Placed Called Viet Nam

Annotation

The track "A Place Called Viet Nam" (West Wind # SS-6123) by Larry La Pole & the Polecats - a country/rock outfit, who recorded this single on a Minneapolis, Minnesota record label. Larry La Pole wrote many songs for the surf rock band The Trashmen, such as King of Surf. This song told the story of a boy on the eve of his departure to Vietnam, at a bandstand. He asked a member of the band (the narrator of the story) to play a country tune before he left for war. The departing soldier supported the war because of the "fight for freedom". He them recalled that his father died in World War Two and his brother in Korea. He noted, with a degree of scorn, the draft card burners and protesters on TV, and said that "I could never do things that way...I sure know right from wrong". Finally, the narrator accepted the domino theory, that if the US failed in their mission in Vietnam, then "we might be fighting right here at home".

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

About the artist

Unknown - no birth or death information could be established for this artist from a sanctioned source. The record is credited on the label to Larry La Pole and the Polecats and was issued as "A Place Called Viet Nam" backed with 'Golden Diesel' on West Wind SS-6123-01 in 1966; La Pole wrote both sides and the record was mastered at Sound Studios, Chicago, whose involvement is mastering geography and not evidence of the artist's own. Discogs identifies the performer as Lawrence M. LaPole, the Minneapolis songwriter who supplied the Trashmen with 'King of the Surf' and other material, and lists…

Themes

Patriotic · Draft Card Burning · Demonstration · WW2 · Korea · Draft

In collections

Draft Songs · US 'Patriotic' / Pro-Government / Anti-Protest Songs