Incoming
1969 · Not On Label · South Vietnam
- Artist
- Emily & Barb
- Title
- Incoming
- Release
- Incoming
- Year
- 1969
- Label
- Not On Label
- Format
- Cassette · Archival
- Language
- English
- Country
- South Vietnam
- Songwriter
- Emily Strange, Barbara Hager
- Genre
- Folk · Contemporary Folk
- Primary theme
- Home Front Perspective / Soldier's Perspective
Annotation
1969 Vietnam War song "Incoming", recorded on personal tape in Vietnam, performed and written by Emily Strange, an American Red Cross Donut Dolly with the 9th Infantry Division and Mobile Riverine Force in Vietnam (1968-69) and Barbara Hager of the US Army Special Services - Dong Tam, Vietnam (1969). (1) Emily Strange passed away in 2016, and Barabara Hagar in 2017. This rare and unique recording of active service females performing a song in Vietnam, was given from Emily Strange to the editor of the Vietnam War Song Project, Justin Brummer, to post the song on YouTube, and to Hugo Kessing, for use in his book chapter "Understanding the Vietnam Era Through Music" (2013). Emily Strange wrote on 11 November 2011, "I never care about making money with my writings or songs. The people most interested are those who served in Nam and students writing reports for school. Nam Vets long ago paid the price for my songs and students need to understand the war". The VWSP passed the song onto Erin R. McCoy, Associate Professor of English at the University of South Carolina Beaufort, for her book "A War Tour of Viet Nam: A Cultural History" (McFarland & Company, 2021). McCoy notes on p.102-03…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Notes
Written by Emily Strange and Barbara Hager at Dong Tam in 1969, to sing in the bunker during mortar attacks; Emily Strange later wrote that it “went over pretty well at the firebases, too”. In 1992 she performed it on an Austin City Limits Veterans Day special hosted by Kris Kristofferson, put forward by the folklorist Lydia Fish as, in her words, apparently the only woman they could find who wrote a song in Vietnam. She asked to show a photograph of Barbara Hager on screen in the hope of finding her; a friend in Texas saw the broadcast and telephoned her in Los Angeles, and the two were reunited 23 years after they wrote the song.
About the artist
Emily Strange, an American Red Cross Donut Dollie (Donut Dolly) attached to the 9th Infantry Division and the Mobile Riverine Force in the Mekong Delta, 1968-69, and Barbara Hager of US Army Special Services at Dong Tam, 1969. Emily Strange was based at Dong Tam and worked across the delta, at Ambush Alley, Vinh Kim, Tan An, Tan Tru, Rach Kien, Tiger's Lair, Fire Support Base Danger and Phu Quoc Island. 'Incoming' was recorded in country and was never commercially released; the recording and the photographs are used with Emily Strange's permission. [Source: Emily Strange's website Emily…
Themes
Soldier's Perspective · Military · In Country · Red Cross Donut Dolly