Saigon Wild Horses

Nothing wild about them at all. Just three aged musicians on a slow night.

All need glasses in a half-lit Texan style steak house.

I joined them in between sets. None drank alcoholic beverages, so I ordered a Seven Up on the band.  The bar looked depressing, not smoked filled as in Casablanca.  A Luxembourg man (as it’s said on the card) wanted to sing, even as he admitted that it’s not a karoke bar. So, the band followed. “Green grass home”.  Someone offered him a glass of wine. I should have volunteered to sing had I known the tangible reward.

I requested Yellow Ribbons on the Oak Tree, but I shouted only Yellow Rib.

We ended up with “Yellow River” (the Oak Tree part came in on the next set).  When it’s time to wrap up, the three-aged men sang mostly to themselves, and to the bar staff who were eager to close out Sunday night.

We discussed Eric Clapton and George Harrison trading a woman.

And that Reflections of My Life was played on a transistor radio( CBS Cronkite reported from the jungle of Vietnam), as shirtless GI’s listened on, sort of their “Matterhorn” song. We left it uncompleted in the matter of war, but switched quickly to singers and songwriters of the 70’s, the decade when one of the Wild Horses used to teach me a few chords from My Sweet Lord.

I wasn’t sure rainy night kept people from going out or not.

But as we parted at the door, my former neighbor musician offered me a ride home. No thanks,  I don’t have a helmet.  See you over coffee sometime, shooting the breeze then.

On a Saigon night,  expats drifted in and out of Wild Horse, to catch the latest football score,  have a quick drink, or late dinner (Angus Steak). Saloon style, sixties music. But the band didn’t seem to “born to be wild”.  We did talk of Cream, the group, and how the drummer played to the songs, not rhythm. (“They were so young then” the lead guitar man said, not sure about Cream, or about us all.)

I think Saigon Wild Horse rag-tag band are now doing the same: they play to the rhythm of the time. Playing by ears. Playing for time.” No hurry, we still have a few minutes to chat until the next set.” During the last song, I was probably the only one who applauded. It’s OK, they have been “cool” for almost 5 decades. He confessed as we were out of the door “I am 63”. Pony tail, unbuttoned blue jean shirt reveals underlining black T-shirt. Who would have thought! When he played on the roof behind my house, he was in his 20’s, and I, an impressionable boy. Hope I still am, at least to him, over our next coffee.