Hendrix and Vietnam

The Relationship Between The Vietnam War And Music Of The U.S.A.

Case Study: Jimi Hendrix

This essay looks at musician Jimi Hendrix's musical reactions to the American involvement in the Vietnam War. This research has taken place as part of a larger piece of work examining the links between the Vietnam War and Music in the U.S.A.

US troops became officially involved in the war from 1965 and didn't withdraw until 1973 following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. During this time 58,226 US troops were killed and 153,303 were wounded. Public opinion in the U.S. was split by the war; many saw it as a vital stand against communism whilst others saw it as an immoral political campaign. As the war dragged on and the numbers of casualties continued to rise the anti-war movement grew rapidly.

Although Hendrix's stardom only lasted for four years before his tragic death in 1970 he was still one of the most successful and influential musicians of the era. The author feels that Jimi Hendrix makes an interesting case study for this topic, as the general pre-conception appears to be one of an anti-war hero at the forefront of the 'flower-power' counter-culture movement of the sixties. However in reality Hendrix is someone who harboured varied and contrasting ideals. He certainly supported the peace movement and hippie culture but at the same time sympathised with extremists such as Black Nationalist organisation the Black Panthers.

Before his rise to fame Hendrix was actually a Paratrooper and had he not been discharged a few years prior to the war would have certainly been sent to Vietnam. This is a fact to be considered when interpreting any of his work relating to the war; "he had been on both sides of the fence, experiencing attitudes to the war as diametrically opposed to one another as could be." (Pernu, Wayne) In fact a friend of Hendrix, Eric Burdon, has said that during his time in England Hendrix often talked of the need to suppress Chinese Communism before it took over the world. This backs up claims that Hendrix, at least at the start of the campaign, was pro-war.

Whether or not Hendrix believed in the politics of the war he certainly sympathised strongly with the soldiers caught up in the violence. He displays this empathy within the songs 'Machine Gun' and 'Isabella,' both of which appear to demonstrate the pacifist within Hendrix.

'Isabella' is a song about a soldier fighting in Vietnam but not wanting too; "I'm gonna fight this war against Nature, my Heart". The lyrics convey sympathy for the soldiers and don't condemn them but rather the inherent violence of war.

'Machine Gun' is a jam-based song in which Hendrix uses a memorable Leslie-speaker based guitar riff to emulate the sound of a machine gun. As the lyrics below show Hendrix held a view shared by many Americans of the era that it was unfair that innocent men from both the US and Vietnam had been caught up in a war.

"Machine gun?Tearin' my body all apart,

Evil man make me kill you,

Evil man make you kill me,

Even though were only families apart.

Well, I pick up my axe and fight like a farmer,

You know what I mean?

Hey, and your bullets keep knockin' me down..."

Of all Hendrix's music perhaps the piece to become most synonymous with the Vietnam War is his rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the Woodstock music festival of 1969. Hendrix was the headlining act but ended up being rescheduled from Sunday night to early Monday morning by which point only around 30,000 of the original 500,000 audience members remained. That morning Hendrix performed his interpretation of the United States National Anthem, which received much criticism from conservatives who felt the song had been desecrated. However the performance has since become an "emblematic signature of the ideals of the late 1960's" (www.wikipedia.org) and has since been described by the rock critic of the New York Post as "the single greatest moment of the 1960s".

The following quote from fellow guitarist Vernon Reid concisely sums up his view on Hendrix with regard to Woodstock and Vietnam:

"No one has done anything like 'The Star Spangled Banner'