Update of sorts: J-Lu writes me to say that not only did I make her day (anytime, J-Lu!), but that the woman in Wang Lee Hom's song which I wrote about in my previous entry may not be asleep, but may in fact be dead. Which makes it just deliciously perfect; it's a moment almost as good as when I first heard that Barry Manilow's "Mandy" was actually about his dog (the truth about "Mandy" is revealed here, though).
(You can read the lyrics to Wang Lee Hom's "Last Night" here; I can't bear to listen to the song ever again. I'm sure some people out there would find it sweet -- but wouldn't it be great if the woman really was dead?)
Which brings me to Wily Filipino territory. I think Filipinos have some sort of special affinity with sappy; every karaoke party I've attended always featured some liquored-up brave soul -- actually, they were probably completely sober, which makes it worse -- getting up to sing that Horrible Love Theme From Phantom. (I usually go out of the room at this point to keep myself from beating heads with the karaoke mic.) I suspect, in any case, that Filipinos may simply have a higher tolerance for this stuff, but I'm not about to spin some grand cultural theory that links Castilian floridity with -- as Teodoro Agoncillo I think once put it -- "hot Malay blood."
Perhaps most indicative of this phenomenon was one of the more successful Manila radio stations back in the day (they apparently started broadcasting in 1973, right after Martial Law, and I can't think of anything better to lull the populace) -- okay, you non-immigrant Filipinos can tune out here and meet me further down the entry, because none of this will probably make any sense -- which played nothing but goo. The radio station was, and is, called the Mellow Touch (that already says it all), and the radio jingle went something like this (they also played some extended version every now and then):
You are the minstrel
I'm your guitar
I play what you sing
You are the star
followed by some guy purring, "The mellow sound. Of W double L."
You get the picture. This was where sappy songs lived and breathed and never died, where the song that would come closest to remotely mentioning booty would be the Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight." (We're not even talking about good sappy -- like John Travolta's "What Would They Say," aka the love theme from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble -- but really bad sappy, like "Can You Read My Mind," aka the love theme from Superman). Sure, you'd have old chestnuts like Bread's "Everything I Own" (a great, great song), but this would be jostling with songs from folks like David Pomeranz, Angela Bofill, Rex Smith, Michael Johnson, John Farnham, Michael Murphy, James Ingram, and Lani Hill in some special section of purgatory. Where they could probably play a Christopher Cross hour and listeners wouldn't bat an eyelash. Breathe's "Hands to Heaven?" Check. Barry Manilow's "Somewhere down the Road?" Check. Dan Hill's "Sometimes When We Touch?" Here. Peabo Bryson's "If Ever You're In My Arms Again?" Definitely. Klymaxx's "I'll Still Say Yes?" Absolutely. Atlantic Starr's "Always?" Gawd. On and on -- hey, that's a sappy Stephen Bishop song!
(The "Bohemian Rhapsody" of Sappy Songs should be given a special mention here -- Air Supply's "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All," which I'm amused to discover I've actually written about before.)
I mean, here's the chorus of Rex Smith's "Let’s Make A Memory" (okay, this might just be about booty too):
Let's make a memory
Bright as the stars that shines above
Let's fill our cup with the wine of love
Just you and me
And memories of love
Awful, eh? People actually listened to this.
Or David Pomeranz's "King and Queen of Hearts," aka the love/prom theme from Zapped!:
Did I dream that we danced forever
In a wish that we made together
On a night that I prayed would never end?
No it's not my imagination
Or a part of the orchestration
Love was here at the coronation
I'm the King and
You're the Queen of Hearts
(In contrast, the greatest love/prom theme from a film ever must be Katie Irving's "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me" from Carrie -- brutally perfect for what happens in the last half hour.)
But after much thought -- and you young folks who were born around, say, 1985, should consider yourselves privileged not to have experienced the scarring properties of this next song -- I've decided that the winner of Sappiest Song Ever is Dan Fogelberg's 1981 classic "Same Old Lang Syne." (Remember how Opus's hot hippie fiancee had a tattoo of Dan Fogelberg? Does anyone still remember Bloom County?)
I mean, you cannot beat a song that begins:
Met my old lover in a grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
Stole behind her in the frozen foods
and I touched her on the sleeve
And then the chorus is pure, unadulterated, mainlined cheese:
We drank a toast to innocence, we drank a toast to now
Tried to reach beyond the emptiness but neither one knew how
All right, I dare you folks to come up with something worse. Oh wait, there's Wang Lee Hom's "Last Night..."
Hi, I've been enjoying your blog for some time and this is my first time weighing in.
On the subject of sappy songs, I can't believe you haven't mentioned any country songs! Or are you deliberately omitting the entire genre, which is,arguably, inherently sappy?
I don't remember its name, but I do recall one hilarious country song about breaking up. The line that made everyone double over with laughter was
"the turkey that I basted with my tears"
Or something like that.
Posted by: jun on August 4, 2005 02:18 AMwow...... for the longest time i've been trying to remember the words to the jingle of mellow touch, this used to plague me as a child, around the house we were glued to that station twenty four seven. i just thought at the time that, that was the saddest jingle i've ever hear in my entire life, this was sung as a duet. i mean, i guess when you're a kid there's so many emotions you don't understand, sappy love being one of them... :) thanks for posting this, now my memory is complete yehey!!!
salamat!!!
"the turkey that i bested with my tears," isn't just melodramatic. it's also rather repulsive.
breathe's "hands to heaven" can only be sung with a fog machine. and along those same lines would be mr. mister's "broken wings."
i will forgive you for even mentioning air supply.
and that fogelberg song? it's actually quite articulate, so i give him that.
Posted by: poeta on August 4, 2005 11:54 AMMellow Touch... Cheesus, I think something just snapped in my cerebral cortex. If you miss that bad stuff from the 80s, go to Spain (consuelo de bobo is that Spanish pop is not as puky as French pop).
What about that station 99.5 RT? I won a bouquet of flowers from them once for being the 3rd caller or something.
Thanks for reminding me of Style Council's "You're the best thing." Excellent! I just wish I had a copy of it somewhere so I could play it over and over as I try to write...
Posted by: oona p. on August 4, 2005 02:51 PMPoeta: repulsive indeed. Although Big J used to talk of watching this porn flick where the hero announces that he was about to baste the turkey... and he does.
Jun: Country is indeed sappy, but it has an edge -- alcohol and death -- which "Tonight I Celebrate My Love For You" will never have.
In any case, country music never really took root in the Philippines, though some Olongapo musicians I've interviewed talk about having to incorporate Johnny Cash in their repertoire to keep the soldiers happy. (John Denver was probably the closest thing to country music back in those days.)
Mushr: glad to make your day. =)
Oona: I was a big RT fan -- though I would never have won anything from them, since I was a listener out in the provinces. They were pretty sap-free, until the big shift in the mid-80s when management changed hands and programming became purely American Top 40. Prior to that it was practically WBLS but with a stronger signal: the Cure, the Fall, the Care, Real Life, Seona Dancing... those were the days. (p.s. Check your Yahoo mailbox.)
ewwwww ... ok, now that's downright revolting.
Posted by: poeta on August 4, 2005 05:01 PMChecked my yahoo mailbox and > are the best thing.
Posted by: oona p. on August 4, 2005 07:51 PMoops. what appears as ">" is supposed to be "YOU," as in: YOU are the best thing.
Posted by: oona p. on August 4, 2005 07:53 PM"Total Eclipse of the Heart" pa din. :)How can you top "Once upon a time I was falling in love, now I'm only falling apart" for sheer sap?
Posted by: bang & blame on August 5, 2005 12:31 AMGlad to see that two of the ones I jotted down have been mentioned -- Sometimes when we touch (I was in a Manila taxi the other day and the driver refused to turn it off!) and Total eclipse of the heart.
I would also offer Escape (the Pina Colada song), Seasons in the Sun (goodbye michelle it's hard to die) and, my personal favourite, I've never been to me by someone called Charlene (may she rot in hell).
Posted by: torn on August 5, 2005 02:26 AMHow bout Got to write a classic, Got to write it in an attic, Baby, I'm an addict now, an addict for your love. Classic sap
Posted by: Frayed on August 5, 2005 03:10 AMOh gawd, I'm stretching back in time here ('70s), but do you remember that song "Dick and Jane"? It was so awful it still gives me nightmares to this day.
"Look Dick look. See pretty Jane, I'm gonna marry her someday."
And then she died.
Posted by: Gigi on August 5, 2005 09:01 AMthere's "babe," by styx. which is sweet, but a little too sweet.
"i want to know what love is," by foreigner. but this song is really made by the screechy pining, "i want you to show meeee..."
"faithfully," by journey. gawd.
"at this moment," by billy vera. hmph.
... and my personal favorites ...
THE JETS! either "make it real," or "over him." as in: [you spilled your drink and] you got it all ... over him. or something like that.
HANK WILLIAMS. "there's a tear in my beer cuz i'm cryin m'dear. you are on my lonely mind..."
Posted by: poeta on August 5, 2005 10:26 AMOona: I'll refrain from posting about your extremely generous offer. =)
Bang & Blame / Poeta: I'm rethinking my choice of Fogelberg vs Tyler; more later.
Torn: You must have hated "Priscilla Queen of the Desert" then. That Charlene song though has wonderfully sleazy lyrics. ("Escape" is actually a rather witty song.)
[thinking about it again] Man, that Charlene song is pretty awful. I'm *really* beginning to rethink my choice of Sappiest Song.
Torn (again) / Poeta (again): both "Escape" and "You Got It All" were written by the same guy, Rupert Holmes! (Why do I know this?)
And Poeta, for the last time: *I* can sing Billy Vera's "At This Moment" on karaoke, even if I can't do that falsetto thing he does at the end.
My new fondest memory of "Babe" is driving down to L.A. cranking it up on the stereo and D-Dog feeling *really* sentimental.
wow...who mentioned sometimes when we touch, i'm embarrased just to say the title, i completely forgot about that one. that song makes me chuckle with laughter. how can you sing that song with a straight face, honestly? doesn't it take away from
your manhood, nevermind. :)
Thank you to the Poeta for pointing out that Fogelberg's lyrics in "Auld Lang Syne" are articulate. That whole album is really well-written. Even ol' DF couldn't escape the cheese though - look to his song "Longer." Pfagh.
Posted by: dc on August 9, 2005 02:07 PM...and much as I love Harry Chapin, how can you not mention "Cat's in the Cradle"????
Posted by: dc on August 9, 2005 02:09 PMUlol! Yung "Let's Make A Memory" ginamit na ni Vivian Velez sa isang tumpak na pelikulang nag all-the-way sila. I remember a banner on stage that read: "Dog Show Live."
Naalala mo yung nagpa type pa tayo nang lyrics nang "Air Supply" saka nang "Inspector Mills" which you dropped the ball on and forgot to mention here?
Pag uwi natin, nakatapat tayo sa videoke channel hanggang merong lumabas na kantang di natin alam. MWAHAHAHA!!!
Posted by: Happy on August 10, 2005 05:50 PMhttp://www.2famouslyrics.com/d/dan-byrd/boulevard.html
"Never knew that it would go so far
When you left me on that boulevard
Come again you would release my pain
And we could be lovers again!!"
That's sap.
Posted by: Happy on August 11, 2005 09:54 AMDC: Aaargh! Thanks for feeding me "Longer" -- now I can't get it out of my head!
Posted by: the wily filipino on August 12, 2005 10:02 AMHaps: mukhang tama ka tungkol kay Vivian. Hindi ba George Estregan-lookalike ang tumototsicle sa kanya doon?
Posted by: the wily filipino on August 12, 2005 10:04 AM