Dick Schaap
Singer From Saigon
(New York Herald Tribune, 18 April 1966)
He is a folk singer, and he has written more than 300 folk songs, and many of them are
passionately anti-war. But unlike so many of his fellow folk singers, he believes the war in
Viet Nam is a necessary war. He is entitled to his opinion. His name is Pham Duy, and he is
Vietnamese.
''The rain on the leaves is the tears of joy
''Of the girl whose noy return from the war
''The rain on the leaves is the bitter tears
''When the mother hears her son is no more.''
The Rain On The Leaves - Pham Duy
Born in Hanoi, now a resident of Saigon, Pham Duy is visiting the United States this month
as part of the American government's cultural exchange program. He is 46 years old, and he
has close-cropped gray gair and bright brown eyes, and
during the late's 1940s and the early's 1950s, he fought on the side of the Viet Minh, under Ho
Chi Minh, against the French. Ho Chi Minh pinned a medal on him for his songs of independence,
and his songs of peasants, and his songs of freedom. ''I carried a guitar in one hand,'' Pham Duy
says, in his sharply-accented English, ''and a gun in the other hand.''
''Six o'clock, when I woke, a friend
''Brings me the new -- my brother killed.
''Now he lies slain and yet by this house.
''By this wall, a flower blooms.''
The Poem By A buddhist Monk - Pham Duy
When he lived in Hanoi, Pham Duy attended Thanglong Institute and he taught geography
and history by a professor named Giap. Now General Giap is North Viet Nam's specialist in
guerrilla warfare, and Pham Duy talks of the war with intense
feelings. ''People ask me do the Vietnamese want war or do they want peace,'' Pham Duy
says, ''but it is not so simple. The people of South Viet Nam accept this war even as they hate it.
This war has a purpose. In North Viet Nam, the purpose is to liberate the South. And in the South,
we have a purpose, too. We want peace, but not under a totalitarian regime. Communism,
in theory, is wonderful, it is very good. But under a Communist regime, the son must denounce
the parents, the friend must denounce the friend. The Vietnamese cannot support this kind
of thing.''
''But when will peace come
''No one knows.
''But when will peace come
''No one knows.
The Wounded Soldier - Pham Duy
For more then half his life, Pham Duy has wandered from village to village in Viet Nam,
singing folk songs and collecting folk songs. He has been called the Woody Guthrie of Viet Nam.
Once he entered a remote village and asked to hear the local folk songs, the old ones, and the
villagers sang to him, ''The Wounded Soldier'', the song he had written for the Viet Minh.
Now he is in America, and he will sing occasionaly at American campuses with Steve Addiss
and Bill Crofut, two American folk singers who met him in South Viet Nam. ''Everybody in the
world is anti-war'', says Pham Duy ''I respect Miss Joan Baez but tell her, please, come to Viet
Nam them talk about the war''
''How shallI speak, how can I say
''All that I hope, all that I pray
''For my home, for my land. Somehow
''I must say all I hope for Viet Nam.
Dick Schaap
New York Herald Tribune
18 April 1966
Trở Về Tâm Ca
Trở Về Phạm Duy Tổng Quát