Revisiting the Song “Galveston”

Run time: 04:49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfYJKpLX1xw   Posted on YouTube: October 13, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 10, 2007 By DU Member: Ustram Views on DU: 1619

 
The Anti-War song “Galveston” is as appropriate today as when it was written in 1968 during the height of the Vietnam War. The song is about an American soldier who pined for his hometown and his girlfriend. Glen Campbell popularized the song with an almost marching military beat that I dislike. Jimmy Webb recently performed it himself, in the way he intended it when he wrote the song, slow and reflective. The statue in the video is a memorial to the estimated 10,000 people lost in the hurricane of 1900 that swept through the beaches of Galveston. The devastating hurricane still holds the record as the United States' deadliest natural disaster. This reflective video reminds me of the consequences of natural disasters, plus man-made disasters brought on by the American government in places like Vietnam and Iraq.

...standing there, looking out to sea
And is she waiting there for me
On the beach where we used to run

Galveston, O Galveston..."

(Jimmy Webb)

A perfect -- perfect-- antiwar song and a masterpiece by the composer.

Thank you for this post.

many on the boards today will revisit it.

There may be some who don't know this song and it's my wish that they give it a chance.

of the song. It must have frustrated the writer to not have heard it all these years the way he intended. Although I do like Glen Campbell's version, slightly cheesy though it may be--my dad was a big Glen Campbell fan, and "Galveston" and "Wichita Lineman" always take me back to my childhood.