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Freda Payne performs in a live taping for The Ed Sullivan Show, 1970.

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In 1971, jazzy-disco singer Freda Payne released a very controversial anti-war ballad titled "Bring The Boys Home". This song was written during the Vietnam War as an emotional reminder of how destructive battle is. The Vietnam War was an era of division throughout America, with the draft having been a historical moment for the country. The draft required all healthy males ages 18 to 26 to be shipped out overseas as soldiers to fight in Vietnam. This resulted in the destruction of many families and a terrible loss of life. The conflict brought to light a newfound protest for peace. The message of peace over war resonated with many civilians and American citizens, and one of the main ways this sentiment was spread was through song. Freda Payne's ballad is an example of this, with her poignant lyrics serving as a way to push for peace in a time of violence.

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Freda Payne’s ballad is so emotionally charged it still resonates with listeners today. Her descriptions of the losses that violence brings are immortal, and can bring anyone to empathize with the grief and sorrows of America during the Vietnam War. She details the effects of the loss of loved ones in some of her opening lyrics, singing, “Fathers are pleading// Lovers are all alone// Mothers are praying// Send our sons back home”. These lines are great examples of Payne’s emotional writing. At the time that this was written, many of the people who would listen to her song could relate to these lyrics, and it was a good way to bring to light the harsh realities of what was going on to those who couldn’t. Creating imagery not only of the effects of war on the soldiers but also on their grieving loved ones helps the idea of how terrible violence is for everyone really resonate. On top of this, The Vietnam War was heavily tied into the Cold War. The fear of Communism was very heavily felt throughout America, and was a big reason for the United States’ involvement with Vietnam in the first place. Freda Payne uses an appeal to logic in her lyrics to help illustrate to American citizens that this fear was unfounded, something that we now know in hindsight. In order to drive the case home about the war being an unnecessary evil, Payne had to first speak to the frightened audience of America in that decade. She had to use her song as a way not only to create empathy, but to create the understanding that the fear of communism was not a very realistic concern for the nation. The lyrics, “You marched them away// Yes, you did now// On ships and planes// To the senseless war// Facing death in vain”, symbolize how soldiers were being sent to die over the irrational fear of communism. They question the validity of the war and ask if it should really be happening at all. Using phrases like “senseless war” and “death in vain” show that Payne was ahead of her time for thinking about the Vietnam War in this way, and uses these thoughts to appeal to the logical thinking of her audiences.

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Young soldier holds baby in Vietnam, date unknown.

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One thing that makes the lyrics in Freda Payne's "Bring The Boys Home" so riveting is her social commentary on the dehumanizing of soldiers. The song’s title and main chorus uses the term “boys” to refer to the soldiers fighting in the Vietnam War, which helps make them seem more like people instead of war machines. It also speaks to a dark truth of the Vietnam War: many of the soldiers fighting were very young, and some were just teenagers when they were drafted overseas. Payne’s subtle inclusion of this fact helps to further show the listener how terrible the war really was. The soldiers fighting for the country were more than just soldiers, they were people, and so many of them were boys who were senselessly killed when they still had their entire lives ahead of them. As well as to convey the awful reality of war, Freda Payne’s lyrics serve as a call for action to the listener. They purposefully elicit emotional responses that help push her anti-war motif, and one example of this is her lyric of “have mercy” in the final bridge of the song. This line could be interpreted as Payne begging the listener to help her cause, but it also could be interpreted as a soldier’s personal plea. When viewed like this, the idea of the fighting soldier is given a voice, making him feel more real and more human, and the line becomes much more impactful.

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President Reagan commemorates an unknown soldier who was killed in Vietnam. 

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One key thing that Freda Payne illustrates in her ballad is the issues that come from glorifying war. The chorus of “Bring the Boys Home” features the repetition of the phrase “bring the boys home, bring ‘em back alive”. These lyrics seem surface level at first glance, but actually symbolize Payne’s thoughts on what was important in the brutality of war. Often in war, a soldier would die, but his death was glorified in a way. His body would be brought back to his loved ones, and he would sometimes be posthumously decorated for his actions in war, or even for dying. Sometimes, like in the case of the Unknown Soldier (shown above), a man's body could not even be identified after the brutality war, and he would have to be buried in an unmarked grave. It was considered a heroic thing to die for one’s nation. This point of view often separated the idea of a soldier to the man, or boy, that he was. It made death by warfare seem positive in a way, to lessen the blow of how destructive war really is. Frida Payne’s specific phrasing of “Bring ‘em home alive” after asking for the soldiers to be brought home shows that she is advocating for peace, not for decorated death. The lyrics symbolize and represent the way she feels about how soldiers should not be glorified in death, but rather valued as human beings, which was a common idea amongst anti-war advocates in this era.

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The song "Bring the Boys Home" by Freda Payne.

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The influential ballad by Freda Payne in its original sound.

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An article to be read for learning more about the Vietnam War and the draft.

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Vietnam War, (1954-75), a protracted conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. Called the "American War" in Vietnam (or, in full, the "War Against the Americans to Save the Nation"), the war was also part of a larger regional conflict ( see Indochina wars) and a manifestation of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies.

At the heart of the conflict was the desire of North Vietnam, which had defeated the French colonial administration of Vietnam in 1954, to unify the entire country under a single communist regime modeled after those of the Soviet Union and China. The South Vietnamese government, on the other hand, fought to preserve a Vietnam more closely aligned with the West. U.S. military advisers, present in small numbers throughout the 1950s, were introduced on a large scale beginning in 1961, and active combat units were introduced in 1965. By 1969 more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were stationed in Vietnam. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union and China poured weapons, supplies, and advisers into the North, which in turn provided support, political direction, and regular combat troops for the campaign in the South. The costs and casualties of the growing war proved too much for the United States to bear, and U.S. combat units were withdrawn by 1973. In 1975 South Vietnam fell to a full-scale invasion by the North.

The human costs of the long conflict were harsh for all involved. Not until 1995 did Vietnam release its official estimate of war dead: as many as 2 million civilians on both sides and some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters. The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war. In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war. Over the following years, additions to the list have brought the total past 58,200. (At least 100 names on the memorial are those of servicemen who were actually Canadian citizens.) Among other countries that fought for South Vietnam on a smaller scale, South Korea suffered more than 4,000 dead, Thailand about 350, Australia more than 500, and New Zealand some three dozen.

Vietnam emerged from the war as a potent military power within Southeast Asia, but its agriculture, business, and industry were disrupted, large parts of its countryside were scarred by bombs and defoliation and laced with land mines, and its cities and towns were heavily damaged. A mass exodus in 1975 of people loyal to the South Vietnamese cause was followed by another wave in 1978 of " boat people," refugees fleeing the economic restructuring imposed by the communist regime. Meanwhile, the United States, its military demoralized and its civilian electorate deeply divided, began a process of coming to terms with defeat in what had been its longest and most controversial war. The two countries finally resumed formal diplomatic relations in 1995.

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Vietnam War | Facts, Summary, Years, Timeline, Casualties, Combatants, & Facts

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Vietnam War (1954-75), conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. It was part of a larger regional conflict as well as a manifestation of the Cold War.

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An article to read to learn more about what life was like for soldiers in Vietnam firsthand.

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Resilience: U.S. Soldiers in Vietnam - Army Heritage Center Foundation

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On May 7th, 1954, the French surrendered the Valley of Dien Bien Phu to Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh, bringing…