I’m not the only one…

Being an English teacher, I find it embarrassing and hate to admit that when I listen to the current songs on the radio, I may not hear all the words and when I can, I may not really understand the meaning – especially those “rap” songs today. Imagine my relief when I saw this cartoon strip in the newspapers the other day…

It certainly looks like I’m not the only  one and even the young ones themselves may not know what the heck those people are going on and on about…

Sometimes I may be able to make out the words in the lines that seem to rhyme quite well but I may somehow fail to make out the reason. Perhaps they are using their own brand of colloquial language or lingo that old people like  me just cannot make head or tail of.

For one thing, I must say that in fact, they are talking or at best, chanting…and not singing. In the good ol’ days, we also had “talking” songs like this one by the late Jim Reeves…

The stark difference is that you can hear each and every word pronounced and articulated so very clearly as he narrates the beautiful story of a very faithful dog,  “Old Tige” and who can deny that one can just drown in the richness and purity of his soothing mellow voice.

Another “talking” song that I loved a lot when I was small was this one…

What appealled to me most was how the soldier skilfully explained the meanings in the “Deck of Cards”. You should give it a listen if you’ve never heard it before.

Other than these, there were others as well by people like Glen Campbell. Many of you would know his “talking” rendition of the country favourite, “Honey come back” but this one simply entitled, “Friends”…

…certainly did not get very much airplay at the time. I had a post on it a long time ago…but somehow or other, the video clip seems to have gone missing or maybe I did not know how to upload videos at the time. Give it a listen too if you can spare the time – I bet you’ll love this one as well.

And have you heard this one – it was quite popular over Radio Singapore in 1973? An American deejay named Les Crane made a recording of himself reciting the very beautiful “Desiderata”…

…and it became a hit in many countries in the world. That was the hippie era – the flower power and this poem was some kind of “anthem” among young people then and psychedelic posters of it were prominently displayed on the walls of many at the time.

Gosh! There are so many nice “talking” songs that I just can’t possibly include them all like the Chi-Lites’ “Have you seen her” and “Letter to myself” and others but I think I will just squeeze in one more. Some of you are old enough to know Telly Savalas of the one-time very popular television show, “Kojak”, but I’m sure many have not heard him doing a “talking” song. This one is my favourite – his rendition of the very beautiful song by Bread, “If”…

Now, to get back to the cartoon strips, I was quite amused by this one too…

I remember how I would call my daughter on my mobile phone from upstairs and ask her to bring up something for me…

It certainly looks like I’m not the only one…but what about you? Are you like that too – guilty as charged? LOL!!!