Saigon Battle Children 1972

Annotation — Australian & New Zealand Songs

Jazz group formed in 1997 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The line-up featured: Katie Noonan (vocals), Nick Stewart (guitar), River Petein (alto saxophone), Martin Challis (poetry), and Isaac Hurren (tenor saxophone). This album featured the anti-war song "Saigon Battle Children 1972" (Festival Mushroom Records # 336362), in which the narrator made a comparison to their daily life with that of a child in the Vietnam War. As the narrator enjoyed the taste of "cashew and walnut", the child ate "the bones of your neightbours' dog". As the child "went without feet, a landmine exploding", the narrator "sprained an ankle at basketball". The line "while your skin seared from the heat of warfare" may be a reference to chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.123 As the child suffered from a napalm attack, the narrator was "feeling the warmth of a shopping centre". Sources1Napalm: An American Biography (Robert M. Neer, 2013)↩2Times Higher Education: Napalm an american biography by robert m neer↩3Napalm, An American Biography (book website)↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Annotation — Jazz Songs

Jazz group formed in 1997 in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The line-up featured: Katie Noonan (vocals), Nick Stewart (guitar), River Petein (alto saxophone), Martin Challis (poetry), and Isaac Hurren (tenor saxophone). This album featured the anti-war song "Saigon Battle Children 1972" (Festival Mushroom Records # 336362), in which the narrator made a comparison to their daily life with that of a child in the Vietnam War. As the narrator enjoyed the taste of "cashew and walnut", the child ate "the bones of your neightbours' dog". As the child "went without feet, a landmine exploding", the narrator "sprained an ankle at basketball". The line "while your skin seared from the heat of warfare" may be a reference to chemical weapon Napalm B - a jellied gasoline mixture, with polystyrene, benzene, and gasoline. Declared a war-crime since 1980, the US government extensively used this weapon during the Vietnam conflict, dropping 388,000 tons on Indochina between 1963 and 1973.123 As the child suffered from a napalm attack, the narrator was "feeling the warmth of a shopping centre".Sources1Napalm: An American Biography (Robert M. Neer, 2013)↩2Times Higher Education: Napalm an american biography by robert m neer↩3Napalm, An American Biography (book website)↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: While I was learning to saviour the new taste of cashew and walnut in the autumn of that year / You were learning to eat the bones of your neightbours' dog as you fled from an earth gone moist / The leaves of war were torn from the jungle as a cavalry of shrapnel burnt away the air / You were learning to hold your breath while I was doing the same in a suburban swimming pool / When the dust of your family filled the lids of your eyes / Being left to see for yourself held quite a different meaning / While your skin seared from the heat of warfare / I was feeling the warmth of a shopping centre in winter / When you went without feet, a landmine exploding your underneath world underneath / I sprained an ankle at basketball / The words of an American god spat forth from automatic weapon / And you saw the tongues of the lamb inviting you to feast in a foreign language / And while I drew in crayon on the kindergarten wall / You were drawn in the crosshairs just before the smell of cordite / While your skin seared from the heat of warfare / I was feeling the warmth of a shopping centre in winter

About the artist

Elixir - jazz group formed 1997 in Brisbane, Queensland: Katie Noonan (vocals), Nick Stewart (guitar), River Petein (alto saxophone), Martin Challis (poetry) and Isaac Hurren (tenor saxophone).

Themes

Child · Vietnamese Children · Napalm · Landmine · Civilian Casualties · Anti-War

In collections

Amerasians, Orphans & Vietnamese Children · Australian & New Zealand Songs · Jazz Songs