Saigon
1979 · Cleopatra CLP 202 · Melbourne, Australia
- Artist
- Spare Change
- Title
- Saigon
- Release
- Lonely Suits
- Year
- 1979
- Label
- Cleopatra # CLP 202
- Format
- LP · Album
- Language
- English
- Country
- Melbourne, Australia
- Genre
- Rock · Power Pop
- Primary theme
- Post-War
Annotation — Australian & New Zealand Songs
Spare Change, obscure power pop group from Adelaide, Australia. They relocated to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in 1975, and recorded this in 1977. But the band broke up. Lead vocalist, John Dowler, went on to join Australian power pop group Young Modern. This album was released after they broke up, on a Melbourne, Australian record label.12 It featured the song "Saigon" (Cleopatra Records # CLP 202) about a Vietnam veteran feeling nostalgic about the fun times in Saigon, possibly visiting prostitutes, although that's not explicitly stated: "girls with the slits... walk the bright streets at night in Saigon... everyone sinned in Saigon". But now the war is over "nobody has any fun". As time passed, the vet travelled the world from Paris, to Berlin, China, Egypt, and Afghanistan. He then tried to get back into Vietnam, noting that Saigon changed its name: "they say its called Ho Chi Minh City", but they wouldn't let him in. The narrator also criticised the justification for the war: "so much for the Domino Theory" - that the collapse of South Vietnam into the control of the communist north would trigger the collapse of democracy in other countries and threaten the US - the idea of…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Notes
Recorded 1977, released 1979.
About the artist
Spare Change - power pop group from Adelaide, South Australia, which moved to Melbourne in 1975 and recorded this album in 1977 before breaking up; singer John Dowler went on to Young Modern.
Themes
Vet · Saigon · Prostitution · Ho Chi Minh City · Domino Theory · Eisenhower