song to hopefully spread their message. Buffy Sainte-Marie wrote the song “Universal Soldier” in 1962 and her message was that “Universal Soldier is about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all” (Boulanger). The song “Universal Soldier” was used as a protest anthem during the Vietnam War and attempts to untangle one of the paradoxes of life that war never leads to peace through

What Americans were unaware of was the additional violence happening in Laos. Music has always been an effective way for one to release their anger and frustration and many Americans were angry and frustrated with the government for allowing their men to die in Vietnam. One of their methods of portraying their irritation to the government were through musical protests. The largest musical anti-war movement was in 1969, 4 years before the end of the Secret War and 6 years before the end of the Vietnam War at Woodstock (Candaele, n.d.). The audience consisted of approximately 500 000 Americans and 33 performers. Among the performers were worldwide renowned artists like Jimi Hendrix and The Who (Harrison, 2009). The use of the performers would have stirred up support from their other fans; similar to celebrity endorsement advertising techniques. Moreover, wars are expensive to fund and “in recent years, Republicans have been characterized by two principal positions: They like starting wars and don’t like paying for them” (Bartlett, 2009). In 1968, Republican president Nixon imposed a 10% surtax to pay for the Vietnam War. The tax was largely paid by the poor and middle class. The Vietnam War cost “$25 billion per year and disillusionment was beginning to reach greater section of the taxpaying public…adding fuel to the fire of the anti-war movement” (History, n.d.). On top of that there was an extra “$1.5 billion per annum” (McCoy, 1996) going

Mick Jagger states in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine when asked about his songs released about rape, war, murder and addiction, “ Well, it's a very rough, very violent era. The Vietnam War. Violence on the screens, pillage, and burning. And Vietnam was not war as we knew it in the conventional sense. It was a real nasty war, and people didn't like it. People objected, and people didn't want to fight it.” (Mick Jagger, Mick Jagger Remembers, Rolling Stone) Around the time Gimme Shelter was written and released things such as the Tet Offensive, My Lai Massacre, and the bombing of Cambodia made many people question what the true motives were behind foreign involvement in Vietnam. Anti-War protests became prominent and even radicalized as a credibility gap between the federal

War, a brutal, barbaric and animalistic concept that contradicts the essence of being human. War by Edwin Starr, and Happy Christmas by John Lennon are songs promoting the anti-war movement. Released in 1970 and 1972, whilst the war of Vietnam continues, both of these song depicts tone and mood through the themes love, peace and unity. Both artists has incorporated literary devices within the lyrics to convey the message and resonate it towards the audience.

The Vietnam war was a major event to America because it had major conflicts with personal opinions of the people of 1960’s. In this era, plenty of people were rethinking on why they were fighting in a war that they did not need to be fighting. and joined the anti-war movement. This can explicitly be seen from the type of music that people were listening to at the time. The song that I am going to be analyzing is “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones. This song resonated with the persona of the people for multiple reasons because it was a song that was about losing a loved one and dealing with the sadness.