SIX VIEWS OF DIONNE WARWICK'S "PROMISES, PROMISES" (LP, Scepter Records, produced by Bacharach-David, year unlisted)
III.
By the time anybody knew what was happening we were being driven from the city. I had lived in Phnomh Penh all my life; what had I to do with the countryside? I was a day-laborer, capable of making my living with my hands and not afraid of hard work, but how was I to learn farming almost overnight? It seemed so ridiculous. But the soldiers came, and they said we were all part of a larger historical effort. My neighborhood was lucky because the soldiers assigned to canvas it were not Southwest Zone regulars, and seemed eager to put a bright face on the confusing and frightening reality around us. They didn't break up our property, as happened to a number of my friends. In fact I was able to tuck a battery-powered transistor radio into my pocket as I headed out the door. Since we travelled in a large group, it drew no great attention to myself if I listened to music as we marched; I held the speaker very close to my ear and kept the volume very low. The Voice of America, broadcasting from North Vietnam I supposed, played Dionne Warwick: "Little Green Apples!"! I remember it so well. After the battery died, I knew there wouldn't be any more batteries to be had, of course, and one of my friends had been shot for refusing to relinquish his old typewriter, a Royal that he'd bought at no small expense to himself just a few years before. So I buried my radio in a paddy a few kilometers from the barracks.