Ghosts of War: Saving Vietnam Vets' Lives through Songs

Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC

Reviewing:
We Gotta Get Out of This Place:  The Soundtrack of the Vietnam War 
by Doug Bradley & Craig Werner (University of Massachusetts Press, 2015)

The best hit songs of the post-JFK 1960s make Baby Boomers, including me, nostalgic.  But for American veterans of the Vietnam War, some pop, rock, soul & country music of that era has the emotional power to save lives marked by severe trauma.

In this gut-wrenching yet inspiring narrative, punctuated by "solos" (first-person stories told by candid veterans), vet/journalist Doug Bradley & co-author/professor Craig Werner take readers inside the absurdist nightmare of hot jungle duty during the height of the Cold War.

Bradley & Werner focus on accounts of vets' & musicians' experiences as they processed - through popular songs - the horrors of a futile, genocidal war in southeast Asia during the 1960s & early '70s.   Whether militant African-Americans, culturally proud Latinos or white Southern officers, these servicemen & -women (i.e. military nurses & Red Cross "donut Dollies") found solace in songs played over Armed Forces radio and, above all, via personal tape decks & record players in Vietnam.

It was a communal shared music experience, the authors emphasized at a recent book-signing event at Mystery To Me bookstore in Madison (Wisconsin/USA).  In contrast to the post-1990 period of Gulf Wars I & II, plus the ongoing war in Afghanistan, when personalized digital music is being played mainly through earbuds & laptops among combat troops abroad, in Vietnam fights even broke out over jukebox choices.

A labor of love laced with humor & anger, this cultural history packs a punch that many books about marines & soldiers in & after the 'Nam lack.   It was born, appropriately enough, during a 2003 Christmas party conversation at the Madison Vet Center, home base of the Deadly Writers Patrol group of veteran-writers.

The book also addresses the vital contribution to healing made by more obscure Vietnam vet singer-songerwriters, such as the dog-handler MP Jim Wachtendonk.  Plagued by disorders caused by exposure to Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant widely used during the war, Wachtendonk channeled his distress into art.  For example, he wrote & recorded the satirical "Claymore Polka," a song about an Army grunt's wish to rig a bomb in the officers' latrine.

Performing Pete Seeger's anti-war anthem "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" at a 1989 Veterans' Day celebration in the state capitol rotunda in Madison, Wachtendonk moved a somber procession of hundreds as they dropped roses on an altar bearing a US flag, a shroud & a body bag symbolic of their losses.  Similarly emotional events have taken place countless times at the stark polished black marble Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C.

The title is a nod to the song mentioned most by vets discussing their time in South Vietnam.  The authors call "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" an "unlikely anthem."  Written by Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann about wanting to escape a stifling working-class existence, it was most famously recorded in 1965 by the Animals, a British rock band.  Animals singer Eric Burdon recalled meeting a Vietnam vet who told him that the song literally saved his life once during combat duty at a firebase.

"They had a cassette of our second album, and they wanted to hear it.  So he said to me, 'I left to go back to get a copy of that album, and when I came back all my buddies were dead."

That mid-Sixties hit's choral refrain, "We gotta get out of this place / if it's the last thing we ever do," struck a chord with many who served in Vietnam, Bradley & Werner discovered.  It inspired a young Bruce Springsteen as well.  During his 2012 keynote speech at the South by Southwest music conference in Austin (Texas/USA), Springsteen said the song put him on an artistic path that he still follows today.

"To me, the Animals were a revelation.  The first records with full-blown class consciousness that I had ever heard," the Boss noted.  "'We Gotta Get Out of This Place' had that great bass riff.  [He plays the riff & sings the first verse.] That's every song I've ever written . . .  That's 'Born to Run,' 'Born in the USA,' everything I've done for the past forty years."

Several songs by ex-Army reservist John Fogerty, of the late-60s California-based rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, also had special meaning to many Vietnam vets.  "Fortunate Son" & "Who'll Stop the Rain?" were composed out of Fogerty's anger at the government.  He rejoiced upon receiving his final discharge papers in July 1968 & immediately started writing the oft-covered "Proud Mary."

The United States, especially under the leadership of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (1963-69), sent millions of predominantly working-class and minority men to fight & die in a pointless war, one largely driven by ideology (see the so-called Domino Theory) & a desire to protect corporate assets (mainly rubber plantations) in Indochina.

The book features many anecdotes of pathetic gallows humor among troops.  It also offers the ribald insider story of Lee Hazelwood, writer & producer of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'."  This monster hit carries special meaning among GIs whose lives depended on good combat boots.  It became the signature number for Nancy Sinatra, the go-go-booted pin-up daughter of Frank, upon its release in 1966.  She later performed it during USO tours of Vietnam & still sings it at veterans' gatherings.   Hazelwood reputedly encouraged Sinatra to sing it "'as if she were a sixteen-year-old girl who fucks truck drivers.'"

In the final chapter, "'What's Going On':  Music and the Long Road Home," the authors describe movingly how Marvin Gaye's classic Motown concept album, based in part on Gaye's brother & 'Nam vet Frankie's experiences, helped returning veterans.  Syracuse University professor Art Flowers, for example, discusses in a solo how it allowed him to overcome addiction & cope effectively with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) back in the suddenly weird civilian world.

Aretha Franklin & James Brown were particular favorites among the vets.  Brown even made a dangerous tour of US bases with his soul-funk band in 1968, demanding that he be allowed to carry a handgun in the helicopter that shuttled him from base to base.

Soulful songs like Aretha's "Respect," Jimi Hendrix's "Hey Joe" &  Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" as well as Simon & Garfunkel's folk-rock "Sounds of Silence," "Homeward Bound" & their orchestral pop masterpiece "Bridge Over Troubled Water" helped homesick men & women deal with the daily stresses of life in a guerrilla war zone a vast ocean away from the States.  Then they helped them come home.

Here is the Vietnam Vets' Top Twenty, as compiled by Bradley & Werner during their extensive research for the book, and as presented in familiar reverse countdown fashion.  The titles alone are evocative of the physical & emotional struggles that most 'Nam vets have faced:

(20) "For What It's Worth" by the Buffalo Springfield (1967);
(19) "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen (1984);
(18) "Ballad of the Green Berets" by Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler (1966);
(17) "Reflections of My Life" by Marmalade (1969);
(16) "My Girl" by The Temptations (1965);
(15) "And When I Die" by Blood, Sweat & Tears (1969);
(14) "Ring of Fire" by Johnny Cash (1963);
(13) "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye (1970);
(12) "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra (1966);
(11) "Say It Loud -- I'm Black & I'm Proud" by James Brown (1968);
(10) "Green, Green Grass of Home" by Porter Wagoner (1965);
(9) "Chain of Fools" by Aretha Franklin (1967);
(8) "The Letter" by the Box Tops (1967);
(7) "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding (1968);
(6) "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969);
(5) "Purple Haze" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967);
(4) "Detroit City" by Bobby Bare (1963);
(3) "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul & Mary (1969);
(2) "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die Rag" by Country Joe & the Fish (1967);
(1) "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by the Animals (1965).

[For Bobby Dickert, Greg's brother who served in 'Nam.  He came home, but couldn't stay long.]

© 2015 by J. C. Mrazek

Links:
http://www.umass.edu/umpress/title/we-gotta-get-out-place

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/11/we-gotta-get-out-of-this-place-the-soundtrack-of-t.html

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dATyZBEeDJ4 (Country Joe & the Fish)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys_R3VIpxNY (Nancy Sinatra)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxNEiZhpinY (The Animals)

Agnetha Fältskog, Birthday Diva: Celebrating ABBA (a Muse of the Weird milestone episode)

Saturday (April 5th) marks the 64th birthday of Agnetha Fältskog, a Swedish musician who long ago fell off the radar of most culture-commentators.  It might not seem like a momentous occasion to normal critics.  But I find it interesting enough to exploit for the 100th episode of this experiment in free expression, Muse of the Weird ("blogpost" is such an ungainly portmanteau, I've euphemized it with a TV-serial term).  

As a matter of fact, Fältskog's anniversary provides the perfect opportunity to confess an embarrassing secret:  I sincerely love some pretty saccharine pop-music of yesteryear.  And I don't just mean the Bee Gees, one of the most common guilty pleasures among the cognoscenti of music journalists, bloggers & fans.  

My weak spot for well-crafted pop-songs is deeply rooted.  My adolescent tastes were largely shaped - perhaps distorted is the better word - by absorbing a constant parade of puerile teeny-bopper hits (e.g. "Sugar Sugar" & "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy") as well as the occasional adult song ("Lay Lady Lay" & "What's Goin' On") on American Top 40 radio in the 1960s & '70s.  But when it comes to the Bee Gees, at least, I've really got nothing to feel guilty about in those fraternal harmonies.  

The eldest Brother Gibb, Barry, co-wrote, arranged, produced & co-performed several of the greatest pop songs recorded in the rock era, from the Bee Gees' transcendent double-hit single "To Love Somebody" b/w the psychedelic weeper "New York Mining Disaster 1941" (1967: Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones?) all the way until "Too Much Heaven" in 1979.  A generous Aussie-turned-Manxman (resident of the Isle of Man) who eventually moved to Miami, Barry Gibb shared the surplus of his abundant gorgeous material with many other artists, a list that includes Melbourne native Samantha Sang ("Emotion"), youngest brother Andy Gibb (1958-88; "Love Is Thicker than Water") & even Barbra Streisand (who duets with Barry on "Guilty"). 

More psychedelic bubblegum tunes like the Box Tops' "Cry Like a Baby," the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover" & the Lemon Pipers' "Green Tambourine" usually uplift me, like dancing always does.  The radio hits generated by the Scandinavian group in question, however, evoke more complex emotions.  This act's first big single was released in 1974, following their triumph on the internationally televised Eurovision Song Contest.  

As though foretelling the band's global success & subsequent demise, "Waterloo" echoes Napoleon, with lyrics in the voice of a burned lover:  couldn't escape if I wanted to . . . /  finally facing my Waterloo.  Their final release, a dreary New Wave-influenced synthesizer-infested album entitled The Visitors, barely dented the US charts in 1981.  The group, now a mutually divorced foursome who lacked cohesion as well as creative direction, split the following year.

That's right, I'm talking about the legendary Swedish chart-toppers ABBA (1972-82).  Recently, while watching a retrospective British documentary called ABBA:  A Music Masters Collection 4 DVD Set (2012), I was encouraged to take their songs more seriously.  Witnessing Fältskog gently sway & lip-sing in a tacky polyester costume on Polish television in 1976, I empathized with her.  Was her career actually sidetracked - or even ruined - by joining ABBA?  As Agnetha pretended to harmonize with the others on the introspective smash hit "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (ah-haaah) I felt strangely sorry for the beautiful 26-year-old blonde singer.  

By 1976, of course, Fältskog was rich (even in highly taxed, fairly egalitarian Sweden) & widely famous.  She'd been a successful songwriter & pop-star in Sweden since age 17, having dropped out of school at 15 in order to commit herself to show-business.  Trained as a pianist, Agnetha rarely got to display her instrumental chops in ABBA.  The unlikely geniuses who formed the band, keyboardist-composer Benny Andersson & guitarist-lyricist Björn Ulvaeus (who married Fältskog in 1971; they divorced in '79, with a boy & a girl to raise), were content to let the ABBA ladies, soprano Agnetha & the ginger-haired mezzo-soprano Anni-Frid "Frida" Lyngstad (temporarily married to Andersson), function onstage primarily as singing, dancing eye-candy, enticingly underplaying their natural sex appeal.  

On a 1979 ABBA tour, Agnetha seized the chance to perform her own composition "I'm Still Alive" (with lyrics by Ulvaeus) solo on piano & vocals.  The song, however, was never recorded.  A multi-talented performer, Agnetha Fältskog had also been a theater star.  In 1972 she played Mary Magdalene in a Swedish production of Jesus Christ Superstar.  Her early solo sound was folkier; she cited as her strongest musical influences such diverse '60s artists as Marianne Faithfull, Aretha Franklin & Lesley Gore.  

Agnetha relaunched her solo career at least three times after ABBA dissolved, failing to attract much attention in the States with either her '80s albums (e.g. Wrap Your Arms Around Me, 1983), her critically acclaimed 2004 CD My Colouring Book, a big Euro-Australian success, or her 2013 album A.  In November of last year she performed a moving duet ("I Should've Followed You Home" with Gary Barlow) for a children's charity TV show in London, her first stage performance since 1988.  Agnetha's relaxed beauty & inspiring talent were on ageless display.

The most reclusive ex-member, Fältskog seems ambivalent about ABBA's legacy.  In May 2013 ABBA The Museum opened, with Agnetha participating in a low-profile way.  This massive tourist draw is housed inside the Swedish Music Hall of Fame facility in Stockholm.  Meanwhile, Andersson & Ulvaeus parlayed their diverse ABBA hits into a campy 1999 London stage musical (source of the follow-up 2008 Hollywood film), Mamma Mia.  The 1992 collection ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits continues to sell untold millions of copies.  

ABBA's best work presents a blend of styles, ranging from rousing hook-driven pop-rock ("SOS") to Spanish flamenco meets Andean flute concoctions ("Fernando"), Latin-flavored military marches ("Chiquitita") & operatic bad-romance ballads ("The Winner Takes It All" & "One of Us," both featuring Agnetha's subtly emotional lead vocal).  In their prime ABBA was a four-headed musical force of nature, hardly your typical European flash-in-the-pan pop act, á la Dutch rockers Shocking Blue (1970's "Venus") or West Germany's enigmatic Nena ("99 Red Balloons/99 Luftballons," 1983).  

I can assure you, based on personal experience in US & western European discotheques of the late '70s & early '80s, that few songs filled a dance floor faster than ABBA's syncopated, symphonic breakthrough "Dancing Queen" (1976).  Even the inane chorus has its naive charms:  You are the dancing queen / Young and sweet, only seventeen / Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine / Oh yeah / You can dance, you can jive / Having the time of your life / See that girl, watch that scene / Dig it, the dancing queen.  Having grown up on the neutral frontier of the Cold War, these four talented Swedes managed to capture the zeitgeist of the escapist decade par excellence while performing in a foreign language. 

Many of the hits feature baroque melodies, orchestral strings and/or chord progressions borrowed from Bach ("Voulez-Vous" & "Mamma Mia").  They shamelessly exploit hypnotic rhythms & repetitive phrasing ("Money, Money," "Gimme, Gimme, Gimme" & "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do").  ABBA was all over the place & their fans embraced most of these intriguing hybrid tunes.  

ABBA's greatest songs are timeless (unlike their typically hideous stage gear) because, in part, they incorporate good musical ideas from earlier eras.  It's a revelation - as well as a relief to sore mirrorball-blinded eyes - to see Agnetha, Frida, Benny & Björn in late 18th-century finery performing their mod hits on a 1978 Swedish TV broadcast from Stockholm's grand opera theater.  

Although their repertoire didn't reach the level of aesthetic perfection to which Andersson (a wannabe contemporary Mozart) & Ulvaeus (a poser-poet) aspired, their oeuvre is rich in musical gems nonetheless.  If you doubt the complexity of ABBA's records, try listening to the irresistible four-minute single "Take a Chance on Me" through high-fidelity headphones.  

Remarkably, despite a public image that suggested bourgeois Nordic eroticism, ABBA was considered safe enough by Communist censors to appear on Polish television in the mid-'70s.  At a time when few Western pop acts passed muster in the Eastern bloc, perhaps their coming from (non-NATO-member) Sweden helped ABBA.  Ironically, the title track of their final album, "The Visitors (Crackin' Up)" concerns a political dissident disturbed by constant government surveillance.  It's hardly surprising that ABBA's liberating sound found an audience in countries (such as the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany) whose narrow-minded leaders used to denounce the alleged decadence of Western rock 'n' roll.

ABBA always did its most impressive work in the recording studio, where engineers & producers can layer instruments & vocals into masterpieces that still satisfy hordes of casual listeners.  They were also technological pioneers, recording digitally a few years before compact discs hit the market.  ABBA's spacious Polar Music Studio, housed in an old movie palace in central Stockholm, had cutting-edge equipment.

Although she put on a brave public face, I wonder whether Agnetha Fältskog felt like a dissident in the cult of ABBA.  Her post-ABBA solo work was tepidly received by the American market.  If she became periodically fed up with an industry that only respects record (now also download) sales & sold-out arena concerts, who could blame her ?

Born in Jönköping, a trading city of 90,000 souls in Småland province (south-central Sweden), on 5 April 1950, Fältskog was the elder daughter of middle-class parents.  Musically precocious, she wrote her first song ("Two Little Trolls") at age six, started piano lessons at eight & also sang in a church choir.  Young Agnetha must have dreamt of a fulfilling artistic future.  Did she get her wish?  

Let's examine the evidence.  During a 1981 television special, with her marriage in tatters & ABBA's heady days behind them, Fältskog looks tired & sad.  She hesitantly answers Dick Cavett's awkward questions in the bored company of her soon-to-be ex-bandmates.  By then, at age 31, Agnetha had long stood on the mountaintop of pop stardom.  She might've found the view more distressing than thrilling by that point.

Agnetha has categorically ruled out participating in any ABBA reunion ever since the group evaporated in December 1982.  Except for this:  I found a New Musical Express (London - Nov. 2013) article which quotes Agnetha as being open to a brief ABBA reunion this year ("Waterloo" plus 40 ans).  Rejoice!  Will she or won't she?  Dig it, the Dancing Diva.  Here's the link for more details: http://www.nme.com/news/abba/73746#mL2Bh8LQd5X8SqTR.99

Given their considerable artistic & commercial accomplishments (they're the third best-selling recording artists ever), ABBA deserves more respect than most music fans are inclined to give them.  The over-enunciated vocals may seem cheesy, the arrangements might sound melodramatic, but it's hard to argue with international popularity on the scale of the Beatles & Michael Jackson.  ABBA was inducted into the (US) Rock & Roll Hall of Fame by Barry & Robin Gibb in 2010.

Agnetha, Benny, Björn & Anni-Frid (A-B-B-A) made several enduring works of pop art.  For nearly a decade, they pulled off the miracle of being complementary professional as well as marital partners.  The blonde soprano Agnetha (aka "Anna") was the most charismatic member of the group to most guys like me (ten years younger than her & possessing a sense of sight).  But what do I know?  

Paraphrasing the unfashionable Karl Marx:  the critics have only interpreted the culture differently; the point, however, is to change it.  And ABBA certainly did.  But there's a caveat, from (who else?) pop-culture critic Chuck Klosterman:  "By the end of the twentieth century, it was far more contrarian to hate ABBA than to love them."

With gratitude, sympathy & a note of nostalgic desire, I send this love-letter to the lovely Agnetha Fältskog.  May it venture out into the vast mystery of cyberspace & find its mark.  Muse of the Weird, still rolling along - an unmossy stone at the 100 post-mark, wishes you a very Happy 64th Birthday indeed.  May I have the next dance, ma'am?

Postscript:  Dig this link to the Dutch magazine Hitkrant's 1978 article noting that ABBA (politically neutral yet commercially ambitious) intends to conquer the pop-music markets of the (then nominally Communist) USSR, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc.  It also features photos of Agnetha & ABBA.  It's late-Cold War disco madness!

LINK:
http://abbaarticles.blogspot.com/2009/08/hitkrant-october-1978-abba-is-going-to.html

Wikipedia notes this curious coincidence about a big 1975 ABBA single:  "'SOS' has a number of musical fans.  John Lennon declared that it was one of his favourite pop songs, and Pete Townshend in particular said it is probably his favourite pop song. Ray Davies also said that he was taken with the song after seeing the group perform it on the television show Seaside Special."

On Friday (April 4th) chicorymoonchick wrote from Honolulu:
I love this blog. I lived in Sweden when I was seventeen til I was 18 and a half.  I remember anytime we were lucky enough to get on a boat in Stockholm's archipelago people would drive the boat past the ABBA complex out on a little island in the archipelago:  "Look, look it is Bjorn and Benny from ABBA!" and we would squint to look throught the fence posts.  I was like ... WOW these people really love this band.  Every single disco and bar in that country used the song "Dancing Queen" as their signal to the young people that it was bar time.  It was ALWAYS in every place the last song of the night.  Like a uniform code across Sweden.  The last shot, last dance, last bit of public fun was to that ABBA song.  I also have often wondered what happened to her since it seemed like a pretty male-dominated band.  This was a great post. 

Happy 100th! Aloha from Hawaii!
- Meaghan Owens (singer-songwriter, originally from Wisconsin)

On Sunday (April 6th) michel.martens@telfort.nl wrote from the Netherlands:

Here in Holland, ABBA has been popular from the beginning of their career (the single ‘Ring Ring’ was a top 5 hit here, even one year before their victory in the Eurovision Song Contest) until the end (‘Under Attack’ went top 5 here a well, as far as I know it only reached the top 5 in Holland and Belgium).  Agnetha's and Frida’s solo records have been successful here as well.  Agnetha’s latest album ‘A’ (2013) reached number 14 on the Dutch charts with zero promotion.

Best regards,

- Michel Martens (whose blog posted the 1978 Hitkrant article about ABBA)

© 2014 by Joe Crawford Mrazek

"Next Stop Is Vietnam" war & music symposium

I learned alot & heard many moving stories at last weekend's Wisconsin Veterans Museum symposium, celebrating the release of the archival CD set Next Stop is Vietnam:  The War on Record (1961-2008), curated by musicologist Hugo Keesing.  This event in Madison served as a valuable reminder that music has the power to help musicians tell personal stories as well as to help listeners endure traumatic experiences.  

Country music expert Bill Malone, PhD candidate Charles Hughes (who's writing a dissertation on soul music), African-American writer/vet Art Flowers and musician/vets Jim Walktendonk & Lem Genovese offered fascinating insights into how those who served in Vietnam were uplifted by popular music and how folks on the home front reacted - through country, rock & soul music - to the war's unfolding futility. 

Emotions were strong among Vietnam vets in the audience, but the abundance of laughter made attending the 5 sessions a pleasure.  Here's a list of the songs most mentioned by Vietnam vets - including nurses - as having a special resonance, according to researchers Doug Bradley (a USARV reporter in Vietnam) and Craig Warner (UW professor and a self-described "undrafted hippie" musician from Colorado):

1. "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by The Animals, written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weill (for the Righteous Brothers) - the title suffices to explain its popularity among US troops in Vietnam.

2. "Fixin' to Die Rag" by Country Joe MacDonald (a veteran who still supports fellow vets as well as an iconic anti-war activist) & the Fish. 

3. "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by Peter, Paul & Mary (written by John Denver) - originally released in 1967, but not a hit till '69 - beloved by soldiers overseas for its theme of reluctant parting from a lover.

4. "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding (co-written by Steve Cropper) - sadly, a posthumous release & another melancholy lyric full of longing.

5. "Detroit City" by Bobby Bare, a crossover country hit popular among troops due mainly to its mournful refrain "I wanna go home."  Some 58,000 of our nearly 3 million Vietnam vets never did make it home.  Many more couldn't adjust to their post-Nam world.

6. "Purple Haze" by Jimi Hendrix, an ex-paratrooper & rebel hero to many fighting men, especially combat grunts in Vietnam, after the war turned sour in 1967.

7. "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra, who has made a living largely from entertaining Vietnam vets.  And, of course, she looked damn good in those boots circa 1966.

8. "The Letter" by The Box Tops, memorable mainly because of its urgent theme - i.e. missing my gal - and the late Alex Chilton's great growling vocal delivery.

9. "Chain of Fools" by Aretha Franklin - US troops in Vietnam apparently applied the lyrics to the military chain of command, among other sources of irritation.

10. "What's Goin' On" by Marvin Gaye - title track of  that masterpiece album, which Marvin wrote after deep conversations with his brother Frankie upon Frankie Gaye's return from combat duty in Vietnam.  Art Flowers said that the cut "What's Happenin' Brother" just about blew his mind when he first heard it after his Nam tour.