‘Search and Destroy’: How a US military tactic became a proto-punk anthem
Vietnam changed the culture landscape of the United States forevermore, not only in setting a precedent for wholly unnecessary and globally devastating warmongering, but also in sparking a shift in the musical landscape. Not every track to arise from the Vietnam War was limited exclusively to spaced-out peace and love hippiedom, though.
Typically, whenever a definitive soundtrack to the Vietnam War is curated, it is composed almost entirely of hippie-era anti-war efforts – the likes of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s classic ‘Fortunate Son’, the psychedelic revolution of Jefferson Airplane, or any number of Bob Dylan’s folk-fueled protest anthems. Ultimately, though, that rather blinkered view of the war’s cultural impact on the States gives an expectedly blinkered view of the music that it inspired.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum from those peace-loving Woodstock attendees, the harbingers of an abrasive new age in rock and roll were similarly drawing inspiration from the war. The Stooges offered a stark alternative to the entirety of that West Coast scene, swapping LSD for amphetamines and calls for hand-holding peaceful protests with abrasive, visceral anger.
Although the Iggy Pop-fronted outfit didn’t boast overtly politicised lyrics, their output was nonetheless revolutionary. In fact, one of their all-time greatest works drew directly from the actions of the US Army in Vietnam: ‘Search and Destroy’.
A longstanding military tactic first used in any great capacity by British forces during the Malayan Emergency of the late 1940s – where, incidentally, it was deemed wholly ineffective – search and destroy became one of the prevailing tactics employed by US forces in Vietnam. Throughout the war, US troops would storm villages supposedly suspected of harbouring Viet Cong guerrillas, often torching the entire village and massacring its population, under the banner of ‘search and destroy’.
During the early 1970s, Pop reportedly took a break from his endless cocktail of uppers and wild offstage antics to sit down and read a Time article titled ‘Search and Destroy’ about the war, which inspired the foundations of the Raw Power song that would soon become one of The Stooges’ definitive proto-punk anthems.
Seeing the frontman embody the character of “the world’s forgotten boy,” Pop namedrops napalm, A-bombs, and military strikes within the lyrics of the track. It isn’t, upon initial listening, a direct anti-war anthem, instead using those military tactics and nightmarish headlines as a means of detailing a sense of youthful alienation that was rife throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, amid the backdrop of that conflict.
In doing so, The Stooges unknowingly created one of the most important and underrated social comments of the Vietnam period, highlighting the effects of the war on the American youth growing up surrounded by its effects and jargon.
Aside from anything else, ‘Search and Destroy’ also became a touchstone for the entire future of punk, alternative rock, and metal, forever altering the musical landscape and remaining to this day one of Iggy’s all-time finest efforts.
