Latest TODAY column is: Can't get you out of my head
Excerpt:
I HAVE done my National Day duty. In order to spread the joy around, I have been sharing the MP3 of the song "Home 2004" sung by the little kids with the white and black samfoos running along the river. And whoever I cannot reach via email, I hum or sing the song to them.
In fact, I went one step further to the edge of insanity — I downloaded a free polyphonic (or "pornyphonic" as the voice recording pronounced it) ringtone of this National song for my mobile phone, so that everyone around me can sing along.
I figure if I cannot get the song out of MY head, I may as well help others join me in what I call the National Song virus.
Don't get me wrong. I like the song, it is quite sweet, catchy, and has an uplifting feeling to it, especially the version sung by the kids choir. But when you hear it or watch it as often as I do, you will either hurt someone with a blunt instrument or migrate to another country. Not a good reaction for a song designed to make you feel like making Singapore your "Home".
Additional links: From a reader, check out this music video done by the Australian Girls Choir called "I Still Call Australia Home" as part of a Qantas advertising campaign in 1998. Looks familiar, eh?
Of course we never copy this, we very ogirinal one. Somemore ours is different: our kids are not Ang Moh and got both boys and girls. Theirs is all Ang Moh girls what (wait, I spotted a boy). And ours no those tribal peoples one.
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Full column:
Can’t Get You Out of My Head
I HAVE done my National Day duty. In order to spread the joy around, I have been sharing the MP3 of the song "Home 2004" sung by the little kids with the white and black samfoos running along the river. And whoever I cannot reach via email, I hum or sing the song to them.
In fact, I went one step further to the edge of insanity — I downloaded a free polyphonic (or "pornyphonic" as the voice recording pronounced it) ringtone of this National song for my mobile phone, so that everyone around me can sing along.
I figure if I cannot get the song out of MY head, I may as well help others join me in what I call the National Song virus.
Don't get me wrong. I like the song, it is quite sweet, catchy, and has an uplifting feeling to it, especially the version sung by the kids choir. But when you hear it or watch it as often as I do, you will either hurt someone with a blunt instrument or migrate to another country. Not a good reaction for a song designed to make you feel like making Singapore your "Home".
In fact, not only can I not get the song out of my head, I cannot get the video out of my head. As described on the NDP website, “4 days...60 hrs...63 kids...10,800 feet of film”. The little kids running along the river bank, riding on an open double decker bus, blowing bubbles, while dressed in that white and black Chinese maidservant uniform… images that just play on and on and on in my head.
See? You can’t get it out of your head now too, right? Good. You can join my club.
The only thing I cannot figure out is how come they keep singing to a lady called “Shirley”. As in “This is home, Shirley, as my senses tell me…” She must be somebody important.
By now you are already thinking I am a very cynical and unpatriotic grouch for making light of such a grand national song with those nice kids performing their hearts out. I will have you know I am big supporter of kids performing, ok? My own daughter Faith, her teachers tell me (or told her Grandma, rather, because she and Grandpa take her to school, bless their souls), is scheduled to dance to the tune “Under the Sea” (from the movie, The Little Mermaid) at some public event in a few months time.
Now, I never knew my girl even knew the song, let alone like it so much that she would dance to it. That’s so typical of fathers sometimes, right? My wife had to remind me the other day that my boy Isaac is into his third can of milk powder (apparently, he is now on mixed breast milk/cow’s milk feeds). I foolishly said, “He’s on formula already?” thereby revealing my utter lack of attention to matters of the childrenly kind. That earned me a firm rebuke, of course, and I had to pledge to be a better father in future.
So back to my dancing daughter, well, of course I am thrilled and gave my permission (or my wife did, and told me later). I know at the very least that she will not have any problems with stage fright or dancing in front of a crowd. Because she generally tunes other people out. At least that sensory dysfunction is good for something.
They are going to dress her up and everything. Although I am not told if she is going as a fish or a mermaid. I am sure it will be something dignified and tasteful, like maybe a baby lobster. I hope this first taste of public performance will not give her too much pressure. The entertainment industry can be so brutal on little kids. Today it will be “Under the Sea”, before you know it, she will be doing an overly adult music video with Britney Spears.
My wife is very cool about all this. Mothers are on top of everything in the household. At least the mother of my kids is (third can of formula, really?). She knows where all the kids’ clothes are, their therapy schedules, their bedtime quirks. And above all, she knows you. Well enough to look past your silliness and macho nonsense (“sweetheart, there is no need to overtake that man just because he cut into your lane”).
It is just as well she accepts you so deeply, because you sure as heck are not going to impress her with your looks now. I was driving her to work when I noticed out loud that I forgot to shave. She looked at me and said, when I don’t shave, I look like Xiao Ding Dang (Doraemon). Notice she did not say I looked like Brad Pitt in Troy. Noooo, had to be Xiao Ding Dang, a round blue and white Japanese cartoon character with whiskers. Thanks honey, I feel like a hunk now.
Nor are you going to impress her with your car. I was thinking of fixing a fairly deep dent at the rear of my car and told her so. She quickly said, “No lah, don’t. The dent is one of the ways I identify your car in the car park”. I suppose she needs it, since she cannot tell a silver Nissan Sunny from a silver Opel Astra (they all look the same to me, she says).
Nor are you going to impress her with your I-am-so-sick face. My family had a bout of fever lately (it went from daughter to father to son), and with all the dengue fever talk in the news, I got somewhat worried. So I asked my wife, what will happen if my blood tests come back and I really have dengue and I die from it, then she how ah?
She looked at me, gave me a cheeky smile and said, “But I will get the flat, right?”
At least I know she has her priorities in the right place.
Oh no, there’s the song again. Going off in my head like a CD player without a stop button. Somebody make it stop…
“This is home, truly
As my senses tell me
This is where I won’t be alone
For this is where I know it’s home”
I look at my mermaid-dancing daughter, my laptop-destroying baby son (daddy doesn’t work on the living room floor no more), my Xiao Ding Dang wife, and all the friends and family who matter, and you know what? I don’t need a National song to tell me I am home.
mr brown is the accidental author of a popular website that has been documenting the dysfunctional side of Singapore life since 1997. His friend Tony now officially hates him for sticking the tune in his head. Tony now hums the song without knowing it.
