The documentary KaTe refers to is FRONT LINE (1979), featuring the Australian cameraman, Neil Davis, who worked in Southeast Asia from 1964 until his death in 1985. Davis was eventually killed by a burst of shrapnel in a street in Bangkok on 9 September 1985.
Tim Bowden, a close friend of Davis, wrote a biography of Davis called One Crowded Hour: Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman (1987). The foreword of this book begins with lines from The Call:
"SOUND, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
Throughout the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name."
The lines are by Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730 - 1809), written during the Seven Years' War of 1756 - 1763. Bowden's biography states that Davis wrote the last two lines of Mordaunt's verse in the flyleaf of every work diary he kept in Southeast Asia. Davis told Bowden it was his motto, and summed up his philosophy.
So it is possible that KT went on to read Bowden's biography and took THE SENSUAL WORLD (1989) album title from Bowden's forward. Maybe JCB's interest in camerawork - and war? - led them to the book?
Pull Out The Pin is about the Front Line (1979) documentary. The song absorbs the Neil Davis documentary, and reflects the multi-sided nature of the Cambodian—Vietnamese War. The lyrics are a killing field of fighting South Vietnamese, Việt Cá»™ng, American, Cambodian and Khmer Rouge soldiers.
KaTe describes POTP as "looking at the Americans from the Vietnamese point of view." So, until I saw the Davis documentary for myself, I'd assumed POTP was an American versus a Viet Cong soldier. But the documentary shows that it was the Cambodian soldiers who wore the silver Buddhas. So, POTP draws on the many layers of the Cambodian—Vietnamese conflict, as featured in the Cameraman's documentary.
Writing on POTP in the KBC article about The Dreaming, it is clear that KaTe approached the song with the determination of a method actor. Pull Out The Pin is a distorted and subversive war poem, packed and explosive as a hand-grenade - full of the psychosis of war and its violation. The song conveys, with existential intensity, the life-and-death living of the jungle battlefield.
For the Asian soldier, the war is purpose, definition, violation. All his senses are elevated and involved, like he's never felt alive before. Beyond fear, he has reached an historical, spiritual, life-through-death determined necessity. Psyched up, he can smell the west, smell their fear and mistakes, sniff them out like an animal riding the earth to hunt its quarry (or a 'deer hunter' after a trophy "coat"). This man's 'hit' is as deadly as it is Godly.
The song seems (dis)located late in the war. The American Outsiders (pink-faced conscripted teenagers) are scared, mistake-prone, purple-hazed, out of their depth. Survival dominates pursuit. They don't understand the terrain or the 'why' of the war. They hit the ground, while he hits the high.
The poetry emphasises the ugliness and screwed-up nature of war. The Asian soldier has 'never been so happy'. He smells the child and learns to ride the Earth.
The identification with the Việt Cộng suggests a Rejection of Americanism and 'Westernity'; and the violation theme seems to run through The Dreaming.
Contempt and disdain strike violence. There is no 'cult of honor' restraining the ferocity. The American represents the cologne-stinking, alien, charmed life of the West. And traditionally, the silver bullet is the only bullet effective against a person living a charmed life (wiki).
Pull Out The Pin also expresses the East/West and Buddhist/Communist spiritual divide. The American's 'Western' life will end, whereas the Asian soldier's 'Eastern' life will not: In Buddhism, life does not end, it merely goes on in other forms. The Cambodian soldier has no fear of death for it leads to Karmic rebirth. Hence, the 'I LOVE LIFE' chorus is both a War Cry and a 'chant' to generate rebirth in a higher realm. The 'I love Life' affirms his acceptance of death in order to love life again.
FRONT LINE (1979) and The Sensual World
The documentary KaTe refers to is FRONT LINE (1979), featuring the Australian cameraman, Neil Davis, who worked in Southeast Asia from 1964 until his death in 1985. Davis was eventually killed by a burst of shrapnel in a street in Bangkok on 9 September 1985.
Tim Bowden, a close friend of Davis, wrote a biography of Davis called One Crowded Hour: Neil Davis, Combat Cameraman (1987). The foreword of this book begins with lines from The Call:
"SOUND, sound the clarion, fill the fife! Throughout the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name."
The lines are by Thomas Osbert Mordaunt (1730 - 1809), written during the Seven Years' War of 1756 - 1763. Bowden's biography states that Davis wrote the last two lines of Mordaunt's verse in the flyleaf of every work diary he kept in Southeast Asia. Davis told Bowden it was his motto, and summed up his philosophy.
So it is possible that KT went on to read Bowden's biography and took THE SENSUAL WORLD (1989) album title from Bowden's forward. Maybe JCB's interest in camerawork - and war? - led them to the book?
Pull Out The Pin is about the Front Line (1979) documentary. The song absorbs the Neil Davis documentary, and reflects the multi-sided nature of the Cambodian—Vietnamese War. The lyrics are a killing field of fighting South Vietnamese, Việt Cá»™ng, American, Cambodian and Khmer Rouge soldiers.
KaTe describes POTP as "looking at the Americans from the Vietnamese point of view." So, until I saw the Davis documentary for myself, I'd assumed POTP was an American versus a Viet Cong soldier. But the documentary shows that it was the Cambodian soldiers who wore the silver Buddhas. So, POTP draws on the many layers of the Cambodian—Vietnamese conflict, as featured in the Cameraman's documentary.
Writing on POTP in the KBC article about The Dreaming, it is clear that KaTe approached the song with the determination of a method actor. Pull Out The Pin is a distorted and subversive war poem, packed and explosive as a hand-grenade - full of the psychosis of war and its violation. The song conveys, with existential intensity, the life-and-death living of the jungle battlefield.
For the Asian soldier, the war is purpose, definition, violation. All his senses are elevated and involved, like he's never felt alive before. Beyond fear, he has reached an historical, spiritual, life-through-death determined necessity. Psyched up, he can smell the west, smell their fear and mistakes, sniff them out like an animal riding the earth to hunt its quarry (or a 'deer hunter' after a trophy "coat"). This man's 'hit' is as deadly as it is Godly.
The song seems (dis)located late in the war. The American Outsiders (pink-faced conscripted teenagers) are scared, mistake-prone, purple-hazed, out of their depth. Survival dominates pursuit. They don't understand the terrain or the 'why' of the war. They hit the ground, while he hits the high.
The poetry emphasises the ugliness and screwed-up nature of war. The Asian soldier has 'never been so happy'. He smells the child and learns to ride the Earth.
The identification with the Việt Cộng suggests a Rejection of Americanism and 'Westernity'; and the violation theme seems to run through The Dreaming.
Contempt and disdain strike violence. There is no 'cult of honor' restraining the ferocity. The American represents the cologne-stinking, alien, charmed life of the West. And traditionally, the silver bullet is the only bullet effective against a person living a charmed life (wiki).
Pull Out The Pin also expresses the East/West and Buddhist/Communist spiritual divide. The American's 'Western' life will end, whereas the Asian soldier's 'Eastern' life will not: In Buddhism, life does not end, it merely goes on in other forms. The Cambodian soldier has no fear of death for it leads to Karmic rebirth. Hence, the 'I LOVE LIFE' chorus is both a War Cry and a 'chant' to generate rebirth in a higher realm. The 'I love Life' affirms his acceptance of death in order to love life again.