Category: Favorite Songs

It’s amazing to me how particular sounds have such a strong emotional effect on me. For instance, I still can’t hear the sound of a helicopter flying overhead without getting a sick feeling in my stomache and without ducking, no matter where the incident might take place.

Although I’ve developed a taste for Chinese cuisine, even Vietnamese, I still refuse to go to a Vietnamese restaurant because the sound of Vietnamese being spoken in the background affects me so strongly. There’s nothing more gut-wrenching than having your radio frequencies jammed at night with Vietnamese when your out in the jungle.

Maybe it’s not too strange, then, that when it comes to strong memories or feelings I almost always think of music. Maybe I’ve just seen one too many movies, but there it is. I measure my life and its emotions as much in songs as I do in stories or events

Fortunate Son

Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they’re red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no senator’s son, son.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me;
I ain’t no fortunate one, no.

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don’t they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yeah.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no millionaire’s son, no, no.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me;
I ain’t no fortunate one, no.

Some folks inherit star-spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more!

It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no military son, son.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me;
I ain’t no fortunate one.

It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain’t me, it ain’t me,
I ain’t no fortunate son, lord no no
It ain’t me, it ain’t me.

Creedance Clearwater Revival from Willy and the Poor Boys

Considering my personal experiences in Vietnam, perhaps it’s not surprising that my favorite protest song is “Fortunate Son” by Creedance Clearwater Revival. I never joined the protests against the war after I got out of the Army out of deference to my friends who were still fighting there, but I never supported the war and to this day I still resent the rich Republican son-of-a-bitches who advocate war but who hid in the National Guard or Army Reserves while the rest of us did their fighting for them.

Now, lest you think that I was somehow retarded or overly patriotic (Isn’t that a redundancy?), I had joined R.O.T.C. years before in the naive belief that in a democracy everyone owed an obligation to their nation to serve. Besides, I had never even heard of Vietnam when I joined.

My unit was one of the first Armor units sent to Vietnam, so we got the top officers from Fort Knox to fill the empty officer slots. It was considered quite a coup to get combat duty in Vietnam because it was considered crucial to later promotions. Oh, lucky me, I thought, I who had never in this life time considered a career in the Army.

Before my unit was sent to Vietnam we drafted men from southern California to fill the unit up, trained them for six months, and took them off to fight. My platoon ended up with three whites in it: myself, my platoon sergeant, and an E5 from Canada. All the rest of the men were either blacks or Hispanic. Now, I know there were a lot of minorities in southern California, but statistically there’s no way that draft could have been handled fairly. There must have been a hell of a lot of colleges in California to hide in, or a draft board composed of middle-age whites who thought they needed to keep the white boys home to protect the home front.

Hell, I didn’t even think much of it then. I was much too busy trying to get these 18 year-olds ready for combat and trying to teach them enough to keep themselves, and me, alive. By the time I was relieved of my command in Vietnam I would have died trying to save each and every one of them. For a short time, I was closer to them than I have ever been to anyone in my life.

I even volunteered to extend my tour of duty in Vietnam so that I could stay with them until they, too, finished their tour of duty. When told that I would be assigned to duty in Saigon instead of staying with my unit, I quickly dropped that idea. The war meant nothing to me, but my men meant everything.

That tour of duty in Vietnam changed me in more ways than I could ever explain, probably for the better and for the worst, but I have never, unless for a moment or two, regretted it.<

Let me just say that I don’t have “star-spangled eyes,” and it would take a hell of a lot more than a cannon pointed at me to make me sing ”Hail to the Chief,” particularly if it were a Republican Chief.

Don’t know about you, but I sometimes think I’ve spent my life two steps from the blues. I’m still trying to stay one step ahead of them, though I’m never quite sure if they’re behind me or ahead of me. Far as I know, they could be waiting just up ahead around the bend in the road. For sure, no matter how fast you walk, you can’t ever outrun the blues. Best you can hope to do is sing them away.

Being raised in a white middle class neighborhood, I’m sure I was introduced to the blues by white singers who “covered” black singles with their own hits. My favorite of these is “Hound Dog,” and it is still one of my all-time-favorite songs despite later discovering Big Mama Thornton’s version.

However, when I heard Bobby Blue Bland sing “I Pity the Fool” on The Dick Clark Show, I was immediately converted to a true blues fan forever. While my high school friends were listening to Elvis Presley,The Everly Brothers, Brenda Lee, Bobby Rydell, and Connie Francis, I was hunting down blues classics, starting with Bobby Blue Bland recordings.

By now my copy of Two Steps from the Blues is so worn, as the cover above probaly attests to, that I have to find copies of the songs on best-of CD’s that I’ve bought in recent years. But that album somehow got me through two disappointing “loves” in high school, a “dear loren” letter on my way to Vietnam, and a divorce.

In retrospect, when you look at the lyrics of “I Pity The Fool”

I pity the fool

I say I pity the fool

Whoa, I pity the fool,

Yeah.

I say, I pity the Fool

That falls in love with you

And expects you to be true

Oh, I pity the Fool.

Look at the people

I know you wonder what they’re doing

They just standing there

Watching you make a fool of me.

Look at the people

I know you wonder what they’re doing

They just standing there

Watching you make a fool of me.

Oh, I pity the fool

I pity the fool that falls in love with you

Oh, I pity the fool

I pity the fool that falls in love with you

She’ll break your heart one day

Then she’ll laugh and walk away

Oh, I pity the fool.

Look at the people

I know you wonder what they’re doing

They just standing there

Watching you make a fool of me.

Look at the people

I know you wonder what they’re doing

Yeah, they just standing there

Watching you make a fool of me.

Oh, I pity the fool

I say I pity the fool

Oh, I pity the fool

I say I pity the fool, baby.

there doesn’t seem to be much there. But combined with the driving arrangements of Joe Scott and the powerful voice of Bobby, “I Pity the Fool” will flat blow away your blues, if only for two minutes and 42 seconds. (You can find sound samples for the album’s reissue on Amazon.com) For me, at least, there’s enough irony, and insight, in the lyrics to help distance you from your sorrow. When listened in combination with the album’s blues ballads “Two Steps from the Blues,” “Cry, Cry, Cry,” and “I Just Got to Forget You,” you can almost imagine that you’re going to make it after all, at least until the next time you fall in love.

I’ve been buying Bobby Bland albums wherever I can find them for the last forty years, even replacing older albums with new CD’s. I’ve never been disappointed by one of his albums, pehaps because “I Pity the Fool” has been such a large part of my life.

A search on the web shows that others have been rediscovering Bland’s talents, as seen in this article in Salon: Bobby Bland

Precious time is slipping away
But you’re only king for a day
It doesn’t matter to which God you pray
Precious time is slipping away

It doesn’t matter what route you take
Sooner or later the heart’s going to break
No rhyme or reason, no master plan
No Nirvana, no promised land

Because, precious time is slipping away
You know you’re only king for a day
It doesn’t matter to which God you pray
Precious time is slipping away

Say que sera, whatever will be
But then I keep on searching for immortality
She’s so beautiful but she’s going to die some day
Everything in life just passes away

But, precious time is slipping away
You know she’s only queen for a day
It doesn’t matter to which God you pray
Precious time is slipping away
Well this world is cruel with its twists and turns
Well the fire’s still in me and the passion burns
I love a medley ‘til the day I die
‘Til hell freezes over and the rivers run dry

etc.

Van Morrison from Back on Top

Since I often wasn’t quite up to reading in the hospital, but I was unable to sleep more than an hour at a time, I spent considerable time listening to CD’s. My first request for CD’s was for Van Morrison CD’s because he usually seems upbeat and often times insightful in his songs.

Somehow the lyrics of “Precious Time,” although it’s never stood out before, seemed particularly appropriate to my situation. My surgery, if it has done nothing, has certainly made me realize just how precious time is.

The line “this world is cruel with its twists and turns” describes exactly how I felt when my tumor seemed to come out of nowhere to ambush me precisely when I was in as good of shape as I’ve been for year. I’d given up smoking years ago and have mostly eaten “health foods” for years and years.

I also liked the verse:

It doesn’t matter what route you take
Sooner or later the heart’s going to break
No rhyme or reason, no master plan
No Nirvana, no promised land

Life, at best, seems unpredictable. True happiness, if it is indeed attainable, is, at best, temporary. It is simply impossible to live your life by a master plan; life is what happens while you’re planning for the future.

As much as the lyrics attracted me, though, it was the contrast between the lyrics and the music that most appealed to me. Although the lyrics are generally sad, there’s a driving horn section suggesting Texas blues and the melody itself is uniquely Van Morrison, containing folk, Celtic and blues elements. It’s hard to be sad when there’s such a driving force behind the lyrics.

The song’s suggestion that although life is short and that pain and failure are an unavoidable part of it we must still celebrate the moment seems like one of the only ways of dealing with life’s tragedies.

We can only transcend these moments by embracing them as part of life.

Doctor, my eyes have seen the years
And the slow parade of fears without crying
Now I want to understand
To see the evil and the good without hiding
You must help me if you can
…
Doctor, my eyes
Cannot see the sky
Is this the price for having learned how not to cry?
Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne’s “Doctor My Eyes” seems as relevant and as poignant today as it did in the years right after I returned from Vietnam.

Although today’s attacks were hardly unexpected, I tried to avoid looking at the news any more than necessary. And when I did look at it, I tried to not look too directly at it to avoid seeing any more than I wanted to see, like looking at the traffic accident that has delayed you for several hours but not really wanting to see the results.

The awful thing about war is that even if you’re not directly affected, even if neither you nor someone you love has to fight in it, you can’t help but be involved in it. Unless you’re willing to hide behind slogans or symbols, war makes you examine yourself, your beliefs, and the world you live in more rigorously than at any other time.

And when you look too closely at the world you see all the poverty, misery, and hatred that seem to entrap the human race and to make us less than human. As a soldier in Vietnam, I was at first shocked by the poverty of the Vietnamese we were trying to protect. I wanted to give money to each of the young children that begged for money every time I got out of my jeep. After awhile, though, when I realized that there weren’t enough coins in my pockets to help them all, I simply chased them away as soon as they came running up, angered as much by my inability to help them as by the constant reminder of how little they had.

A real danger is that we will stop seeing the truth, that the constant exposure to human misery will make us unable, or unwilling, to see it. The misery becomes invisible either because we are avoid certain places or because we don’t recognize it when we do see it.
Even worse, if we do see the truth it will no longer be able to move us. We will have become too hardened to feel the pain any longer, blinded by our own experiences