"He Ain't Heavy...He's My Brother"

[Taverner]

My mom, a semi-boomer, told me this song was about Vietnam. Carrying back a dead soldier...

True or not?

[darkstar]

1. I don't think so

I think they press on together through life's travails. I never got the sense of death from it. It's more communitarian. "His welfare is my concern...."

[datasuspect]

2. i think the best instantiation of this was in zoolander

where derek zoolander had this song as the theme music during his sojourn to the south New Jersey mining country.

[ronnykmarshall]

3. Susaye Greene of The Supremes SANGS this!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VYkvt9zMF0


It's not a video, but the audio.

I love this woman. I've met her and the first time I heard this ..... I cried my eyes out. Thinking of my brother. :cry: I miss you bro!

[Rabrrrrrr]

4. It could be - it was a phrase that was well known by the time the Hollies had their song

It was the motto of Boys Town starting way back in the beginning days of Boy's Town. I don't when it started, but the Boys Town movie was 1938, so certainly well before that.

It was in the public consciousness as a phrase, so writing a song that was perhaps about the Vietnam War using that phrase does make some sense.

[Taverner]

5. Are you a boomer?

Was this in the public mind at the time of Vietnam?

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. No, I'm a decent human being.

With a big ol' :P to the Boomers.

:rofl:

I'm quite certain it would have been in the public mind - it's one of those phrases that's just been popular and known for a long time, especially since being immortalized by fuckin' what's his name, the actor kid. Mickey Rooney.

[Z_I_Peevey]

7. The road is long.....

just thinking of the Hollies' version gives me the cheebers. Love, love, love that song. And it's about selflessness at any time, not just wartime.