11 notable songs about the Vietnam War

War, like love, has long inspired artists and musicians. That is especially true of the songs written in response to the Vietnam War during the countercultural movements of the 1960s and ’70s. The songs released in that time — and in the years that followed — sought to highlight the experiences of those affected by combat and in a period of societal upheaval.

This month marks 50 years since the fall of Saigon. Below, explore 11 songs from the 1960s through the 2010s about the conflict, from artists around the world. You can listen to the tracks on our Spotify playlist, here.

Based on a poem sent to Joan Baez by Nina Duschek, “Saigon Bride” is emblematic of ’60s folk music and tells the story of a solider who goes to war, leaving his wife behind. “How many dead men will it take / To build a dike that will not break?” she sings in her soft vibrato. “How many children must we kill / Before we make the waves stand still?”

Văn Dung’s ”Đường Trường Sơn xe anh qua” (“The Truong Son Road Your Vehicles Passed Through”) is written about the Ho Chi Minh trail, an expansive system of paths and trails used by North Vietnam to bring troops and supplies into South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos during the war. Dung wrote the song in 1968, when he arrived at the Khe Sanh front, about female youth volunteers. There are many wonderful covers of this one, too, including a theatrical rendition by Trọng Tấn.

It may very well be the first song that comes to mind when the Vietnam War is brought up. Creedence Clearwater Revival's three-time platinum “Fortunate Son” is a benchmark by which to compare the efficacy of all other protest anthems. Frontman John Fogerty wrote this one to highlight what he viewed as an innate hypocrisy: American leaders perpetuating war while protecting themselves from making the same sacrifices they asked of the public. “Yeah-yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes,” he sings. “Hoo, they send you down to war, Lord.”

Martha Reeves & the Vandellas’ “I Should Be Proud” is conflicted. Soul singer Reeves embodies a narrator who learns her love has been killed in combat during the Vietnam War. Instead of being filled with pride for his sacrifice, she grieves. “But I don’t want no silver star,” she sings. “Just the good man they took from me.”

The Vietnamese singer-songwriter Trịnh Công Sơn has a rich catalog featuring a myriad of anti-war songs; selecting just one is a challenge. But “Ca Dao Mẹ” (“A Mother’s Lullaby”) is a clear standout. It details a mother’s sacrifice during wartime. In the last verse, the mother sings a lullaby to her child and also the young country. Vietnamese singer Khánh Ly does a lovely cover of it, too.

On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on unarmed college students during a protest at Kent State University. Four students were killed, and nine others were injured. Not all of those hurt or killed were involved in the demonstration, which opposed the U.S. bombing of neutral Cambodia during the Vietnam War. Neil Young was sitting on a porch with David Crosby when he saw images of the horrific event in a magazine and decided to write a song about it. “What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?” he sang.

There isn’t an emotion Marvin Gaye couldn't perfectly articulate with his rich tone; the classic “What’s Going On” is no exception. The song was originally inspired by an act of police brutality in 1969 known as “Bloody Thursday”; when it got to Gaye, it was imbued with experiences gleaned from his brother, a Vietnam veteran. The message, of course, is timeless.

There isn’t a lot of overlap with Christmas songs and protest music, but John Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir certainly knew how to get their message across with “Happy Xmas (War Is Over).” It's a smart choice — combining the sweetness of a holiday tune with a message of unity — delivered with guitar, piano, chimes and, most effective of all, a children's choir.

Formed the year punk broke — that’s 1977, two years after the end of the Vietnam War — English post-punk band Television Personalities are a cult favorite for their cheeky, ramshackle, clever pop songs, led by frontman Dan Treacy’s undeniable schoolboy charm. The final track on their 1984 album “The Painted Word,” however, tells a different story. “Back to Vietnam” describes an insomniac man experiencing wartime post-traumatic stress disorder, replete with the sounds of gunshots and screams.

German thrash metal band Sodom’s 1989 album “Agent Orange” put their extreme music on the map, even breaking into the Top 40 in their native country. Beyond its ferocious pleasures, the album centers on lead vocalist and principal songwriter Tom Angelripper’s fascination with the Vietnam War, leading with the opening title track. “Operation Ranch Hand / Spray down the death,” he releases a throaty scream.

Dedicated fans of the Boss know “The Wall” is one Bruce Springsteen held onto for a while; he performed it at a 2002 benefit long before its official release on his 2014 album “High Hopes.” The song was inspired by a trip he took to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. “This black stone and these hard tears,” he sings in the first verse, “are all I got left now of you.”

For more coverage of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War’s end, visit https://apnews.com/hub/vietnam-war.

FILE - Singer John Fogerty performs at the "Sounds of Change," the Grammy foundation's 10th annual music preservation project, Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2007, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

FILE - Musicians Stephen Stills, left, Neil Young, background center, Graham Nash, seated, and David Crosby pose for a photo at the Pierre Hotel, Oct. 13, 1999, in New York. (AP Photo/Jim Cooper, File)

FILE - Folk singer Joan Baez performs at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 14, 1967. (AP Photo/ John Rous, File)

(AP Illustration / Peter Hamlin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)