Victor Lundberg was an Americanradio personality. He is best known for a spoken-word record called "An Open Letter to My Teenage Son", which became an unlikely Top 10hit in 1967. Lundberg was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and was a newscaster at Grand Rapidsradio stationWMAX when he released "An Open Letter" in September 1967. The lyrics, written by Robert R Thompson and produced by Jack Tracy, imagine the narrator talking to his teenage son. Lundberg touches on hippies, the Vietnam War, and patriotism. The voice-over, spoken over "Battle Hymn of the Republic", after empathizing, somewhat, with a number of the typical teenage concerns of the day, turns more conservative and memorably ends with Lundberg telling his son that, if the teen burns his draft card, then he should "burn birth certificate at the same time. From that moment on, I have no son."
Hit record
"An Open Letter" became a hit in Michigan and was released nationally by Liberty Records, jumping onto the BillboardHot 100 at #84 on November 11, 1967. Within three weeks the record went #58 - #18 - #10, making it one of the dozen or so fastest-climbing records in Hot 100 history up to that point, and Lundberg made an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on November 12, 1967. After another week at #10, the record slipped to #22 for the week ending December 16, 1967, then vanished from the Hot 100 completely, after a total run of just six weeks. Few other records have ever been ranked so high in such a short chart stay on the Hot 100. before the spate of records that have been doing so, starting in 2008. However, it sold over one million copies within a month of release and was awarded a gold disc. "An Open Letter" also received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Spoken Word Recording, losing to Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen's "Gallant Men".
"An Open Letter" spawned at least ten "response" records. Most of these spoken-word records all have the father's son write a response to what the father had said. The son's response varies from letter to letter, depending on the nature of the records that are shown here. The following "response" records include:
"A Teenager's Answer" by Keith Gordon
"A Teenager's Open Letter to His Father" by Robert Tamlin
"Letter from a Teenage Son" by Brandon Wade
"A Letter to Dad" by Every Father's Teenage Son
"Hi, Dad " by Dick Clair
"An Open Letter to My Father" by Bob Random
"Dear Dad" by Michael Paul
"An Open Letter to Dad" by Chris Howard
The following spoken-word records are similar to the ones that involve the son's response. In those records, they show other people make their own responses in account of not only the son, but also society in general at the time.
"An Open Letter to My Dad" by Marceline. This is the only "response" record recited by a woman, who portrays the father's daughter writing a letter on the behalf of her disowned brother.
"Open Letter to the Older Generation" by Dick Clark. This record does not express support or opposition to war, nor does it involve a response from the son. Instead, Clark pleads to the older generation to show a greater understanding for their sons and daughters and be proud of them regardless of what happens.
Encouraged by the single's success, Liberty released an entire album of Lundberg's musings, entitled An Open Letter that failed to chart. The album featured ten selections, many of which took a less strongly conservative line than "Teenage Son". "My Buddy Carl" decried racial prejudice, while "On Censorship", takes an almost Libertarian view of "self-appointed... censorious do-gooders". Lundberg released one more record, in 1968: "Take Two " b/w "Impressions of Victor Lundberg", on the Buddah label. It was not a hit, and Lundberg passed into obscurity. He died in 1990.
