Jan and Dean were an American musical duo of the 1960s, comprised of Dean Torrance (1940- ) and Jan Berry (1941-2004). Like their contemporaries The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean became popular for West Coast surf rock, later releasing folk-oriented music. Among their more successful songs were Surf City, Dead Man’s Curve and The Little Old Lady from Pasadena. The son of a wealthy engineer who produced military aircraft, Jan Berry was a supporter of American military intervention in Vietnam. In late 1965 Berry penned The Universal Coward, a conservative response to Donovan’s prominent anti-war song Universal Soldier. He recorded and released The Universal Coward alone after Dean Torrance declined to participate. The lyrics of The Universal Coward launched a vitriolic attack on groups opposed to the Vietnam War, describing them as “scroungers”, “twisted”, “fanatic” and “thick skulled”. Despite Berry’s profile The Universal Coward was neither a critical or financial success. The song received little radio airplay and failed to make the singles charts. Later that year Berry was involved in a serious car accident, suffering brain damage and partial paralysis.
He’s young, he’s old, he’s in-between
And he’s so very much confused
He’ll scrounge around and protest all day long
He joins the pickets at Berkeley
And he burns up his draft card
And he’s twisted into thinking that fighting is all wrongHe’s a pacifist, an extremist
A communist or just a Yank
A demonstrator, an agitator or just a nave
A conscientious objector
A fanatic, a defector
And he doesn’t know he’s digging his own graveOh he just can’t get it through his thick skull
Why the mighty USA
Has got to be a watchdog of the world
He’ll see the USSR
Will bury us from afar
And he’ll never see the missiles being hurledHe’s the universal coward
And he runs from anything
From a giant, from a human, from an elf
He runs from Uncle Sam
And he runs from Vietnam
But most of all he’s running from himself
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