Freda Payne: Bring the Boys Home (1971)

 |   |  1 min read

Freda Payne: Bring the Boys Home (1971)

Freda Payne is best known for her hit Band of Gold of 1970, but here during the Vietnam war era she's speaking for all those with loved ones abroad.

This was a very direct message at a time when the boys were coming home in body bags, and a disporoprtionately high number were black soldiers. People got the message and this went to number 12 on the Billboard charts.

Freda later went into disco and was never shy of using her looks to get attention (see here). 

Over 58,000 US troops killed in Vietnam. The year with greatest losses was '68 with 16,500 dead. In '71 when this song came out casualties and deaths were declining rapidly (6000 in '70, around 2500 in '71) but the average age of soldier killed in Vietnam was 20.

They were boys.

This comes from a remarkable box set -- Next Stop is Vietnam; The War on Record 1961-2008 -- which Elsewhere has drawn from previously (see here).war

This massive, 13 CD set of songs, radio spots and recordings made in-country by soldiers brings together all the most well known songs about the war in Vietnam alongside many dozens of schmaltzy, obscure, seldom-heard and strange records which had the war/soldiers/patriotism/dissent as their theme.

With an accompanying book (not a booklet) of photos, potted history and notes on the songs and artists this is one magnificent album-sized monster of a history lesson pulled together by Bear Family Records out of Germany (here).

If you want to hear my 35 minute radio interview in which I play a number of Vietnam-era songs and speak about travel there and so on it is here.

For more oddities, one-offs or songs with an interesting backstory check the massive back-catalogue at From the Vaults.

.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Howard Morrison Quartet: Rioting in Wellington/Mori the Hori (1962)

Howard Morrison Quartet: Rioting in Wellington/Mori the Hori (1962)

Recorded live in concert in 1962, these two tracks by the enormously popular Howard Morrison Quartet show just how little things have changed in New Zealand, and how much they have. The... > Read more

The Box Tops: I Met Her in Church (1968)

The Box Tops: I Met Her in Church (1968)

In later years Alex Chilton -- who died in March 2010 -- was mostly known for the legendary but short-lived Seventies power-pop band Big Star which was hugely influential across the generations and... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Elsewhere Art . . . Ringo Starr

Elsewhere Art . . . Ringo Starr

It seems harmless fun to make up things like Beatles albums or post parodies of academic articles about pop music. But every now and again people take something at Absurd Elsewhere seriously,... > Read more

SPOTLIGHT ON SYDNEY ART GALLERIES (2009): Small and sometimes imperfectly formed

SPOTLIGHT ON SYDNEY ART GALLERIES (2009): Small and sometimes imperfectly formed

For a quiet suburban street in Waterloo where small workshops sit alongside brick homes and the occasional eatery, there are a few meters of Sydney’s Danks Street fascinating for their art --... > Read more