As long as there have been humans,
we have searched for our place in the Cosmos
Where are we?
Who are we?
We find that
We live on an insignificant planet,
Of a humdrum star,
Lost in a galaxy,
Tucked away in some forgotten corner
Of a universe in which
There are far more galaxies
Than people
We make our world significant
By the courage of our questions
And by the depth of our answers
We embark on a journey to the stars
With a question first framed
In the childhood of our species.
And in each generation
Asks anew, with undiminised wonder:
"What are the stars?"
Exploration is in our nature
We began as wanderers
And we are wanderers still
We have lingered long enough
On the shores of the Cosmic ocean
We are ready at last
To set sail for the stars
Carl Sagan
I Taught Myself How To Grow Old
Ryan Adams
Poor little rose, beaten by the rain
In the wind in the hail, thunder and the gale
Sometimes I feel like I'm going insane
Without the numbness or the pain so intense to feel
Especially now it added up through the years
And I, I taught myself how to grow
Without any love and there was poison in the rain
I taught myself how to grow
'Till I was broken on the outside, and the inside's caved
I taught myself how to grow old
Most of the time I've got nothing to say
When I do it's nothing and nobody's there to listen anyway
I know I'm probably better off this way
I just listen to the voices on the TV 'till I'm tired
My eyes grow heavy and I fade away
'Cause I, I taught myself how to grow
Without any love and there was poison in the rain
I taught myself how to grow
'Till I was broken on the outside
I taught myself how to grow
Without any love and there was poison in the rain
I taught myself how to grow
'Till I was crooked on the outside, inside's caved
Crooked on the outside, inside's caved
Crooked on the outside, inside's caved
I taught myself how to grow old...
my dream for the future is to properly record all my songs, with proper arrangements and decent sound quality, as good as the commercial music out there.
and i'd like to burn them all onto a cd and give it away to everyone. and maybe even do up a nice little professional booklet with all the lyrics inside, and maybe include some poems, as well as some of my poetry too, plus some lame photos! haha..
in my wildest dreams i would like to print a few hundred copies and give it out to random strangers at mrt stations - you know like when they give out the free morning newspapers, and just spread the joy of the music around.
when the day comes that my urge for songwriting is not so strong anymore, this cd would be a testament to a wonderful period of my life =)
so... who wants to help me out with this project? haha..
From now on, I will keep a running record of great musical acts whom I have just 'discovered' and makes me feel very happy and excited, thus the phrase 'where have you been (all my life?!)'
note: i realise that there's very few sites hosting this incredible poem, so i thought i'd do it, so that others may get a chance to read it. any copyright violation is unintended; just sharing a work of art.
Singapore You Are Not My Country (For Noora)
Alfian Sa'at
Singapore you are not my country.
Singapore you are not a country at all.
You are surprising Singapore, statistics-starved Singapore, soulful Singapore of tourist brochures in Japanese and hourglass kebayas.
You protest, but without picketing, without rioting, without Catherine Lim,
but through your loudspeaker media,
through the hypnotic eyeballs of your newscasters,
and that weather woman who I swear is working voodoo on my teevee screen.
Singapore, what are these lawsuits in my mailbox?
There are so many sheaves,
I should have tipped the postman.
Singapore, I assert, you are not a country at all.
Do not raise your voice against me,
I am not afraid of your anthem although the lyrics are still bleeding from the bark of my sapless heart.
Not because I sang them pigtailed pinnafored breakfasted chalkshoed in school
But because I used to watch telly till they ran out of shows.
Do not invite me to the podium and tell me to address you properly.
I am allergic to microphones and men in egosuits and pubicwigs.
And I am not a political martyr,
I am a patriot who has lost his country and virginity.
Do not wave a cane at me for vandalising your propaganda with technicolour harangues,
Red Nadim semen white Mahsuri menses the colourful language of my eloquent generation.
Your words are like walls on which truth is graffiti.
This has become an island of walls.
Asylum walls, factory walls, school walls, the walls of the midnight Istana.
If I am paranoid I have learnt it from you,
O my delicate orchid stalk Singapore,
Always thirsty for water,
spooked by armed archipelagoes,
always gasping for airspace,
always running to keep ahead,
running away from yourself.
Singapore why do you wail that way, demanding my IC?
Singapore stop yelling and calling me names.
How dare you call me a chauvinist,
an opposition party,
a liar,
a traitor,
a mendicant professor,
a Marxist homosexual communist
pornography banned literature chewing gum liberty smuggler? How can you say I do not believe in The Free Press autopsies flogging mudslinging bankruptcy
which are the five pillars of Justice?
And how can you call yourself a country,
you terrible hallucination of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes drive from the MRT?
Tell that to the battered housewife who thinks happiness lies at the end of a Toto Queue.
Tell that to the tourist guide whose fillings are pewter whose feelings are iron
whose courtesy is gold whose speech is silver
whose handshake is a lethal yank at the jackpot machine.
Tell that to my imam who thinks we are all going to hell.
Tell that to the chao ah beng who has seven stitches a broken collarbone and three dead comrades
but who will not hesitate from thrusting his tiger ribcage into another fight because the lanterns of his lungs have caught their own fire and there is no turning back.
Tell that to the yuppie who sits in meat-markets disguised as pubs, listening to Kenny G disguised as jazz on handphone disguised as conversation and loneliness disguised as a jukebox.
Tell that to all those exiles whose names are forgotten but who leave behind a bad taste in the thoughtful mouth,
reminding us that the flapping sunned linen shelters a whiff of chloroform.
Tell that to Town Council men who feed pigeons with crumbs of arsenic.
Tell that to Natra Hertogh a.k.a Maria who proved to us that blood spilled was thicker than water shed as she was caught pining under a stone angel in the nunnery for her husband.
Tell that to Ah Meng, who bore six hairy bastards for our nation.
Tell that to Lee Kuan Yew's squint.
Tell that to Josef Ng, who shaves my infant head amidst a shower of one-cent coins, and both of us are pure again.
Tell that to my Warrant Officer who knew I was faking.
Tell that to the unemployed man who drinks cigarettes smokes tattoos watches peanuts unself-conscious of his gut belch debts and wife having an affair with the Salesman of Nervous Breakdowns.
Tell that to our Maya Angelou's who are screeching like witches United Nations-style poems populated by Cheena Babi Bayee Tonchet Melayu Malas Keling Geragok Mat Salleh.
Tell that to the fakirs of civil obedience, whose headphones are pounding the hooving basslines of Damyata Damyata Damyata.
Tell that to the statue of Li Po at Marina Park.
Tell that to the performance artists who need licences like drivers and doctors and dogs when all they really need is just three percent of your love.
Tell that to the innocent faggot looking for kicks on a Sunday evening to end up sucking the bit-hard pistol-muzzle of the CID, ensnared no less by his weakness for pretty boys naked out of uniform.
Tell that to the caretaker of the grave of Radin Mas.
Tell that to Chee Soon Juan's smirk.
Tell that to the pawns of The Upgrading Empire who penetrate their phalluses into heartlands to plant Lego cineplexes Tupperware playgrounds suicidal balconies carnal parks of cardboard and condoms and before we know it we are a colony once again.
Tell that to Malaysia whose Desaru is our spittoon whose TV2 is our amusement whose Bumiputras are our threat whose outrage is our greater outrage whose turtles are weeping blind in the roaring daylight of our cameras.
Tell that to the old poets who have seen this piece of land slip their metaphors each passing year from bumboats to debris to sanitation projects to drowning attempts to barbed neon water weeds on a river with no reflections a long way off from the sea.
O Singapore your fair shores your garlands your GNP.
You are not a country you are a construction from spare parts.
You are not a campaign you are last year's posters.
You are not culture you are poems on the MRT.
You are not a song you are part swear word part lullaby.
You are not Paradise you are an island with pythons.
Singapore I am on trial.
These are the whites of my eyes and the reds of my wrists.
These are the deranged stars of my schizophrenia.
This is the milk latex gummy moon of my sedated smile.
I have lost a country to images, it is as simple as that.
Singapore you have a name on a map but no maps to your name.
This will not do; we must stand aside and let the Lion crash through a madness of cymbals back to that dark jungle heart when eyes were still embers waiting for a crownless Prince of Palembang.
if i had to come up with a CD of the best of Oasis songs, these are the songs i would include, in this order:
i believe that people of integrity, knowledge and wisdom should lead this earth and the human species, not power-hungry idiots..
we need more people like carl sagan!
omg i can't believe that these 2 videos are on youtube, haha..
advice to current nus students: you must do SE3221 if you ever get the chance. it's so interesting, fun and relaxing! you get to learn to sing/dance/play a traditional thai instrument and appreciate their culture better. and you get to perform, twice! and the readings are so little! one of the nicest mods i have ever done in nus. i learnt how to play an instrument and sing a traditional thai song while doing this mod, so fun! =)
so childish and naughty, and so funny!!! i must write such a song one day!
Wendy's Fingerbang Audition (From Southpark)
Mrs. Landers was a health nut
She cooked food in a wok
Mr. Harris was her boyfriend
And he had a great big
Cock-a-doodle-doodle
The rooster just won't quit
And I don't want my breakfast
Because it tastes like
Shit-zus make good house pets
They're cuddly and sweet
Monkeys aren't good to have
'cause they like to beat their,
Meet-ing in the office
Or meeting in the hall
The boss he wants to see you
So you can suck his
Balls-ac was a writer
He lived with Allen Funt
Mrs. Roberts didn't like him
But that's 'cause she's a
Cont-aminated water
Can really make you sick
Your bladder gets infected
And blood comes out your
Dic-tate what i'm saying
'Cause it will bring you luck
And if you all don't like it
I dont give a flying f*ck!
The B.B. King Companion: Five Decades of Commentary 
Stan Getz: A Life in Jazz
Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly
The Complete "Fawlty Towers"
Billy Connolly's World Tour of Australia
Reflections of Eden: My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo 
I Think I'll Manage: Football Managers Reveal the Tricks of Their Trade
Congress from the Inside: Observations from the Majority and the Minority
Southeast Asia in the 1990s: Authoritarianism, Democracy and Capitalism
Asia's Deadly Triangle: How Arms, Energy, and Growth Threaten to Destabilize Asia-Pacific
i can't believe i overlooked this song for such a long time. i think it's a brilliant song! it's like a grumpy old man complaining all the time about his wife, but its all done in a fun way and that he still loves her.
I hate the way that you are so sarcastic
And you're not very bright
You think that everything you've done's fantastic
Your music's shite it keeps me up all night, up all night
And it will be nice to be alone
For a week or two
But I know that I will be
Right back here with you
effective songs allow you to connect with it straightaway and bring you into it's world. you don't have to be 'in the mood' to connect with it, but rather it would draw you in.
examples of effective sad songs, in my opinion:
I did an interview with Jeremy, the person who started Songcraft. Was glad I did it, because I learned a bit more about myself along the way.
http://songcraft.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/exclusive-an-interview-with-firdaus-the-songwriter/
to me, my songwriting is not 'art'. it's not meant to be a creative process and trying to be clever and whatnot. it's more of a means to express myself. my top 3 reasons for songwriting:
I loved some of the songs John Lennon wrote after he left the Beatles. Below are my top 3:
Woman
This is such a sweet and earnest song. Poetic too!
Woman I hope you understand
The little child inside a man
Please remember, my life is in your hands
Woman is the Nigger of the World
Such an incisive perception on the status of women in society. I think Yoko coined the phrase, and Lennon made the song, after realizing the truth of the statement. Very deep song, I like!
We make her paint her face and dance
If she won't be a slave, we say that she don't love us
If she's real we say she's trying to be a man
While putting her down, we pretend that she's above us
God
To me, this is the definitive anti-authority song. Forget 'My Generation' by The Who. 'God' by Lennon is the ultimate defiance song. In the song, Lennon dispels all the global icons and the ultimate icons - God, and yes, the Beatles themselves. I love the musical structure, cos after he sings 'I don't believe in Beatles...', there is total silence, like everyone is realizing the severity of the statement, and if you close your eyes and 'listen' you can hear millions and millions of hearts breaking. Brilliant.
I don't believe in magic
I don't believe in I-ching
I don't believe in bible
I don't believe in tarot
I don't believe in Hitler
I don't believe in Jesus
I don't believe in Kennedy
I don't believe in Buddha
I don't believe in mantra
I don't believe in Gita
I don't believe in yoga
I don't believe in kings
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that's reality
it's 1am and i have an exam tomorrow morning but i have to write this down before i forget it altogether. i realized that in order to grow as a songwriter you need to learn other people's music, there's no two ways about it. because if not it would be very difficult for you on your own to come up with fresh ideas on chord progressions, rhythms, lyrics, etc. so by learning and internalizing other musicians' songs, you are feeding into your own reservoir of ideas for your future songwriting use.
some stuff remembered from prominent musicians:
noel gallagher once said that the person with the largest record collection writes the best songs.
justin timberlake once said that every time he listened to a song he would try to figure out what chords are there.
the beatles are probably the masters of incorporating other people's music into their own stuff. they borrow a lot a lot of stuffs from other artistes, and i think it makes them improve as composers.
heck, even bob dylan borrows a lot from the poets of long long time ago.
okay that's all for now, time to sleep.
