“Intimate and deeply informative, with a scope that encompasses both the war itself and the way that music has helped raise awareness of veterans’ issues long after its end.”
In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the world back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans—black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and “grunts”.
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In The Media




Doug Bradley and Craig Werner discuss their new book We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War, which was selected by Rolling Stone Magazine as the number 1 book about music for 2015.
For The Record:
Madison pair author book about music and the Vietnam War
Neil Heinen talks to a pair of Madison men who wrote a book about the relationship between music and the Vietnam War.
How do you fathom the experience of fighting a war? For two Madison authors, it’s with the music of the era and soldiers’ unique experiences of those songs — from songs protesting the war, songs supporting it, and songs that were never intended to do either.
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place: Music In the ‘Nam
Guests: Craig Werner and Douglas Bradley, Authors
Interviewed by: Rachel Rubin
The Sound of Ideas – War and Popular Music
The popular music of the Vietnam era has become a soundtrack cliché in the many movies and documentaries about that conflict. But, for veterans, some of those songs bring back powerful memories and emotions. A new book explores the connections that soldiers have with those songs.
The Vietnam War Divided The Country,
But Music United The Troops
Here & Now’s Eric Westervelt speaks with the co-authors of “We Gotta Get Out of This Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War,” Douglas Bradley and Craig Werner.
An Intro to “On the Record”
Doug Bradley has written extensively about his Vietnam and post-Vietnam experiences. Drafted into the U. S. Army in March 1970, he served one year as an information specialist (journalist) at U. S. Army Republic of Vietnam…
What’s The Buzz About?
Meet The Authors
Craig Werner
Craig Werner is a cultural historian whose books include Up Around the Bend: An Oral History of Creedence Clearwater Revival; Higher Ground: Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield and the Rise & Fall of American Soul; and A Change Is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America.
Doug Bradley
Doug Bradley has written extensively about his Vietnam, and post-Vietnam, experiences. Drafted into the U. S. Army in March 1970, he served one year as an information specialist (journalist) at U. S. Army Republic of Vietnam (USARV) headquarters near Saigon.