Song of the Day 11/11: Eric Burdon and the Animals, “Sky Pilot”
In a way, this 1968 anti-war song was evidence that public opinion had turned against American involvement in Vietnam. Eric Burdon and the Animals didn’t exactly have a peace-loving hippie image, so it wasn’t a good sign for warmongers that even a bunch of British yobs who weren’t in any danger of being drafted were inveighing against it.
Though more than 536,000 American troops were deployed to Southeast Asia in 1968, up from 184,000 in 1965, there were fewer anti-war songs than there had been during the Great Folk Music Scare just a few years earlier. This wasn’t just any anti-war song, though. The tale of an Army chaplain with a troubled conscience was over 7 minutes long so, like “American Pie” a few years later, it was released on two sides of a vinyl 45. Radio stations usually played a shortened version that only included side one, so it wasn’t until a friend bought the single that I got to hear the B-side’s battle sounds and illicitly-recorded British Army bagpipes. It was a complex production for the times.
Happy Veterans Day.
Mactalla Mor, a Celtic group from NYC, recorded a version of “Sky Pilot” a few years ago. They combined a solo pipe version of “Amazing Grace,” segueing in to “Sky Pilot,” “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” and “Stairway to Heaven.” The whole mashup is called “Stairway to Grace.” I don’t know if it works or not – I am getting used to it. It’s available on YouTube.
The entire version of “Sky Pilot,” without having to flip the 45, is available on a couple of Animals compilations. It’s better to hear the song straight through.
It’s also on their 1968 album “The Twain Shall Meet,” but that’s not how 12-year-old me first heard the song.
Here’s “Stairway to Grace.” Thanks for the tip. Tempo is a little fast, but I like it. Rock ‘n’ roll bagpipes, can you dig it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV3H-JNwTI0
If you enjoy Rock ‘n’ roll bagpipes, the Red Hot Chilli Pipers might be your “bag.” Their videos are all over YouTube.
I would listen to this song a lot in the 80s in conjunction with an old cassette re-recording of the tapes my brother Eddie had sent to the family from Vietnam (’67, ’68) telling us little kids (I was 7-8 ) to be good and try hard in school with the sound of bombing in the background. Eddie was all of 17 years old at the time and would have been finishing up his stint at Brandywine HS if he hadn’t enlisted in the Marine Corps. He went missing July 1968 .
https://www.pownetwork.org/bios/w/w036.htm
Nancy, I know from your comments through the years that you still feel your big brother’s loss tremendously. Thank you so much for sharing this glimpse of him today. Peace.