Songs of Vietnam

Although some of the selected Vietnam songs may seem "simple" like Maya Lin's memorial design, there is much more thought and devotion rooted in them than I realized before. I have heard many of the selected songs before, but now that I have a deeper understanding of the time period during the war, they are more than just a catchy tune.
Fortunate Son and Born in the USA were well known to me as a child but I overlooked the idea that they are about your average man who is pushed into the war. In John Fogerty's Fortunate Son, he speaks of the American government who wanted more and more men to make sacrifices to go into the war. But yet the "senator's son" is able to escape such pressures. The song may seem "simple" because the chorus is repetitive, but it effectively shows how deeply angry Fogerty was about the men who did not enter the war because of their social class. Bruce Springsteen speaks of a similar situation in his song, "Born in the USA." He came from a small town and eventually "they put a rifle in his hands" and sent him to Vietnam. Much like Fogerty, I think he was trying to show the unfairness the average man felt for being forced into a war he didn't understand.
Arlo Gurthrie embellishes his story in his song Alice's Restaurant much like O'Brien did in his stories throughout The Thing They Carried. Alro attempts to show how ridiculous the draft had been. He explains how he couldn't go to war because he littered and the draft found that immoral and cruel. But who said you have to have morals to go fight in a war that is cruel and unjust itself. Ultimately, the artist's of these songs show their disapproval over different aspects of the war and they connected to middle class Americans by portraying themselves as one of them.