"Do you remember when"

By Jeffrey Herrigel

[1] Oliver Stone uses the songs in the background of the haunting veteran’s hospital scene in Born on the Fourth of July to parallel what Ron Kovic and countless other Vietnam veterans experienced after coming home from Vietnam. The three songs Stone uses in the scene are “My Girl” by the Temptations, “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison, and “American Pie” by Don Mclean. The second two songs have similar themes. Both Mclean’s and Morrison’s songs describe severe disillusionment and how times have changed for the worse, while The Temptations are used as satirical and ironic example of what his life used to be. Throughout the movie Stone uses this same technique of using songs to parallel the storyline. Later in the film, for instance, Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A Changin’” and Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco” are used to exemplify Ron’s continued realization of the different world he has entered. It is not a coincidence that Stone used these songs as the backdrop in the scene in which Kovic returns from Vietnam and nothing is how he remembered it.

[2] When Kovic left for Vietnam, he was leaving in a time when it was honorable to go to war and fight for your country. When he came home, he expected to be honored and respected by his fellow Americans. He left a young, hardworking, athletic boy with a beautiful young woman he cared for back home. When he came back, he was treated as a cripple, he was impotent, and fighting for your country was no longer honorable. Times had changed rapidly in the short time that Kovic was away.

[3] The first song that comes on is Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl,” which encompasses what the Vietnam veterans are going through. Morrison’s song is about remembering life as it used to be. His first verse is reminiscing about when he and his love were younger and they would run and laugh with their ‘hearts a thumpin.’ This is like Kovic’s life before Vietnam: he could run and love, and life was a simpler time for him. The next verse starts with Morrison asking the question, “What ever happened?” and the song’s tone begins to take a turn from being fondly reminiscent to despairingly aware of what life had once been. His last verse continues this trend and begins with, “So hard to find my way, / now that I am all on my own.” This line applies particularly to Kovic because he is lying all alone in the veteran’s hospital and no one seems to understand the pain he is going through. He can’t find his way in this world because it has all changed; everything he valued has either been taken away from him or isn’t valued anymore. Morrison goes on to say, “I saw you just the other day, / my how you have grown . . . Sometime I'm overcome thinking 'bout / making love in the green grass / behind the stadium with you.” Here Morrison is describing how he’s seen what he once loved but she’s changed and he can’t help but be tortured by the thought of how much he enjoyed what they used to have. Kovic is lying in bed, and all he has to comfort him in this new, changed America is the memory of just a few years ago when everything made sense. The chorus of the song is “Do you remember when we used to sing?” -- Morrison and Kovic are both tortured by those memories.

[4] The next song Stone uses in the part of the film is Mclean’s “American Pie.” Mclean’s anthem is a well known song about the death of Buddy Holly, Richie Vallens, and the Big Bopper. Mclean, a teenager in 1959 when these musicians died, enjoyed the music of the late fifties and the overall values and happenings of that era. As the sixties moved forward, times began changing rapidly, and Mclean began asking himself what happened to the simple times and music that he loved when he was growing up. Mclean sings about driving his “Chevy to the levee, / but the levee was dry,” which refers three black college students who were murdered for registering to vote and then buried in a levee. Mclean’s cryptic lyrics go on to talk about upbeat 50’s music by The Lovin’ Spoonful (“Do You Believe in Magic”) and The Monotones (“The Book of Love”). His lyrics talk about the importance of slow dancing, being in love and dancing in the gym, and giving girls pink carnations. These are the times that Mclean lost to the age of the JFK assassination and Hell’s Angels killing a young man at a Rolling Stone’s concert. The sock hops and slow dances in the gym were traded in for guitar solos when Dylan went electric and revering your national leaders was exchanged for assassinations. The song finishes with Mclean saying, “I went down to the sacred store / where I’d heard the music years before, / but the man there said the music wouldn’t play . . . And the three men I admire most: / The father, son, and the holy ghost, / They caught the last train for the coast.” This is Mclean’s realization that the music and the way of life that he grew up loving were gone for good.

[5] This song begins playing when Kovic is struggling to do pull ups while rehabilitating himself in the hospital and right after Kovic is shocked to see people burning the American flag. Kovic’s disgust at the burning of the American flag is much like Mclean’s disgust for the downward spiral that morals have taken. Kovic came from a time in which the flag was not only respected but displayed proudly and veterans were heroes. He went to war and came back to a completely different country, one in which flags were burned and veterans hissed at during parades. The male nurse tells him he did three pull ups the day before, while Kovic is hanging limply from the bar with the memory of just a few years earlier when he was a strong and capable wrestler. He used to run through the woods as a kid, and now doctors are telling him he will never walk again. The memory of that time is painfully present in everything he does, and he can’t believe people when they tell him he can’t get that back -- just as Mclean can’t accept that the music he loved has died and he will never hear it again. In the next scene, when Kovic falls and has a terrible break in his leg, he finally accepts that he will never be able to walk again and that the country really has changed and he can’t get the past back.

[6] The third song Stone uses in this scene is the Temptations’ “My Girl” as sung by a male nurse on his way into the dark, damp, and dreary hospital wing. This song typifies a blissful, easy going life style. The Temptations sing “I've got sunshine / on a cloudy day, / When it's cold outside, / I've got the month of May.” This upbeat song describes a state of joy that cannot be dampened by “cold weather” or “rainy days.” No matter what happens, that man has got his girl and that is all that he needs; he doesn’t need “money, riches or fame” because he’s got his girl. Few songs are more bubble-gummy and full of child-like cheerfulness than “My Girl.” This song is used satirically when sung by the male nurse in the veteran’s hospital where the weight of the world is fully apparent to every soldier lying in a bed or sitting in a wheel chair. The use of the song in this depressing environment is ironic and shows that in the world in which the veterans live, they can’t escape the pains and trials they are going through as easily as the Temptations preach.

[7] In high school, Kovic’s life was a scene from “My Girl.” He grew up in a small town with a loving family and good friends. He became an accomplished athlete and young man. Then, even with the shadow of being shipped off to Vietnam the next day, Kovic was able to run through the rain to his senior prom and kiss his girl. The fact that he was going to Vietnam didn’t matter, because he had his girl and that is all he needed. This life of bliss was ripped away from him halfway across the globe, and when he got home a girl couldn’t take away his pain anymore, that world he knew no longer existed. Stone’s use of “My Girl” is an insightfully satirical way of pointing out that Ron Kovic’s fairy tale life has come to an end.

[8] Stone’s use of song in the veteran’s hospital is a subtle but very descriptive way of enhancing the scene’s issues. Kovic is dealing with accepting the loss of his ability to walk and the changed country he came back to. Whether it be lost love or America’s shift from the fifties to the sixties, Morrison and Mclean are both tortured by the memory of their past as well as sad about where the future has led them. Stone uses these songs to help those who listened to the music gain a deeper understanding of what his fallen hero Kovic was going through.