Our Own Vietnam
1997 · Fairytale FT0497 · Horst, Netherlands
- Artist
- Heideroosjes
- Title
- Our Own Vietnam
- Release
- Kung-Fu
- Year
- 1997
- Label
- Fairytale # FT0497
- Format
- CD · Album
- Country
- Horst, Netherlands
- Genre
- Punk · Punk Rock
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation
Dutch Punk Rock group, formed in 1989, in Horst, Limburg, Netherlands. Disbanded 29 September 2012. Members included: Frank Kleuskens (guitar), Fred Houben (bass), Igor Hobus (drums), and Marco Roelofs (vocals). The song "Our Own Vietnam" (Fairytale Records # FT0497) was another post-war song that used the Vietnam War as a benchmark, to compare to contemporary conflicts, in this case the Former Yugoslavia. It noted that the Yugoslavian conflict was a "story of hate, aggression, rape, and fear". It said that the United Nations failed to solve that problem, and that while the USA "kept their hands dry", because they had "learned their lesson back in the sixties", Europe now had its "own Vietnam", a somewhat distorted portrayal of American interventionism in the post-Vietnam era. In fact, the US played a role in the Former Yugoslavia, not to mention other conflicts throughout the world.
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Lyrics
English: If the trees in former Yugoslavia could talk / They could tell you a little story / A story you don't wanna hear / A story of hate, aggression, rape and fear / The almighty United Nations sent out troops to / Control the situation / But while showing the world their superiority / They got fooled and became / Part of the genocide of a nation / And now they find the bodies of ten thousand slaughtered men / We have our own Vietnam! / The United F**kin States of America kept their hands dry / They learned their lesson back in the sixties / But United Naive bastards thought they could trust the enemy / They thought they could trust the enemy... / We have our own Vietnam! / All this time during that war they told us, lies, lies, lies, lies / Told the women 'yes, your husband will return' lies, lies, lies, lies / And now they can no longer say 'we did what we could' lies, lies, lies, lies / All this time during that war they told us, lies, lies, lies, lies
About the artist
Punk Rock group, formed in 1989 in Horst, Limburg, Netherlands, and disbanded on 29 September 2012; members included Marco Roelofs (vocals), Frank Kleuskens (guitar), Fred Houben (bass) and Igor Hobus (drums).