The Vietnam War: "Goodnight Saigon"

Introduction

First, I just have to say - man! It has been a LONG time since I last listened to this song! :)

Okay, now that I got that out of the way.....

Ironically, this was probably the first song I knew I would write about on this blog. Billy Joel is my all-time favorite singer, and when I realized that one of his songs would fit my blog theme, there was really no question that I would do a post about it. This is a beautiful, emotional song about the Vietnam War, and I think there's a lot for us to get out of listening to it.

Context

As you already know, this song is about the Vietnam War, and it was actually released in the early '80s. In the song, Joel mentions Parris Island a couple of times, so I decided to look it up and see exactly what/where it was. Turns out, it's a marine training place in South Carolina.

There are also two quotes I found from songfacts.com that I think are really meaningful and helpful to understanding the song:

"Saigon is a city in Vietnam where major combat operations took place during the Vietnam war. Joel wrote the song as a tribute to many of his friends who had served in the war."

"Phil Ramone, who produced this song, said: 'We never thought it would be a hit, but we knew it meant a lot to Billy Joel and to the people we lost in Vietnam. Then later, when he does it once in a while in a show, the place just comes apart. I think that happens a lot that we don't think something will be as powerful and it turns out that it does come out powerful.'"

It is definitely a powerful song. Keeping these things in mind, here's the video:

Commentary

There are a few things that really stick out to me from listening to this song. The first is the contrast between when the soldiers started out and when they left Vietnam. The lines "We met as soulmates on Parris Island; we left as inmates from an asylum" show the mental effect the war had on them. Then Joel sings, a little regretfully, "And we were so gung-ho to lay down our lives." What happened to them? Another haunting line later on explains: "They left their childhood on every acre."

Another thing I think this song does a really good job at is showing us the day-to-day, real life of the soldiers. We see how the spent their time - "and played our Doors tapes." We see the difficult things they had to do - "and shot on sight." We also see the companionship of the soldiers and how they really banded together. You can hear it from the first line of the song, but it really jumps out at you as Joel belts out, "And we would all go down together...." They also remember individual names, showing how each person was important ("Remember Charlie, remember Baker"). These soldiers only had each other - they "had no home front." They became a family.

I don't think Joel was trying to make a political statement with this song, whatever his personal feelings were about the war. He points out, "And who was wrong? And who was right? It didn't matter in the thick of the fight." I think he was simply trying to celebrate the brave men who sacrificed so much for America.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_anti-war_songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjzjhl-QztE
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=7694
http://www.mcrdpi.usmc.mil/
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=Parris+Island&cp=5&qe=UGFycmk&qesig=K3buac4GfetnQ_Ai2_p-bw&pkc=AFgZ2tnOdgc77KW6OyuZhT7vyFWcyswXMYik3gfMrBCshFlcBoMNtUSLha4Czw-dE-knAyzZv_Zag-DRD32cTIu1W7NAYiDfRA&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&aq=0&aqi=&aql=&oq=Parri&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=1888dea5ef986e52&biw=1024&bih=453