Pull Out The Pin

[Doug Alan <nessus>]

> From Eric

> ... it is just a sort of a flaw, like the story in "Pull out the
> pin"... that song bothers me for similar reasons, because

>	(a) I don't think Americans' "stink of sweat" would be a
>            major reason for guerilla-types to dislike them, nor
>            even a characteristic they would notice... I mean,
>            how many guerillas carry Ban Roll-On around in
>            their supplies?

I'm told that there were Viet Cong who would track Americans by scent,
so clearly they'd notice!  This is mentioned in the song.

>        (b) I'm not sure if many of the guerilla-types are
>            Buddhists.

Buddhism is one of the most popular religions in the Orient.  Why would
you think they are not likely to be Buddhists?

>         (c) This song seems to deal with a hand grenade, but her
>            victim is apparently walking down the street.

He is?  I don't see that at all.  I see them both in the jungles of
Vietnam or Cambodia or something.

>        (d) Just at an intuitive level, it doesn't seem to fit
>            with what I perceive to be the ideological position
>            of most anti-American revolutionary types.

It's not necessarily about an anti-American revolutionary -- just
someone who's homeland has been invaded and who is trying to survive.

>        (e) Why does it say "I gaze in American eyes," rather
>            than, say, British?

Were there British soldiers in Vietnam?

>        (f) The situation she describes doesn't seem very
>            confrontational to me, so the "I love life", 
>            "me or him", etc. just don't seem to fit.

The Viet Cong is stalking the American to get his coat: "I've seen the
coat for me/ I'll track him til he drops/ Then I'll pop him one he won't
see".

This is what Kate has to say about "Pull Out The Pin" from an interview
in Keyboard (Jul 85):

	My motivations are not social or political.  It's an emotional
	motivation, where I'm so moved by something that I have to
	write.

	....

	There was this fantastic TV documentary about a cameraman who
	was on the front lines.  He was a brilliant cameraman and he was
	so well-trained a technician that he kept filming things no
	matter how he was feeling about it at the time.  Some of the
	stuff he was shooting was really disturbing.  Some of these
	Vietnamese guys would just come in and they were sort of dying
	in mid-air.  And he'd just keep on filming.  It was strange the
	sort of irony that these Vietnamese who were fighting the
	Americans were Buddhists and they'd pop a silver bullet that
	they wore on a chain around their necks into their mouth before
	they went into battle.  So if they died, they would have Buddha
	on their lips.  This is the whole irony throughout history
	between religion and war.  "Breathing" is about human beings
	killing themselves.  I think that people smoking is one of those
	tiny things that says a lot about human beings.  I mean, I smoke
	and enjoy it, but we smoke and we know it's dangerous.  Maybe
	there's some kind of strange subconscious desire to damage
	ourselves.  It would seem so if you looked back through history,
	wouldn't it?

And from Zig Zag (1982):

	I saw this incredible documentary by this Australian camerman
	who went on the front line in Vietnam, filming from the
	Vietnamese point of view, so it was very biased against the
	Americans.  He said it really changed him, because until you
	live on the level like that, when it's complete survival, you
	don't know what it's about.  He's never been the same since
	because it's so devastating people dying all the time.

	The way he portrayed the Vietnamese was this really crafted,
	beautiful race.  The Americans were these big, fat, pink, smelly
	things, who the Vietnamese could smell coming for miles because
	of the tobacco and cologne.  It was devastating because you got
	the impression that the Vietnamese were so beautiful and all
	getting wiped out.  They wore a little silver Buddha on a chain
	around their neck and when they went into action they'd pop it
	into their mouth, so that if they died they'd have Buddha on
	their lips.  I wanted to write a song that could somehow convey
	the whole thing, so we set it in the jungle and had
	helicopters, crickets and little Balineses frogs.

And from Kate's newsletter:

	We sat in front of the speakers trying to focus on the picture
	-- a green forest, humid and pulsating with life.  We are
	looking at the Americans from the Vietnamese point of view and
	almost like a camera we start in wide shot.  Right in the
	distance you can see the trees moving, smoke and sounds drifting
	our way,... sounds like a radio.  Closer in with the camera and
	you can catch glimpses of their pink skin.  We can smell them
	for miles with their sickly cologne, American tobacco and their
	stale sweat.

	Take the camera even closer and we find a solitary soldier,
	perhaps the one I have singled out.  (Sometimes a Vietnamese
	would track a soldier for days and follow him until he
	eventually took him).  This soldier is under a tree, dozing with
	a faint smile and a radio by his side.  It's a small transister
	radio out of which cries an electric guitar, I'd swear it was
	being played by Brian Bath, but how could it be, way out here on
	our stereo screen.

	I pop the silver buddha that I wear around my neck into my mouth
	securing my lips around his little metal body, I move towards
	the sleeping man.  A helicopter soars overhead, he wakes up and
	as he looks me in the eyes I relate to him as I would a helpless
	stranger.  Has he a family and a lady waiting for him at home,
	somewhere beyond the Chinese drums and double bass that stalks
	like a wild cat through bamboo?

	The moving pictures freeze-frame and fade, someone's stopped the
	multi-track, there's more overdubs to do.

-Doug