Folk/Traditional/老 Songs

I was listening to some Taiwanese 老歌 in my mp3 collection and was thinking if there's a Singapore equivalent for these types of songs. The first that came to my mind was the lovely 'dayong sampan'. Other than it's about a boat, I don't know much about it. Googling pointed to the existence of a symphonic interpretation for the piece. So that's nice. And it's not available on any file sharing network so I can't enjoy it now anyway! Australia should have nice folk songs too, I like I Still Call Australia home, probably not a dry eye in the house cabin when one hears it on a Qantas flight after years away from home... If culture is artificially constructed, then probably Singapore needs a whole lot of it since she's a relatively new country. Right now, the government wants to eradicate Singlish (probably one of the most efficient languages in the world), but I wonder how else to build culture? Food is certainly one thing most locals are proud of. The airport is another. But things like folk songs are most probably already passe. So what do we leave for future generations? Repeats of National Day songs, probably. hehe So since I'm stuck and can't go further with sampan, and with the aim of improving my Hokkien, this entry is about one old song called 月夜愁 (moon night worry), composed in the 1930s during the Japanese occupation in Taiwan. Here's some background. It's the poignant sort of song... So here are the lyrics. And you can download this file (10 mb) for the next 7 days. It contains three versions by 凤飞飞, 蔡琴 and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. The performance from the SSO is from a 12-CD collection called 中國交響世紀 that features both mainland Chinese and Taiwanese traditional and more recent folks songs. It's really quite fantastic.

月色照在　三线路　风吹微微　等待的人　那未来 (The moonlight on the three-lane road, gentle winds, the man I await, why isn't he here?)

心内真可疑 想抹出　彼个人　啊．．．怨叹月暝 (My heart is suspicious, I want to decipher him... haiz...blame sigh moon dark)

更深无伴　独相思　秋蝉哀啼　月光所照　的树影 (It's getting late and I've no company... pondering alone...the wailing mourn of an autumn cicada...the moonlight cast shadows from the trees)

加添我伤悲 心头酸　目屎滴　啊．．．忧愁月暝 (My sadness is increased, my heart is sour, tears fall...haiz... worrisome dark moon)

敢是注定　无缘份　所爱的伊　因何伊乎　放抹离　 (Has destiny decided we aren't fated to be together? blah blah...)

梦中来相见 断肠诗　唱抹止　啊．．．忧愁月暝 (See you in my dreams...blah blah...)

~月夜愁/周添旺

Some of the translation is a bit 'off', and blah blah onwards means I don't understand it! The three lane road refers to the traffic island between two roads where lovers can meet and walk together. Nowadays, it's too dangerous to do such things LOL