El ejemplo de Vietnam

Annotation — Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music

Carlos Puebla, born on 11 September 1917 in Manzanillo, Granma, Cuba. He died on 12 July 1989, Havana, Cuba. He was a prominent member of the Nueva trova movement, the Cuban offshoot of Nueva canción latinoamericana, linked with leftist social and political movement in South & Central America. Released in 1975, all the songs on the album Cuba: Songs for Our America (Paredon Records # P-1018) focused on issues related to the US - such as its involvement in Puerto Rico, Panama, Vietnam, and problems at home, such as both African-American and Mexican-American Civil Rights. Released on Paredon Records, this record label was founded by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber in 1969, whose objective was to "seek out the music and speech, documentary or dialogue, that spring from the conscious artist who relates to people's movements, and which pour from all people in struggle".1 This record label released several albums either about the Vietnam War or that contained a Vietnam War song, which are discussed on this list, see the note below. Also note that in 1969 Dane and Sliber published the book "The Vietnam Song Book" which included the notation and lyrics of one hundred anti-war songs collected from around the world. This album included the song "El ejemplo de Vietnam" ("Example of Vietnam"), discussed above, featured on the 1973 album Carlos Puebla. A second Vietnam War-related song on this album was "Y está despertando el negro" ("Now the Black Man Is Awakening"), which combined the issues of African-American Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, focussing on the draft resistance movement. The narrator said that the US system tried to protect its investment by "enlisting and training the black man" as "cheap meat" to fight in the war. However, the narrator said that now the "black man is rising" - resisting the draft. Sources1What Now People, Vol. 1 - Paredon 2001↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Annotation — Draft Songs

Carlos Puebla, born on 11 September 1917 in Manzanillo, Granma, Cuba. He died on 12 July 1989, Havana, Cuba. He was a prominent member of the Nueva trova movement, the Cuban offshoot of Nueva canción latinoamericana, linked with leftist social and political movement in South & Central America. Released in 1975, all the songs on the album Cuba: Songs for Our America (Paredon Records # P-1018) focused on issues related to the US - such as its involvement in Puerto Rico, Panama, Vietnam, and problems at home, such as both African-American and Mexican-American Civil Rights. Released on Paredon Records, this record label was founded by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber in 1969, whose objective was to "seek out the music and speech, documentary or dialogue, that spring from the conscious artist who relates to people's movements, and which pour from all people in struggle".1 This record label released several albums either about the Vietnam War or that contained a Vietnam War song, which are discussed on this list, see the note below. Also note that in 1969 Dane and Sliber published the book "The Vietnam Song Book" which included the notation and lyrics of one hundred anti-war songs collected from around the world.This album included the song "El ejemplo de Vietnam" ("Example of Vietnam"), discussed above, featured on the 1973 album Carlos Puebla. A second Vietnam War-related song on this album was "Y está despertando el negro" ("Now the Black Man Is Awakening"), which combined the issues of African-American Civil Rights and the Vietnam War, focussing on the draft resistance movement. The narrator said that the US system tried to protect its investment by "enlisting and training the black man" as "cheap meat" to fight in the war. However, the narrator said that now the "black man is rising" - resisting the draft.Sources1What Now People, Vol. 1 - Paredon 2001↩

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

English: Puerto Rico, is getting ready to liberate itself / To have a free country, without fear of the Yankee giant / With the Vietnamese victory / It has been shown once and for all that even though they seem so big / The giants are not so great / And now you see, Puerto Rico, in a very concrete way / How the peoples of smaller lands are rising up / Remember the legend of Goliath, that giant, and little David / Who forced him to surrender and to humble himself / The Yankee has cannons, and knows how to exploit you / But Puerto Rico relies on something else / Puerto Rico has its people / The heirs of Betances who at this historic moment have made up their minds to be free

Notes

Track B3; recorded in Cuba; liner notes in Spanish and English with lyrics. Same song as on Areito LDA-3410 (1973).

About the artist

Born 11 September 1917 in Manzanillo, Cuba; died 12 July 1989 in Havana, Cuba; formed Los Tradicionales in 1953; a prominent member of the nueva trova movement. [Source: Wikipedia]

Themes

Anti-Imperialism · Vietnamese Patriotic · Freedom & Liberty · Vietnam Analogy

In collections

Draft Songs · Latin & Central American, & Caribbean Music · Vietnam as Comparison