Take a trip with me into the past.
This is Guitar Berbunyi, a 78 r.p.m. vinyl played on my 1950s/1960s player. I regret I cannot recall the names of the singers because the record is kept in Kuala Lumpur and all I have here is the video.
During our courting days the spouse introduced me to Tino Rossi (1907-1983) a popular French (actually he was Corsican) singer. Guitar D'Amour (1935) was my absolute favourite and I fell in love with this song as soon as I heard it.
Years later in Kuala Lumpur we were sorting out our collection of Malay 78s and imagine our surprise and joy when we heard Guitar Berbunyi. We allowed our minds to wander to the mid-1930s thinking how someone from Indonesia or The Straits Settlements heard Tino Rossi's Guitaire D'Amour and decided to record it in Malay. It's all the more fascinating because this is a French song. Just imagine!!
Here is Guitare D'Amour by Tino Rossi
Sit back. Let your mind drift to the 1930s. It's something I indulge in, more and more.
8 comments:
Er, sob-sob, I can't go on. It's so distant and so pulling at the heart string kind of song and I'm a melancholy sodden child now. Why do old songs, old tunes carry more than the hissing of the vinyl? Why do they make us sad? Those young people these days, what do they know...
I was walking in the street one day and saw a young child sobbing inconsolably.
"Young guy, why are you crying so?" I asked. (I always talk that way to a young child.)
"Boo-hoo," he said. "Boo-hoo, I can't do what the big boys do."
What else was there for me to do in the face of such an answer, dear sister? So I just sat down and cried with him.
Alack and alas, we were all young once and now.
Aaaahh AG,
Fifty years from now the thickteen year olds of today will croon and moon over songs by Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga and the by-now- vintage Madonna. Duuuhhhh.
I also like talking to humans who are less than 4 feet in height. After all 'the child is the father of the man' said Wordsworth
Am glad you like this "lagu merdu". "Go and sing to her for me the song of my dream" - that's Iain's schoolboy-French translation.
I was once so happy to be (well, anything) and was singing, a la Maurice Chevalier, dans la rue d'Oxford, "Thank heavens for little girls" when a police arrived, van, truncheons and all. (The police still wielded truncheons then. That was how long ago I strayed into, and how far away.)
Such have times changed that what was once a transport to nirvana gets you into the list of paedophiles nowadays.
To be safe, I do nothing now but sing Marx (Groucho) and read Spencer (Herbert) and Lydia the tattooed Lady is all I care for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4zRe_wvJw8
He could have copied the song from Indonesia right?!
Thank you AG,
You know, you should keep away from that wee dram.
And ssshhhh don't mention Lydia the tattoed lady in front of the spouse.
Thank you Pasquale,
That's an interesting theory. But I think Tino Rossi of the 1930s had a bit more class compared to his present day French men like Henri Bernard-Levy and Sarkozy.
The latter two could not even get their birds to sing.
And Tino Rossi was actually Corsican.
Hi there! I'm Athena from the Singapore Memory Project and would like to get in touch with you on your stories and memories on Singapore. Could you drop us an email at iremembersg@nlb.gov.sg pls for yr email address so that we can get in touch with you? Thanks v much in advance :)
Singapore Memory Project,
Thank you for your interest. However I prefer to store my stories for myself and my family.
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