source of Tackhead samples?

May 30, 2006 1:12 PM

One of my favorite Tackhead songs is "What's My Mission Now? (Fight the Devil!)" from the album "Gary Clail's Tackhead Sound System." It includes quotes from some kind of military brass dude talking about what the military can and can't do. Who is it talking and in what context? The samples are not identified/acknowledged.

The bit I'm wondering about goes like this:

–

“So we said we can’t do that, we can’t do this, we can’t do that, and finally they stood up and said, ‘So what the hell CAN you do?’

“The correct answer is ‘we can kill people, and destroy things, in the name of the United States’ — oh my god, you can’t say THAT — but that’s what we do! [laughter]

“And if you don’t want that done, DON’T SEND IN THE MILITARY. Don’t send in the military and then say, ‘Oh my God. You hurt someone.’

“Of course we did. That’s what you sent us there to do.”
–

posted by edheil to media & arts (6 comments total)

My instinct is that it Former Secretary of Defense McNamara, from the movie Fog of War. I can't confirm that in any way, though.

And, from a little googling of the phrases, it seems like it might predate that movie.
posted by Inkoate at 1:30 PM on May 30, 2006

The album in question certainly predate's Fog Of War - I think it came out in, er, 1988... I think. Terrific, terrific album by the way.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 2:52 PM on May 30, 2006

Ugh.. errant apostrophe there. Sorry.
posted by coach_mcguirk at 2:52 PM on May 30, 2006

Just listened to it, and I have no idea who's talking. Later on in the cut it sounds like that guy who always narrates the 'Frontline' documentaries (and I think I heard some Rumsfeld), so maybe it was taken from one of those.
posted by Bron at 5:11 PM on May 30, 2006

can't help you with the voices--but I don't recall them on on the original 45. I think they were added for the 'Tackhead Sound System' disk you have--and a later Keith LeBlanc disk has a modified version that still includes those samples (but not the 'saigon' vocalist). I'm not fully sure, but I believe that the members of Tackhead no longer associate with Gary Clail.
posted by lester at 11:01 AM on May 31, 2006

Interestingly google has given me two hits on a Colonel Harry Summers using the phrase "kill people and destroy things in the name of the United States," neither of which is identical to the sample!

http://www.cdi.org/adm/630/
http://www.cdi.org/adm/Transcripts/526/

I suspect Col. Summers must be the speaker there and this must be a phrase he uses, having used it twice in similar but non-identical contexts.

I'm curious, Bron, who you thought Rumsfeld was, that is, which words sound like him.

thanks all, and I agree that it's an awesome album.
posted by edheil at 1:09 PM on May 31, 2006 [1 favorite]