The Animals – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place

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  General Comment:do you think he is dating the girl he is singing about? i mean it is WE gotta get out of this place, but he could be talking about its little sister or somethig tbh.
  idk whady reckon? xxx

  Flag Startme_upon September 24, 2008   Link

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    On the whole, both the language and content of the song suggest it's his girlfriend rather than sister. Saying "MY daddy"; and telling her things that his sister would know as well as he, such as how hard he and his father have been working. How hard he works is the kind of thing a guy is likely to tell his girlfriend, not his sister.
    
    But the song being sung to his sister is supportable too. The image of her tending his father in his sick bed and the gradual realization that this could be them in twenty or thirty years is a powerful one.
    The lyrics were written by Cynthia Weil of the Brill Building, and she may have had more than one theme in mind.

    Flag azkmon April 23, 2010  
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  General Comment:Vietnam?... maybe on one level. But Eric and the band came out of working class roots in the grey industrial wasteland of north-east England. "In this dirty old part of the city" speaks to me more about personal experiences in Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough of the 60s rather than the jungles of a far off land Britain wasn't involved in.

  Flag makhnoon March 22, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:They used this in HAMBURGER HILL as well.
  
  Keep it mind, aside from the draftees, most Vietnam vets were there because they wanted to be. Remember these were the people who grew up listening to Kennedy about "asking not what their country can do for them, but what they can do for their country."
  
  As a result, you have many people signing on for multiple tours of the RVN. One man, I believe, spent seven straight years there working with the indigenous highlanders. Devotion to the cause was always higher among Special Forces personnel and also Marines...
  
  Awesome song, anyway.

  Flag EveryMnon February 10, 2008   Link

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  General Comment:It doesn't surprise me why...Vietnam was hell for those men.
  
  Listen the 8th of November by Big & Rich
  Still in Saigon by Charlie Daniels Band
  Rooster by Alice in Chains

  Flag OpinionHeadon June 16, 2007   Link

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  General Comment:wen i saw 'the animals and friends' they said this song was dedicated to the young people who fought in the veitnam war and it was number one for 3 years in some kind of army chart i cant remember its name

  Flag skater-maton August 14, 2006   Link

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  General Comment:I know this song is more about society than the war, but when I hear it, it makes me think of the soldiers in vietnam thinking the war is pointless, and "We gotta get out of this place." I am only 16 but listening to classic rock and watching movies like "Platoon" and "We were soldiers" makes me feel like I was almost a part of the war. I know what I am feeling is nothing like what people who lived through it felt, and I admire all of you who did.
  
  P.S. Those two movies are great. I would highly suggest watching them. They are great war movies, up there with "Patton" and "The Longest Day"

  Flag classicRokkeron January 15, 2006   Link

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  General Comment:A desire to escape your prescribed fate and stike out for something better.
  
  See also Bruce Springsteens: Thunder Road for a simerlar theme (if not style)

  Flag Comrade_Liaron March 29, 2005   Link

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  General Comment:a vietnam favourite too, i might add...

  Flag Hanumanon March 26, 2005   Link

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  General Comment:this commentary about how the 'civilized' world is rife with slums and toil really hits home in my heart. i hate the city and pray one day that it will all be abolished, so we may all return to rural lifestyle. the bucolic call of the wild, howling to turn off your computer and get back to basics. the beauty of the girl in this song demands an escape from dirt.

  Flag shauncreaneyon July 31, 2002   Link

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