Pah

Khe Sanh annotations

Cold Chisel’s Khe Sanh, lyrics by Don Walker.

Khe Sanh is the name of the first major Vietnam battle to be televised in America. It was a horrific military loss for the Vietnamese, but a propoganda win in that it turned US public opinion against the war. It was also a strategic win, blinding the US to the coming country-wide Tet Offensive (also a military loss, but propoganda win). But not many Aussies would have taken part in Khe Sanh…

I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh

A sapper is someone who plants (or finds) mines.

And my soul was sold with my cigarettes to the blackmarket man
I’ve had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the Silver City

Silver City was a successful campaign involving Aussie troops.

And it’s only other vets could understand

This was before Google.

About the long forgotten dockside guarantees

Long forgotten, apparently. I always assumed this was something along the lines of government guarantees of jobs when the vets got back or compensation for injuries or something. I’m completely unable to find anything out about this though.

How there were no V-dayheroes in 1973

Referring to Victory Day, which was celebrated for various previous wars.

How we sailed into Sydney Harbour

Presumably here he means “flew into Homebush”.

Saw an old friend but couldn’t kiss her
She was lined, and I was home to the lucky land

Behind lines of some kind? Parade barriers or police lines? High on coke? Has extra lines of worry on her face? This is the most mysterious verse in the whole song!

And their legs were often open
Or the growing need for speed and novacaine

Released in May 1978, the single reached number four in the band’s home town of Adelaide but peaked on the national sales charts at number 43. In August that same year, censors gave it an A Classification, meaning that it was “not suitable for airplay”, due to sex and drug references. But you’ve got to wonder if there wasn’t a more political reason. The government and society didn’t really begin to play fair with Vietnam vets till the 80s.

Yeah the last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone

Most people seem to think it’s “last train”, though I’m not sure how they’d get to HK using rail…

Lyrics
I taught Jeans the lyrics by doing an email exhange of lines - so I must have looked the whole of the lyrics and one line especially just about every day for a month. But I still get mixed up in the words. I think the only song I really know the words to is Smells Like Teen Spirit, but I’m not so sure about that any more either - I’m afraid to try it out. I’m just not made for lyrics. Them words be just silly bulls.

Unofficial Anthem
I’ve said before this is our second unofficial song after Waltzing Matilda. Why are our unofficial songs so depressing? It’s even a bit perverse for us to sing them. Countering that, we have lots of bland promotional songs. What enables a lot of Australians to get behind these songs? Because they’re very white?

PS
One of our bland promotional songs, I Still Call Australia Home (lyrics by Peter Allen), starts with “I’ve been to cities that never close down / from New York to Rio and old London town”… but London does close down. Earlyish. Has Peter really been to these cities?