lyrics and Korean war
Marc David Boucher
I am a student at UW-Milwaukee, doing a research paper on the
response to foreign policy decisions in country music lyrics. I would
like to focus on the Korean War, but Vietnam is a strong possibility
too. Unfortunately, I am not very familiar with country music from those
time periods, so I am asking for help.
Could someone please send me some song titles and artists who
wrote songs either for or against those wars? Better yet, some lyrics?
Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Marc Boucher e-mail dude...@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu
Dave Bedrich
from Houston (by an even more obscure singer, whose name escapes me!)
The best part is the way he says Korea: " My new career is in KO-REER "
!!!!
Mark Rubin
Antonio accordionist Santiago Jimenez, Sr. One of the tunes is "El Guerro en
Korea".
e-mail here if'n you'd care for a copy.
M.Rubin
aus/tex
Peter Shenkin
Moon Mullican's "Tokyo Boogie". It begins,
I had a seven day leave, didn't have no place to go,
Standing all alone in Tokyo...
It couldn't have been WWII, for an American soldier could certainly
not have spent his leave in Tokyo in that war. The song came out
around '53 (sorry, I don't have the precise date with me right now).
I guess it's possible that the singer could have been on peacetime
duty as part of the U.S. army occupying Japan, but somehow the
Korean War makes more sense to me.
-P.
--
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BILL ELLIS
generally addressed the Korean War:
L. W. [Lambert] and Harold [Tomlin] and the Carolina Neighbors, "The
Battle in Korea," Blue Ridge 204 (ca. 1952), reissued on Library of
Congress LBC 10: Folk Music in America Vol. 10 (Songs of War & History)
(1978).
Sonny Osborne, "A Brother in Korea," Gateway 3005 (1953), reissued on
Gateway 31389/90: The Early Recordings of Sonny Osborne 1952-1953,
Vol. 3 (n.d.)
Curly Seckler and the Foggy Mountain Boys, "A Purple Heart," Martha White
Radio Show transcription (1953), reissued on Radio Gems No. 1: Martha
White Biscuit Time 1953 9n.d.)
Jim Eanes and the Shenandoah Boys, "Missing in Action," Blue Ridge (unknown
release #) (1951), reissued on Rounder 1016: The Early Days of Blue Grass,
Vol. 4 (1978).
Any more?
BE
Peter Feldmann
>I have a 78 titled " My New Career is in Korea" on an obscure label
>from Houston (by an even more obscure singer, whose name escapes me!)
Check out Bill Monroe's "Rotation Blues"
_peter
----------------------------------------------------------
Peter Feldmann * IC Consultants
P.O. Box 902 * Santa Barbara CA 93102
----------------------------------------------------------
Dagaertner
didn't have arms in the sense of weapons].
Dave Gardner
olin
covered.
It is my understanding that Mel Tillis wrote "Don't Take Your Love To
Town," about the Korean War. Of course, it was a hit again during the
Vietnam war, and many considered the line "that crazy Asian war," to be
about Vietnam, but Mel wrote the song in the 50's.
--
Olin Murrell
Austin, TX
ol...@bga.com
BILL ELLIS
>
>It is my understanding that Mel Tillis wrote "Don't Take Your Love To
>Town," about the Korean War. Of course, it was a hit again during the
>Vietnam war, and many considered the line "that crazy Asian war," to be
>about Vietnam, but Mel wrote the song in the 50's.
>
"Missing in Action" for the fellow who started this string. "MIA" (for
those who don't know it) is about a GI who was left for dead in the snow
during the Chinese counterattack in Korea. He escapes, returns home, and
at once finds a photo of his wife and another man dressed in wedding
clothes. He realizes that she's taken "MIA" as "probably dead" and
remarried.
Gallantly, he slips out the door, resolved never to let her know that
he's really alive. (Kinda like Sommersby, only in reverse.) But the
song ends on an odd note: the MIA chooses the life of a "vagabond/
Because there was no one to welcome me home." Though impossibly noble,
there is an edge in the song: it looks ahead to the ongoing debate over
'Nam MIAs, whom lots of people were happy to write off as dead and go
to town as if nothing had happened.
It wouldn't have taken much to have Jim Eanes's character just hang around
for both of them with his assault weapon.
BE
olin
>In article <4es4ee$i...@giga.bga.com>, olin <ol...@bga.com> says:
>>
>>It is my understanding that Mel Tillis wrote "Don't Take Your Love To
>>Town," about the Korean War. Of course, it was a hit again during the
>>Vietnam war, and many considered the line "that crazy Asian war," to be
>>about Vietnam, but Mel wrote the song in the 50's.
>>
>That's interesting: I thought about "Ruby Don't Take" as I was transcribing
>"Missing in Action" for the fellow who started this string. "MIA" (for
>those who don't know it) is about a GI who was left for dead in the snow
>during the Chinese counterattack in Korea. He escapes, returns home, and
>at once finds a photo of his wife and another man dressed in wedding
>clothes. He realizes that she's taken "MIA" as "probably dead" and
>remarried.
>
of it. Good story song.
>Gallantly, he slips out the door, resolved never to let her know that
>he's really alive. (Kinda like Sommersby, only in reverse.) But the
>song ends on an odd note: the MIA chooses the life of a "vagabond/
>Because there was no one to welcome me home." Though impossibly noble,
>there is an edge in the song: it looks ahead to the ongoing debate over
>'Nam MIAs, whom lots of people were happy to write off as dead and go
>to town as if nothing had happened.
>
Oddly enough, most wars have stories such as this attached to them.
>It wouldn't have taken much to have Jim Eanes's character just hang around
>for both of them with his assault weapon.
>
As in Lyle Lovett's "LA County," only there he wasn't waiting around, and
it wasn't an "assault" weapon.
Paul M. Gifford
including the "Ballad of Lieutenant Calley," on the right-wing Rebel label.
This one, it seems to me, is a poem with a military-style drum rhythm and
possibly a steel guitar. Seems like all the ones identified as "country" were
pro-war and the anti-war ones were "folk."
Paul Gifford
olin
Korea war song lyrics, but two Vietnam "folk" songs stand out as neither
pro nor anti-war. One is one of mine that got pretty good airplay in the
DC area, called "The Wall," about a veteran who left a wedding ring at
the Memorial. Another is a song called "After The War," by Jon Ims, who
wrote "She's In Love With the Boy," and "Falling Out Of Love." It's about
a vet who finds a friend, with whom he'd lost contact, listed among the
war casualties at the Memorial.
Robert McCallum
Jean Shepard. He goes to Korea, she falls for another. A real
tear-jerker.
Mark Clark
have discussed these tunes but two that I always associated with
the Korean war are:
Mary Dear by Bill Clifton
Down Where the River Bends by ? (maybe John Duffy?).
If they are older than the Korean war, maybe someone will know of
their origins and fill me in.
- Mark
--
Mark Clark
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
70413...@compuserve.com
BILL ELLIS
<70413...@CompuServe.COM> says:
>
>... two that I always associated with the Korean war are:
>
>Mary Dear by Bill Clifton
>Down Where the River Bends by ? (maybe John Duffy?).
>
>If they are older than the Korean war, maybe someone will know of
>their origins and fill me in.
"Mary Dear" must be at least WW I because Charlie Poole and some other
performers did it in the '20s. (I assume this is the one where the soldier
comes back with the empty sleeve, and his war buddy, ever the tactful
one, assures him that "one arm will be enough to clasp her to you"--right?
But then she's asleep in a new-dug grave?)
"Down Where the River Bends" (the one where he promises to meet his girl
"under the same old sicky-more tree" if he comes back--right?) I have on a
60s-era recording by J. D. Crowe and the Southern Mountain Boys (the group he
had, as a professor of mine told me, before he started wearing sequins and
playing at the Holiday Inn). It features Red Allen and Doyle Lawson on
vocals. I don't recall if the LP gave credits, but I always assumed one of
these two had written it about 'Nam.
Could be wrong. Often am.
BE
Jon Weisberger
writes:
>In article <4f4949$o5l$1...@mhade.production.compuserve.com>, Mark Clark
><70413...@CompuServe.COM> says:
>>
>>... two that I always associated with the Korean war are:
>>
>>Mary Dear by Bill Clifton
>>Down Where the River Bends by ? (maybe John Duffy?).
>>
>>If they are older than the Korean war, maybe someone will know of
>>their origins and fill me in.
>
>"Mary Dear" must be at least WW I because Charlie Poole and some other
>performers did it in the '20s. (I assume this is the one where the
>soldier comes back with the empty sleeve, and his war buddy, ever the
>tactful one, assures him that "one arm will be enough to clasp her to
>you"--right?
That's the one Mr. Clifton recorded, all right. I also always figured
it, even without hearing earlier recordings, for a WWI song.
But then she's asleep in a new-dug grave?)
>
>"Down Where the River Bends" (the one where he promises to meet his
>girl "under the same old sicky-more tree" if he comes back--right?) I
>have on a 60s-era recording by J. D. Crowe and the Southern Mountain
>Boys (the group he had, as a professor of mine told me, before he
>started wearing sequins and playing at the Holiday Inn). It features
>Red Allen and Doyle Lawson on vocals.
Ah, that's the Kentucky, not Southern, Mountain Boys. The album is
"Bluegrass Holiday," originally on the Lemco label, which has yet to be
reissued on CD. The song, though, is older, as Red had recorded it
with the Kentuckians on the Melodeon label several years earlier. This
indicates to me it was probably either a Korean or generic war number,
as Vietnam was not prominent in the public consciousness at that time
(late 50s or early 60s). Red did, though, record a Korean War-era
number - "A Purple Heart" (Curly Seckler) - in the mid-60s, with the
chorus lyric changed from "they sent him to Korea" to "they sent him
off to Vietnam."
--
Jon Weisberger, Cincinnati jo...@ix.netcom.com
============================================================
"Any song I think that's worth singing is worth having
harmony." -- Charlie Louvin
============================================================
Ted Samsel
TR Fehrenbach's history of the Korean "po-lice action" ..THIS KIND OF WAR)
could get you courtmartialed. He'd play it on the baritone uke. It's
called THE BURP GUN BOOGIE and goes thusly...
A hundred thousand Chinks came through the pass,
the played the burpgun boogie on the Colonel's ass.
And so forth. Upper echelons thought it to be defeatist.
Any chunes from Bosnia (yet)?
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net *1996* Year of the Accordion~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Home of the brave, land of the free,
I don't want to be mistreated by no bourgoisie."
Huddie Ledbetter
Ted Samsel
This was also know as the BUG-OUT BOOGIE.
Mlwingate
Mark Wingate - Winston-Salem, NC
Mitchell Drumm
: Bill Monroe recorded Rotation Blues, credited to Lt. Stewart Powell
: Mark Wingate - Winston-Salem, NC
Fine fine song; also done by Elton Britt and Ken Marvin