Informe en las tinieblas del último "marine" en Vietnam

Annotation — Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

Argentinian poet Armando Tejada Gómez, born 21 April 1929 in Mendoza, Argentina, died on 3 November 1992 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, often associated with the new song movement in South America, released this LP in Uruguay in 1970, with the track "Informe en las tinieblas del ultimo marine en Vietnam" ("Report in the Darkness of the Last Marine in Vietnam"), which took an anti-war perspective, looking at the position of the US soldier in Vietnam, who cried out "get me out of this hell". Lyrics from Anti-War Songs (AWS)1Sources1Antiwar Songs↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: It comes from everywhere like the dawn / Cosmically it begins without a single explosion / The light suddenly comes in / It unfolds the silence / Then it grows upward, stretching out the space / We find it impossible to keep the darkness / The sun devours everything / It gets in everywhere / Yesterday we turned a whole rice field to shadow / And there they are again, sowing flames / I await new orders / Send new instructions / Because the light hurts the soldier's morale / Yesterday, while we were killing, Jim Hovver went mad / He shouted that death does not spread the darkness / Kill the light!, he begged / We had to silence him / Today, at 3 PM, we took the Hill and at 7 PM we were driven out / I can swear the whole area was deserted / But, like a flash of lightning, the light came from below / The absurd idea is spreading that weapons are useless / Get me out of this hell! The light has surrounded us! __________ Spanish: Viene de todas partes como la madrugada / Cósmicamente empieza sin un solo estallido / La luz entra de pronto / Desarrolla el silencio / Crece luego en la altura extendiendo el espacio / Se nos hace imposible conservar las tinieblas / El sol devora todo / Entra por todas partes / Ayer hicimos sombra un arrozal entero / Y ahí están nuevamente sembrando llamaradas / Espero nuevas órdenes / Den nuevas instrucciones / Porque la luz lastima la moral del soldado / Ayer, mientras matábamos, enloqueció Jim Hovver / Gritaba que la muerte no propaga lo…

Notes

Track A11, written and read by Tejada Gómez. Recorded in Buenos Aires (FONEMA), pressed in Uruguay (Hemisferio, Montevideo); also listed as Macondo GAM 529.

About the artist

Argentinian poet, born 21 April 1929 in Mendoza, Argentina; died 3 November 1992 in Buenos Aires, Argentina; associated with the nueva canción movement. [Source: Wikipedia]

Themes

Anti-War · Soldier's Perspective · Combat · Marines

In collections

Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]