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- Thread starter BrutusMaximus
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cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
I don't know why I ever get on this thread. I read three or four pages and realize I don't have a clue as to any of the songs or groups you mention... any way I'm doing my writer thing this morning, just sitting down at the computer and seeing what happens and decided I'd lay this on you...
Today's Writers almanac contains the incredible lyrics of Lorenz Hart, I Wish I Were in Love Again. Who among us can't connect to these lines?
When love congeals
It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals,
The double-crossing of a pair of heels.
My day begins by reading an e-mail from another Vietnam broadcasting buddy who stayed with Armed Forces Radio ? TV as a civilian. We often talk about whether or not there was censorship of music and news while we were in Vietnam. There are some who insist it never happened and some, like me, who insist it happened all the time.
My friend just completed a tour with an AFN station providing music to the troops in Iraq and said they had two songs on their current banned music list, The Israelites by some group I'd never heard of and Ahab the Arab by Ray Stevens.
Wait a minute! I'm getting something from the Way Back Machine. Did Ahab the Arab (the sheik of the burning sands, who would get on his Camel, named Clyde, and ride, ride?.. ride) contain the lines "See little Egypt do her dance of the Nile, she crawls on her belly like a reptile, she's got a ruby in her belly and a diamond on her toe and a ring in her nose, ho, ho" 'I'm sure that would get the censor's hook in Iraq.
I was pretty much out of it music wise in my formative years, listening to jazz and big band music instead of rock 'n roll, but I remember a few of my friends really enjoying that song. Never knew who recorded it, never heard it played, just know they (my buddies) weren't near clever enough to come up with it on their own.
One of my tasks in Vietnam was to manage a little radio station, KLIK. We were west of the Mississippi, hence our call letters began with K, and we were based in the division's base camp at Lai Khe (pronounced Lie Kay) so say it again K,L,I,K and it'll make comic sense? and of course, as the Lieutenant in charge I was the tennis ball in the match between the senior officers and the enlisted men. The kids wanted to hear Why Don?t We do it in the Road?, Magic Carpet Ride, Fixin' to Die Rag, Mother's Little Helper and the senior officers were all like Bye Bye Birdie: ?Why can't they dance like we did? What's wrong with Sammy Kaye?? Every time I left for Saigon to put our radio show together I knew when I'd get back there'd be a stack of phone message slips, Call Major X, Call Lt Col Y, Col Z wants you in his office NOW!
"Lieutenant, I can't believe the fighting men of this division want to listen to such filth as that record about 'for it?s 1,2,3,4 what are we fightin? for? Don't know and I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam,"
Oh but they did. Gallows humor. The big kahunnahs also didn't know that the grunts sang lovely ditties to each other like, "You're going home in a body bag."
But they also liked Clouds, These Boots are Made for Walking, Galveston and The Wichita Lineman, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay. Get any five black troopers together and they could sing My Girl so sweet you wanted to cry and write a letter home, or they could play air guitar to any of Jimmi Hendrix' riffs.
It was music that took us home, that reached the pain we dare not touch for fear we could not come back out and keep on until we could go home again.
The most requested song was We Got to Get Out of This Place, by Eric Burden and the Animals, and though it was supposed to be about Detroit you knew it was really about Vietnam and the frustration that was universal. The troops would be in the base camp, blowing off steam and drinking a rare cold beer and that song would come on. They'd wait, like a pitcher staring in at the plate, waiting for the catcher to give him the go ahead, wind up and jump to their feet, singing full force, full vibrato, "We gotta get out of this place! If it's the last thing we ever do! We gotta get out of this place. Girl, there's a better life for me and you."
Next was The Green, Green Grass of Home. I'm sure a Freudian analyst would have a field day with that song about love, family, guilt and execution.
At Christmas it was Johnny Mathis' I'll be Home for Christmas and Elvis' Blue Christmas, as if the guys wanted to make themselves sadder than they already were.
If you were to write the perfect book on the Vietnam experience, any war experience, you would have to get inside the music, know what got played on the radio stations inside the minds of the soldiers, the sounds that kept them in touch with who they were and all that they felt, but could never say out loud.
Well, as we used to say in the Army,
Peace,
Cincibuck
Today's Writers almanac contains the incredible lyrics of Lorenz Hart, I Wish I Were in Love Again. Who among us can't connect to these lines?
When love congeals
It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals,
The double-crossing of a pair of heels.
My day begins by reading an e-mail from another Vietnam broadcasting buddy who stayed with Armed Forces Radio ? TV as a civilian. We often talk about whether or not there was censorship of music and news while we were in Vietnam. There are some who insist it never happened and some, like me, who insist it happened all the time.
My friend just completed a tour with an AFN station providing music to the troops in Iraq and said they had two songs on their current banned music list, The Israelites by some group I'd never heard of and Ahab the Arab by Ray Stevens.
Wait a minute! I'm getting something from the Way Back Machine. Did Ahab the Arab (the sheik of the burning sands, who would get on his Camel, named Clyde, and ride, ride?.. ride) contain the lines "See little Egypt do her dance of the Nile, she crawls on her belly like a reptile, she's got a ruby in her belly and a diamond on her toe and a ring in her nose, ho, ho" 'I'm sure that would get the censor's hook in Iraq.
I was pretty much out of it music wise in my formative years, listening to jazz and big band music instead of rock 'n roll, but I remember a few of my friends really enjoying that song. Never knew who recorded it, never heard it played, just know they (my buddies) weren't near clever enough to come up with it on their own.
One of my tasks in Vietnam was to manage a little radio station, KLIK. We were west of the Mississippi, hence our call letters began with K, and we were based in the division's base camp at Lai Khe (pronounced Lie Kay) so say it again K,L,I,K and it'll make comic sense? and of course, as the Lieutenant in charge I was the tennis ball in the match between the senior officers and the enlisted men. The kids wanted to hear Why Don?t We do it in the Road?, Magic Carpet Ride, Fixin' to Die Rag, Mother's Little Helper and the senior officers were all like Bye Bye Birdie: ?Why can't they dance like we did? What's wrong with Sammy Kaye?? Every time I left for Saigon to put our radio show together I knew when I'd get back there'd be a stack of phone message slips, Call Major X, Call Lt Col Y, Col Z wants you in his office NOW!
"Lieutenant, I can't believe the fighting men of this division want to listen to such filth as that record about 'for it?s 1,2,3,4 what are we fightin? for? Don't know and I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam,"
Oh but they did. Gallows humor. The big kahunnahs also didn't know that the grunts sang lovely ditties to each other like, "You're going home in a body bag."
But they also liked Clouds, These Boots are Made for Walking, Galveston and The Wichita Lineman, Do You Know the Way to San Jose?, Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay. Get any five black troopers together and they could sing My Girl so sweet you wanted to cry and write a letter home, or they could play air guitar to any of Jimmi Hendrix' riffs.
It was music that took us home, that reached the pain we dare not touch for fear we could not come back out and keep on until we could go home again.
The most requested song was We Got to Get Out of This Place, by Eric Burden and the Animals, and though it was supposed to be about Detroit you knew it was really about Vietnam and the frustration that was universal. The troops would be in the base camp, blowing off steam and drinking a rare cold beer and that song would come on. They'd wait, like a pitcher staring in at the plate, waiting for the catcher to give him the go ahead, wind up and jump to their feet, singing full force, full vibrato, "We gotta get out of this place! If it's the last thing we ever do! We gotta get out of this place. Girl, there's a better life for me and you."
Next was The Green, Green Grass of Home. I'm sure a Freudian analyst would have a field day with that song about love, family, guilt and execution.
At Christmas it was Johnny Mathis' I'll be Home for Christmas and Elvis' Blue Christmas, as if the guys wanted to make themselves sadder than they already were.
If you were to write the perfect book on the Vietnam experience, any war experience, you would have to get inside the music, know what got played on the radio stations inside the minds of the soldiers, the sounds that kept them in touch with who they were and all that they felt, but could never say out loud.
Well, as we used to say in the Army,
Peace,
Cincibuck
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PlanetFrnd
Head Coach
SanAntonioBuck;827796; said:
Wow - you had to dust that one off, I'm sure. What's next, H-Town Knockin' the Boots?
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