The Billy Joel Lyric Written From the Perspective of Vietnam Soldiers

For songwriters used to following their muses wherever they might lead, writing a song based on a topic requested by others can be a tricky ask. That goes double when the subject is as weighty as the experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War.

Billy Joel followed through on the request of a veterans group to write his 1982 song “Goodnight Saigon.” In so doing, he delivered one of the most haunting songs ever about the harrowing experience of a soldier in combat.

The Curtain Falls

While absolutely on top of the world in his professional life, Billy Joel couldn’t help but fall into a melancholy mood when putting together his 1982 album The Nylon Curtain. He was going through a difficult divorce from his first wife, which certainly played into it.

On top of that, like many of his generation, he was taking a look around at the country and world at large, and found himself concerned by what he was seeing. As a result, The Nylon Curtain came as close as Joel would ever come to being a current-events album.

In the case of “Goodnight Saigon,” he didn’t want the song to make any broad political points. Instead, Joel intended the song to detail what the U.S. soldiers in the conflict dealt with during their time “in country.” He spoke about his motivations to Howard Stern in 2014 (as reported by Songfacts):

“I wanted to do that for my friends who did go to ‘Nam. A lot of them came back from being in country and really had a hard time getting over it, and still to this day I think a lot of them are having a hard time. They were never really welcomed back, and whether you agreed with the war or not, these guys really took it on the chin. They went over there and they served, and they never really got their due.”

A Deep Dive into the Lyrics of “Goodnight Saigon”

Although Joel wasn’t a soldier himself, he spoke to Vietnam veterans to get the verisimilitude he wanted for the song. He begins by commenting on the vast differences in the conditions of these young men from when they first assembled to when they finally returned home (for those lucky enough to do so): We met as soul mates on Parris Island / We left as inmates from an asylum. Joel also references the fallen soldiers: We left in plastic as numbered corpses.

Beyond that, he focuses on the day to day of the soldier’s life. They cling to whatever distractions they can find, such as a visit from comedian Bob Hope, their music and their drugs (We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes), and most of all, their camaraderie: And we held on to each other, like brother to brother.

When it comes to actual combat, Joel mostly focuses on the terrifying moments right before the battle. In the final verse, he mentions the acuity of the forces they were fighting, which only heightens the concerns of the American soldiers engaging with them: They heard the hum of our motors, they counted the rotors / And waited for us to arrive. Those lines also subtly hint the men on the other side of the conflict were facing their own fears and terrors.

Joel keeps any moralizing out of the song, because the soldiers in the midst couldn’t really concern themselves with that anyway: And who was wrong, and who was right / It didn’t matter in the thick of the fight. The rousing chorus finds these brave men unifying to the last: And we would all go down together.

As wonderful as Joel’s ’70s albums that focused largely on matters of the heart were, The Nylon Curtain might be his finest achievement, if only because of how it proved he could write just as piercingly about the issues of the day. “Goodnight Saigon” is the emotional nucleus of that album, as he did a masterful job of honoring such a solemn request.

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