'Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town' - Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
'Ruby' tells the story of a man "whose legs are bent and paralyzed," a Vietnam veteran who returns home from a "crazy Asian war" to find his wife no longer has any feelings for him. A number of artists had recorded the track before Kenny Rogers and his band made it an international hit in 1969.
Inspired by the Vietnam War, 'War Pigs' speaks about man's desire to kill and destroy, and the fear of conscription. It's performed by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and taken from the album 'Paranoid.'
'Oliver's Army' - Elvis Costello and the Attractions
Lyrically inspired by the Troubles in Northern Island, 'Oliver's Army' was released as a single from the album 'Armed Forces'. The song references boys from the Thames, Mersey, and the Tyne—soldiers from various regions in England now patrolling the streets of Belfast. The title "Oliver" refers to English Parliamentarian leader Oliver Cromwell, who personally led the English forces which subjugated Ireland in 1649.
To promote 'Pipes of Peace,' Paul McCartney portrayed a British and a German soldier in a video that recreated the famously poignant moment when troops from both sides met up in No Man's Land and exchanged photos of their loved ones while other soldiers fraternized and played football during the 1914 Christmas truce. The track appears on his 1983 album of the same name.
After watching a 1982 television documentary called 'Vietnam Requiem,' British musician Paul Hardcastle was inspired to write '19.' The title comes from the documentary's narrative that the average age of an American combat soldier in the war was 19 years old. The single, released in 1985, was a worldwide hit.
A clever play on words where instead of describing an orange flavored drink, 'Orange Crush' instead refers to the chemical defoliant Agent Orange used by US forces during the Vietnam War. It was released in 1988 as a single from R.E.M.'s sixth studio album, 'Green.'
Jim Morrison was apparently inspired to write the lyrics to this song after visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. The Doors front man was already voicing concern at how the Vietnam War was being presented in the living rooms of ordinary people, and the way the conflict was being portrayed in the American media. 'The Unknown Soldier' appears on the band's 1968 album 'Waiting for the Sun.'
Written by Roger Waters, 'Corporal Clegg' tells the story of a shell-shocked British soldier who loses his leg in the Second World War. The song is autobiographical—the man in the song is Waters' father! The track appears on 1968's 'A Saucerful of Secrets,' and is the first mention of conflict in a Pink Floyd song.
'Spanish Bombs' deals with the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the devastation visited upon the nation that led to a dictatorship by the Nationalist General Francisco Franco. The song was written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones and appears on the seminal 1979 Clash album 'London Calling.'
Elton John takes us back to the American Civil War with 1970's 'My Father's Gun,' which tells the story of a young Confederate whose father has just been killed. After burying him, the grief-stricken conscript takes up his old man's gun and goes off to rejoin the fighting, and by doing so inherits the cause his pa was fighting for. The song is on the 'Tumbleweed Connection' album.
Joan Baez was a well-known voice of protest during the 1960s. With 'Saigon Bride'—originally written as a poem by Nina Duscheck, and set to music by Baez—the songstress laments the war in Vietnam by asking how many dead men will it take before hostilities cease, and "how many children must we kill/Before we make the waves stand still?" The track appears on her 1967 album, 'Joan.'
Wistfully delivered by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush, 'Army Dreamers' is sung from the perspective of a mother whose son has just been killed in a war. It's presumed the theater of conflict is Northern Ireland, though the province is never specifically mentioned. Instead, the lyrics suggest the fatality took place during military maneuvers. The single is taken from the 1980 album 'Never for Ever.'
This anti-war movement anthem from the album 'Willy and the Poor Boys' was written in 1969 by CCR front man John Fogerty after the wedding of David Eisenhower (grandson of former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower) and Julie Nixon (daughter of Richard Nixon). Fogerty's message was about elitism and how the wealthy and privileged were able to dodge the draft while other "unfortunate sons" were shipped off to Vietnam.
'Draft Morning' is a song written in 1967 by David Crosby while he was still a member of The Byrds. It deals with the horrors of Vietnam and serves as protest against the conscription of men into the military during the conflict. The track appears on the band's 1969 album 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers,' though by then the group's five-piece lineup had been reduced to three.
'Harry Patch (In Memory Of)' is a tribute to supercentenarian Harry Patch, the last surviving combat soldier of the First World War from any country to have fought in the trenches. He died in 2009, aged 111. Released in 2009 by English rock band Radiohead, the track features Thom Yorke's vocals and a haunting strings arrangement.
Controversial German Neue Deutsche Härte band Rammstein recorded 'Deutschland' in 2019. It's written by Till Lindemann and explores his homeland's often dark and violent history, from fierce Germanic tribes and the First and Second World Wars, to the Red Army Faction and modern-day rioting.
A track taken from his 1970 album 'War and Peace,' 'War' became Edwin Starr's signature song and served as a powerful Motown statement against the conflict in Vietnam. It held the no. 1 position on the Billboard Pop Singles chart for three weeks.
'Stop the Cavalry' is a anti-war song that became an unexpected 1980 Christmas hit for English musician Jona Lewie. It's themed around the trenches during the First World War, but the lyrics later reference nuclear fallout, as tensions between the West and the Eastern Bloc were particularly fraught during the time.
