Nostalgia finds you in the most unsuspecting of times. I was looking through some local films when I came across our national day songs, and promptly dipped into nostalgia-mode. Now, such accidental acquaintance with Singapore-nostalgia isn't the first time and it was totally magnified when I was at Washington. Aw man, just picture me at the kitchen table with my Macbook and some earl grey tea and suddenly chancing upon Kit Chan's Home (1998) D: It was a terrible lurching feeling - by then I had been in America long enough to feel a tinge of home-sickness coupled with incessant kway chap craving - so boy was that feeling massive. Even then, the feeling I felt listening to Home was not home-sickness - it's a simple deeply moving pride for where I came from. I wasn't moved to tears only because I am not a person who cries (I can count the number of times I cry a year with my 10 fingers) - but trust me, any typical person will be bawling away with that same surge of feelings; it was strong. I am also not afraid to concur with the many songs, for indeed this is home to me. I can never see myself establishing my roots anywhere else, lured not even by a lucrative career and lavish lifestyle. This is more than home and more than just where I belong - a certainty that my time in USA made true and cemented.
The national day songs are, of course, great reminders for people like myself - who agree very wholeheartedly with this sense of belonging. We've seen brilliant works from Sing Singapore emerge - Home (1998), Where I Belong (2001), We Will Get There (2002) & One United People (2003) - the few shall always remain my firm favourites.
I think the magic in these pieces, relative to the post-2003 works which very much pale, is their singability. Of course there isn't such a word as singability, but it is in my definition, songs that are always sung wholeheartedly, the sort that as you sit with your classmates in the parade square singing in chorus - and that will really hit home. They are the most poignant. There is a power in singing along with friends. I always believed the act of singing is one of openness - sharing a chorus is that powerful. I loved singing these songs with my classmates, even the chinese ones and the awkwardly enunciated Mandarin - there's magic in that. Others find the recent songs deficient in catchy-ness - a fair comparison. The recent songs pale not because they aren't works of art in their own right - they very well are, but they are not compositions that demand an openness that is key to the overwhelming pride that fills singers. Case in point - What Do You See (2009) & Shine for Singapore (2008) (fast forward to each chorus to get a feel of what I mean). Song for Singapore (2010) is slightly better - and I don't even recall the rest of the songs. Maybe they are getting much too modern for us old-schoolers (HAHA furreal~). I know so many who shrugged indifferently to the 2011 edition of Home, diehards of the 1998 original. Well, here's another true blue 90s kid ;)
