From the recording Spinning a Little Piece of Home
“Armed Forces Radio After Midnight” is about those quiet hours behind the microphone in Da Nang, broadcasting from Monkey Mountain on 850 AM and 99.9 FM. I’d put on the headphones, cue up another record, watch that red ON AIR light come on, and open the mic as Specialist Rick. Outside, the night could be filled with distant Hueys and the sounds of war, but inside the studio my job was to keep the music moving and my voice steady. Somewhere out there, soldiers were on guard duty, in bunkers, riding in convoys, or lying awake missing home. For a few minutes, the music gave all of us somewhere else to go. This song is my memory of those late-night Armed Forces Radio broadcasts in Vietnam — one young Army broadcaster trying to send a little comfort through the dark.
Lyrics
[ARMED FORCES RADIO AFTER MIDNIGHT]
[VERSE 1]
I was young enough to still believe
A microphone could change a night,
Army shirt, headphones on,
Red ON AIR light burning bright.
A stack of records by my side,
A letter from back home nearby,
Outside I heard the Hueys turn,
Another shadow crossed the sky.
[PRE-CHORUS]
Somewhere a soldier stood his watch,
Somewhere another couldn’t sleep,
So I pulled that record from the stack
And let the music speak.
[CHORUS]
Armed Forces Radio after midnight,
Sending a little America through the night.
From Boston streets to a bunker far away,
Three minutes of home when the record played.
I couldn’t stop the war,
Couldn’t make the darkness gone,
I couldn’t send those soldiers home,
So I sent them a song.
[VERSE 2]
The teletype kept talking war,
Names and numbers, places burned,
But between the news and morning light,
The turntable slowly turned.
A request came in for someone’s girl,
Another for a mother back home,
A young man asked for one old song
So he wouldn’t feel so alone.
[PRE-CHORUS]
Maybe he was sitting in a truck,
Maybe walking perimeter wire,
Maybe staring toward the jungle
With his rifle by his side.
[CHORUS]
Armed Forces Radio after midnight,
Sending a little America through the night.
From Detroit streets to a Texas town,
For three short minutes the walls came down.
I couldn’t stop the war,
Couldn’t make the darkness gone,
I couldn’t send those soldiers home,
So I sent them a song.
[VERSE 3]
Sometimes thunder wasn’t thunder,
Sometimes morning came too slow,
Sometimes helicopters filled the sky
With someplace else to go.
And I learned to keep my voice steady,
Even when my hands were not,
Because somebody out there needed
Something normal in that spot.
[BRIDGE]
I never knew who heard me.
Never knew their names.
Never knew which record
Helped somebody through the rain.
Maybe one song brought back a dance,
A front porch or a hometown street,
Maybe for the length of one old forty-five
Vietnam loosened its grip.
[KEY CHANGE]
[CHORUS]
Armed Forces Radio after midnight,
A young soldier talking through the night.
Needle in the groove, headphones on,
Trying to hold somebody till the dawn.
I couldn’t stop the war,
Couldn’t right everything gone wrong,
I couldn’t send my brothers home,
So I sent them a song.
[VERSE 4]
More than fifty years have passed now,
But some nights I’m back inside,
That little room, that glowing light,
And the Hueys passing by.
I still see that younger version
Trying hard to do his part,
Not knowing all those records
Would stay forever in his heart.
[FINAL CHORUS]
Armed Forces Radio after midnight,
Still comes back to me some nights.
A spinning record, a distant rotor,
A voice traveling through the dark.
We were young,
We were far from home,
And none of us knew what lay beyond.
I couldn’t bring America to Vietnam—
So I sent them a song.
[OUTRO]
A little Motown.
A little rock and roll.
A little piece of home
For a tired soldier’s soul.
And when that red light came on,
No matter what was going wrong,
I sent them a song.