“I Should Be Proud,” released in February 1970, was the first Motown antiwar protest song (though not the last, being followed within a year or so by the Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion,” Edwin Starr’s “War,” and Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”). It was the only antiwar song recorded by Martha & the Vandellas—better known for their 1964 hit “Dancing in the Street”—and did only moderately well on the charts, its message too controversial for many radio stations.
That message is an unusual one. The singer’s Johnny has been killed in action in Vietnam, and she is told to be proud of him. But she is not; she resents the way she has been informed of the death, and is skeptical of the rationales offered her—“he was keepin’ me free,” she is told, but she rejects the claim. In most of the song, she seems simply and very movingly to want him alive—one of the oldest antiwar motives, the gist of which is, the war’s rationale does not justify the death of this person I loved. Rejecting the posthumous consolations of “honor and glory,” military medals, and community regard, she begins to resent the “evils” of the system that has taken Johnny from her.
“I Should Be Proud” was written by Joe Hinton (not to be confused with the R&B singer of the same name) and Pam Sawyer (b. 1936) and arranged and produced by Henry Cosby (1928–2002), Hinton and Cosby native-born Motown musicians and Sawyer an east London expatriate. But it is Martha Reeves’s intense performance that makes the song live. She identified with it, she later recalled, “because I had a brother who had gotten hurt and damaged in Vietnam and came home and died.”
I was under the dryer when the telegram came:
“Private John C. Miller was shot down in Vietnam.”
Through my tears I read: “No more information at this time.
He’s missin’ in action somewhere on the Delta Line.”
And they say that I should be proud; he was fightin’ for me.
They say that I should be proud, those too blind to see.
But he wasn’t fightin’ for me, my Johnny didn’t have to fight for me,
He was fightin’ for the evils of society.
Now I prayed night and day that my Johnny wouldn’t die.
Love, faith, and hope was all that kept me alive.
Then six weeks later came that cold and heartless letter:
“Private Johnny was killed in action, number 54327.”
And they say that I should be proud; he was keepin’ me free.
They say that I should be proud, those too blind to see.
But he wasn’t fightin’ for me, my Johnny didn’t have to die for me,
He was fightin’ for the evils of society.
(Spoken) They shipped him home with medals of honor and glory.
Even our local paper ran a front-page story.
(Sung) But the whole town came to praise him, and said how honored I should be.
But I don’t want no silver star, just the good man they took from me.
Yet they tell me I should be proud; he was fightin’ for me.
They say that I should be proud, those too blind to see.
But he wasn’t fightin’ for me, my Johnny didn’t have to die for me,
He’s a victim of the evils of society.
I should be proud of my Johnny,
They tell me that I should be proud; they just don’t want Johnny for me.
They tell me that I should be proud of my Johnny . . .