In the early morning when the air was heavy and the birds of the jungle were quiet, the small Chicano grunt carefully lowered himself into the newly discovered tunnel that the Viet Cong (VC) soldiers had been using to attack the unsuspecting American troops.
Dangerous and scary, these tiny, fibrous tunnels wove an intricate pattern allowing a hit-and-run approach on unsuspecting American troops during the Vietnam Conflict a generation ago. Once discovered there were several ways of dealing with them; the most dangerous was tossing a smoke grenade and hoping to force the enemy out where they could be captured.
Only the smallest of US soldiers could fit into these confined spaces with room enough for a flashlight in one hand and a small pistol in the other. Never knowing what could be around the next corner made for heart-pounding missions. Often the soldier, known as a “jungle rat”, would take a portable music player of the day and blast Jimi Hendrix’ “Purple Haze” to warn the VC that they were being hunted. The blaring music gave the soldier a sense of power, hoping the noise would scare off the enemy and give him another day of safety.
Stateside, when “Purple Haze” aired on the radio, the youth of the day associated the song with LSD and hallucinations stimulated by drug use. One song: two totally different meanings.
On Thursday, March 24, co-authors Craig Werner and Doug Bradley brought this unique perspective to the Tattered Cover Bookstore on Colfax by talking about their newly published book, “We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War”.
Werner, a music professor at the University of Wisconsin met Bradley, a Vietnam vet, at a Christmas party some 12 years ago in Madison. Bradley’s two children had taken music classes with Werner, so it was a chance encounter. Though Werner never served in the military their conversation around music brought the discussion to the conflict in Southeast Asia. And like ants to honey, other men gravitated to their conversation and began adding their own reflections on the music of that time.
Over the years the authors discovered that a lot of vets could not talk about their tours of duty. “But when asked about a song, it was like turning on a faucet,” Bradley said. “The music connected them to a time with their fellow soldiers”, he explained.
From a fun idea of “The Top 20” songs of the war, Werner and Bradley came to realize that there was music from all genres: rock, Motown, country, soul, folk etc. that embodied the musical palette of the time. Over 2,000 titles were culled from their interviews with military leaders, women, enlisted soldiers of all branches and family members. Each individual “listened to the same song, but in their own way. There were different meanings, different impacts and different resonations,” Bradley pointed out.
Nancy Sinatra had a famous surname and some hit records to her name. In 1966 she released a record written by Lee Hazelwood, “These Boots Were Made for Walking”. Originally Hazelwood wanted to sing the song, but offered it to Sinatra and it became a worldwide smash record. Stateside, it joined the pantheon of Women’s Lib and their fight for equality.
In Vietnam, Sinatra became a favorite pinup of the fighting soldiers. Not because they suddenly agreed with the cause of women’s rights, but because of a Sinatra’s connection with the boots. On the front lines of the battles, survival was due to your combat boots. Without boots to withstand the jungle, the mud, the insects, snakes and the like, the chances of fulfilling your military commitment was slim.
And there was another reason “Boots” was an anthem for the troops. Sinatra was one of the few entertainers who visited the camps ‘in country’ to sing; but who actually slept nights at the camps and witnessed, first-hand, what the armed forces were experiencing. To the servicemen she was “one of them”.
Werner told the sparse audience that “music connected the soldiers back to their country, their towns, their homes. The music bonded them to their units in the field. And music made sense of experiences that didn’t make sense.”
“Leaving on a Jet Plane”, “Dock of the Bay” and “My Girl” reminded the G.I.s of what they missed the most. More than anything they missed the people they left behind. The songs about home, “Detroit City”, “Georgia On My Mind”, “Barbra Ann”, and so many others were the lifeblood for so many vets back then. “The Ballad of the Green Berets” or “Fortunate Son” and other patriotic songs were not high on the soldier’s playlist.
Whether you were Caucasian, African-American, Hispanic, or European the music was a shared experience. The bands that played at the bases in Vietnam had to know the music of America or they did not warrant an audience. Music healed the soul, music fed the tears, music fueled the laughter.
Werner and Bradley concluded the evening by recounting the history of the undisputed number one song the vets remembered. The room hushed as the clear sounds of a gritty town knifed into every nook and cranny of the book-lined auditorium.
Originally penned for the Righteous Brothers to be a follow up to their gigantic hit “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”, it was passed on to music agents in Great Britain. A new band from the hard-scrabble mining town of Newcastle, The Animals, saw their own town in the lyrics of this song and it became a key hit in their musical catalogue. “We Gotta Get Outta this Place” not only registered as a huge, worldwide hit prompting young people to find hope in larger metropolises, but also became the anthem of the soldiers fighting in Vietnam and their dream to escape hell and return home.
“We Gotta Get Out of this Place: The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War” is now available in bookshops; don’t take my word for it, get a copy and be fascinated.
