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"Imagine" by John Lennon
"Revolution" by the Beatles
"Blowing in the Wind by Bob Dylan
"What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye
"Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver
"Where Have All the Flowers Gone" by Pete Seeger
"Paint it Black" by the Rolling Stones
Most of the above songs have nothing to do with the Vietnam war however. "Leaving on a Jet Plane" is simply a ballad, "Paint it Black" is about a girls funeral, "Revolution" and "Imagine" are not specifically about war, "Where Have all the Flowers Gone" was written before the Vietnam War period. Yeah I am a kill joy.
Perhaps the definition of "war produced" music is too narrow. I would proffer that WWI having so demolished the idea of war's glory that the martial music lost it adore. Instead the music of WWII was about relationships, music that emphasized being back home in short music to take the mind away, if only for a moment to the carnage that was taking place. If that is the standard by which popular music during the war is to be judged, I would say that WWII produced some of the greatest music in, at least in the American catalogue, many timeless classics. And even when it came to "martial" music" the tunes of the 1940's were of a decidedly different character.
I think this clip, whether it is historically accurate or not of Jimmy Stewart complaining about having to play John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever" and then going on to substitute his version of John Handy's the "St Louis Blues March" typifies what I am talking about.
If we're going to tighten up the requirements for the songs to be those produced by the actual war, as in George Cohan's "Over There", then we'll have to strike "Dixie" from the list and perhaps "Battle Hymn of the Republic".
As noted, "Dixie" was written by a northerner, but what wasn't noted was that it was written in 1856, five years before the war.
The lyrics to "Battle Hymn of the Republic" was written by Julie Ward Howe in 1861, but its music was shared with the Civil War song "John Brown's Body" and the original tune was from a campfire spiritual written by William Steffe in 1856.That same tune made it's way into at least one other war-inspired song, "Blood on the Risers", sung by American Paratroopers in WW2; the song was used in HBO's "Band of Brothers".
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