Based on the author’s research in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and other urban areas in Vietnam, this study of contemporary Vietnamese popular music explores the ways globalization and free market economics have influenced the music and subcultures of Vietnamese youth, focusing on the conflict between the politics of remembering, nurtured by the Vietnamese Communist government, and the politics of forgetting driven by the capitalist interests of the music industry. Vietnamese youth at the end of the second and beginning of the third millennium are influenced by the challenges generated by a number of seemingly opposite ideologies and realities, such as "the past" versus "the present," socialism versus capitalism, and cultural traditionalism versus globalization. Vietnam has undergone a radical demographic shift with a very pronounced youth movement, and consequently, Vietnamese popular culture has been radically reshaped by a young population coming of age in the twenty-first century. As Olsen reveals, the way Vietnamese young people cope with these opposing and contrasting forces is often expressed in their active and passive music making.

“The diversity of voices and songs reminds us that the home front and the battlefront are always connected and that music and war are deeply intertwined.” —Heather Marie Stur, author of 21 Days to Baghdad For a Kentucky rifleman who spent his tour trudging through Vietnam’s Central Highlands, it was Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’.” For a black marine distraught over the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., it was Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools.” And for countless other Vietnam vets, it was “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die” or the song that gives this book its title. In We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Doug Bradley and Craig Werner place popular music at the heart of the American experience in Vietnam. They explore how and why U.S. troops turned to music as a way of connecting to each other and the World back home and of coping with the complexities of the war they had been sent to fight. They also demonstrate that music was important for every group of Vietnam veterans—black and white, Latino and Native American, men and women, officers and “grunts”—whose personal reflections drive the book’s narrative. Many of the voices are those of ordinary soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines. But there are also “solo” pieces by veterans whose writings have shaped our understanding of the war—Karl Marlantes, Alfredo Vea, Yusef Komunyakaa, Bill Ehrhart, Arthur Flowers—as well as songwriters and performers whose music influenced soldiers’ lives, including Eric Burdon, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Country Joe McDonald, and John Fogerty. Together their testimony taps into memories—individual and cultural—that capture a central if often overlooked component of the American war in Vietnam.

Introduction. On Radio, Red Music, and Revolution -- Sound, Technology, and Culture in French Indochina -- Battle of the Airwaves during the First Indochina War -- Songs of the Golden Age in the Democratic Republic -- National Radio in the Reform Era -- Studio Production in Contemporary Vietnam -- Conclusion. Nostalgia for the Past, Hope for the Future.

This is the trade paperback second edition of the popular original title

Songs for the Spirits examines the Vietnamese practice of communing with spirits through music and performance. During rituals dedicated to a pantheon of indigenous spirits, musicians perform an elaborate sequence of songs--a "songscape"--for possessed mediums who carry out ritual actions, distribute blessed gifts to disciples, and dance to the music's infectious rhythms. Condemned by French authorities in the colonial period and prohibited by the Vietnamese Communist Party in the late 1950s, mediumship practices have undergone a strong resurgence since the early 1990s, and they are now being drawn upon to promote national identity and cultural heritage through folklorized performances of rituals on the national and international stage. By tracing the historical trajectory of traditional music and religion since the early twentieth century, this groundbreaking study offers an intriguing account of the political transformation and modernization of cultural practices over a period of dramatic and often turbulent transition. An accompanying DVD contains numerous video and music extracts that illustrate the fascinating ways in which music evokes the embodied presence of spirits and their gender and ethnic identities.

This book interweaves an examination of Vietnamese folk culture, cultural nationalism, and cultural heritage since 1945 with an ethnographic account of the changing social practice of quan ho folk song. The author demonstrates how the discourses on cultu

There's an old joke-"What's the difference between a Sea Story and a Fairy-tale?" A Fairy-tale starts with- "Once upon a time" and ends with "They lived happily ever after." A Sea story starts with "This aint no shit." If you're listening to Sea Stories, well, you can never tell where they're going to end and they don't always end with "Living Happily Ever After." The story you are about to read sounds like a Sea Story with a back story that sounds like a Fairytale. Neither of those thoughts is true and veterans of any war would think this had to be planned by the "Big Boys" someplace. It wasn't! I was 21 and since high school I had been carrying around an old guitar that was my Dad's. He had bought a new one from my uncle. Both sides of my family are musical When I came to Gulf Port, Mississippi from Boot Camp it came with me from home as carryon baggage, when I reported to the Construction Battalion Center awaiting the Battalion's return from Nam. When they came back, again, it came with me! I always liked to play, and with somebody always around, unless someone was sleeping; I'd play after work as I was waiting for one of my friends on our way to chow, I'd play a few notes or a song before heading out. I guess word got around because someone heard me, and told someone else. The rest just happened! Like a guitar player's dream, in the last place you'd expect a Rock, Country and Mo Town band in whose name alone stated how the people in our country felt at the time; to form and play and add a little more to rock n roll history in the War everyone at home was protesting. In some cases I only added a little to the story because my memory is foggy. But all events happened. I may have the sequence of the occurrences wrong, but they all happened. Other than the names of the guys in the band and our commanding officer, all names have been changed. The songs and partial lyrics were and are part of all of our lives living then, and since that time.

The songs of the U.S. Air Force flyers during the Vietnam War, written in the cryptic language of pilots and navigators, aloft in their "beasts" a dozen "angels" up in the sky, uniquely reflect the stark emotions and black humors of that ill-fated war. Veteran navigator Joseph F. Tuso spent fifteen years collecting the lyrics for more than a hundred songs written or sung by U.S. Air Force flyers from about 1966 through 1969. Many of the songs' authors are unknown. But their lyrics, even such jarring lines as those of "Chocolate-covered Napalm," often are set to popular melodies, such as "The Wabash Cannonball." Some songs have original tunes as well. Twenty-five of the 148 songs whose lyrics are included here were written by Dick Jonas, the premier songwriter of the Vietnam era Air Force. Many other songs appear in print for the first time. Singing the Vietnam Blues begins with a personal overture that sets the stage for a play of war-evoked emotions and lines that are less than sacred, more than profane, and sometimes poignant. Some songs, such as the "Phu Cat Alert Pad," are based on historical events, while others have their origins in popular myths, such as "Wolf Pack's Houseboy." Whatever the direct source of the songs, it is the daily combat, rescue, or transport missions; the possibility of death; and the fear, bravado, and competition between pilots, navigators, planes, and enemy flyers or "bandits" that generated the lyrics. Most songs are preceded by Tuso's explanation of each song's origin, other versions, references to current events or "inside jokes," and sometimes personal insights and memories. A glossary is also included.

This is the first book in English on the popular music of Vietnam--a songbag of Vietnamese music. The Musics of Vietnam is a popular work, on the order of the John and Alan Lomax collection of American folk songs. Pham Duy spent twenty years traveling through­out Vietnam collecting regional folk music. His collection represents the range as well as the diversity of the Vietnamese people--North, South, and Central.