In 1969, Jimi Hendrix took the stage at Woodstock and played the guitar like it had never been played before. His rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner mimicked the sounds of bombs, explosions, gunfire, and screaming. The only words he sang were, “and the flag was still there”. 1969 was a tumultuous year for America in Vietnam and at home. The Tet Offensive bolstered the antiwar movement, and Americans became increasingly aware of the profound injustice of the war. Richard Nixon brought a promising resolution with Vietnamization, but the truth that Americans were in Vietnam dying for a cause that was not their own, remained. During the Vietnam era, music had become a popular avenue of protest. Hendrix used his musical talents to protest what the National Anthem, and the flag itself, stood for. He found that behind the symbolism of the flag stood the ugly truth of American Exceptionalism gone too far. Hendrix found that the government used the flag, and democratic values, as justification for war, destruction, and terror. His performance’s significance is often lost outside the context of Vietnam: as a black man in 1969, he faced large-scale threats of violence because of his direct questioning of the integrity of the United States[1]. The dissent Hendrix put forth was widely accessible, as he was one of the most popular musicians of the time, and his performance effectively communicated that the ugly parts of American history should not be forgotten. Hendrix’s protest was also symbolic of a new facet of antiwar protest: musicians had inserted themselves into political matters through their music. The violence Hendrix illustrated in his music showed that behind American values was an ugly path to achieve those values elsewhere. Long term, his protest against the Anthem lay the foundation for people like Colin Kaepernick to protest social injustices in America’s political sphere. Click on the header to view the video.
[1] Braunstein, Peter, and Michael William. Doyle. Imagine Nation: The American Counterculture of the 1960s and 70s. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013.