DANNY CLINCH
Bruce Springsteen saluted two friends of his who were killed in the Vietnam War in his song, “The Wall.”
The music in the video below begins at around the 4:10 mark, but you really should listen to the intro, especially this Memorial Day weekend. The footage includes a performance of “The Wall” from the April 19, 2014 Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band concert at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina. And, as Springsteen explains, he was inspired to write the song by the Vietnam War deaths of two friends of his, Walter Cichon and Bart Haynes.
Cichon fronted the local band, The Motifs, while Haynes was the drummer in the teenaged Springsteen’s band, the Castiles.
Springsteen, who has written often about the aftermath of the Vietnam War, included this deeply moving song on his 2014 album, High Hopes.
“The Wall,” of course, is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
New Jersey celebrated its 350th birthday in 2014. And in the 350 Jersey Songs series, we marked the occasion by posting 350 songs — one a day, from September 2014 to September 2015 — that have something to do with the state, its musical history, or both. To see the entire list, click here.
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