What's Going On
Party chatter, a sax that sighs, and Gaye asking the question Motown begged him not to ask.
Party chatter, a sax that sighs, and Gaye asking the question Motown begged him not to ask.

Take four, April 1982, a Yamaha synth from Roy Bittan, and the most misheard chorus in American rock.

Twenty minutes of writing, and Fogerty had the sound of every draft board sending someone else's son.

Hal David wrote it about a woman whose man is in Vietnam; Bacharach thought the finished take too rushed.

A B-side to "Travelin' Band" that outgrew it, Fogerty's unhurried strum and a question about Vietnam still hanging.

Two years after Lennon and Ono's billboards declared the war over, Spector cut it with a Harlem children's choir.

Stipe's father served in Vietnam, and the title nods to Agent Orange; eight weeks atop Modern Rock.

Cantrell's song for his father, a Vietnam veteran nicknamed Rooster who appears in Pellington's video; number seven on Mainstream Rock.

Three generations of moonshine, Vietnam and the drug trade, named an official Tennessee state song in 2023.