Pham Duy interview

Q: In Vietnamese you are going to tell me why you joined the Resistance in 1945?

A: In 1945, not only I but all Vietnamese in their twenties joined the Revolution. This was because after one hundred years of French colonial domination we wanted to have freedom, independence and a new life. We did not want to be slaves any longer.

Before the revolution, I was a singer. I was a traveling minstrel going from north to south. When the Revolution came, I joined the Revolution. Besides carrying a gun to fight the French colonizers, I also wrote songs for the soldiers, for young people and for the peasants such as peasant women and children. For example, I wrote a song for the soldiers in the National Defense League which was called Xuat Quan (To the Front) : Forward, brave soldiers! The nation is resounded with the words: "Fight to the end!" March forth bravely under gun- fire. The Vietnamese Army is carving out the soul of its fatherland. March forth to victory. March forth with the soul of the nation. March to victory. March forth to show them that we Vietnamese are coming (or, to prove that we are Vietnamese). The echoes of the resounding footsteps intertwine with earnest trumpet calls, urgings from past (fallen) heroes, shouts from fighters and the thud-thud of distant cannons. We are drunk with the blood of the enemies, which is flooding the battlefields. Enemies are all around us. Swords flash, and their heads roll.

Q: Would you describe to me how the soldiers would sing with you and how they would react?

A: When I wrote this song, I was no longer a professional musician. I was already a soldier at the time. I fought with as well as sang for my comrades in arms. They liked the song very much and they sang along with me. This song became very popular. Later on, it became the official song of the military academy in South Vietnam.

Besides the songs for the National Defense forces, I also wrote songs for young people (thanh nien). Now, thanh means green and nien means age. So I wrote a song called Nhac Tuoi Xanh (Music for Green Age): Last autumn the Revolution broke out. The Vietnamese nation is resounded with the shouts of thousands of young people flashing their swords to break up the yoke and the chain of slavery. Young men march forward and yell: "Fight to the end! Fight to the end!"

That autumn day young people said goodbye to their daydreams and waved the blood-red banner in the fight for the hungry and the poor. Life is always full of hardship. But we should fight for the nation while we're still young (we're still green in age.) Youth is like green rice stalks in early morning. Youth has a bright future. Victory is in its grasp. Come, march forth hand in hand and build a memorial to glory. Let our singing fill up the sky:

March forth and color the flag with our blood.
March forth and water the rice fields with our sweat.
The fields will be green and you and I will have Peace.
Life will be rosy and you and I will enjoy our youth (green age.)
Let's walk our own path, build our own home,
plow our own fields, bide our own time.
Tomorrow life will be plentiful, the French will be destroyed
and we will laughing and singing for your freedom.

Could you tell us why this became such a famous song? Why do you think people really liked it?

The reason why many people liked this song was because it is much more idyllic than those blood-and-iron songs such as Xuat Quan. It's bright and it's resolute. For example, "Let's walk our own path, build our own home, and plow our own fields. " This is to say, it expresses very resolutely the freedom that a colonized people is entitled to.