Singapore Turned 55

This year's National Day theme song titled 'Everything I Am' is written and composed by Joshua Wan and sung by Nathan Hartono. I quite like this although I don't think much of the lyrics. The mild melody works, methinks. All you need is to listen to it twice and you can likely strum out the melody on a guitar or a piano. (No I didn't attempt to do it.)

Here’s to you, Singapore (homeland)

Here’s to my people I could want nothing more

Here’s to you, Singapore (homeland)

We hold this precious jewel in our hands

Because of who you are

I can be everything I am

However, as a national song, 'Everything I Am' isn't exactly catchy because it's not a town-council-karaoke-pop-grassroots-line-dancing song. At some point, we should stop asking for the melodies and lyrics of the old. Those aren't better. They're different. Those ra-rah songs are of a different era, and written for a different people. Those are great to stir a crowd and such and they can continue to be so. Our songs now reflect the times. 2018's re-make of the 1987 'We Are Singapore' is interesting and has a short preface composed by Charlie Lim, but that's about as original as it gets It's a nod to the older popular, evergreen song written by Canadian Hugh Harrison. It's uhh... it sounds like it belongs in a musical. Imho, 'Everything I Am' sounds fine! It's a lot better than many songs which tried too hard. It's a typical singer-songwriter production rather than a radio hit or a chart-topping one-hit wonder. 

As we have come to expect, Singaporeans are the best naysayers of everything. The comments of the annual National Day theme song are outstanding. Poor Nathan Hartono had to justify himself as the singer of the theme song. I hope we aren't this degree of crazy when it comes to xenophobia. Singaporeans are born of migrants, never forget that. We'll constantly have new migrants, and with each generation, we re-define the Singaporean identity and try to shape it more substantially. In the Prime Minister's National Day Message, he said, 

Our experience fighting COVID-19, grim and hard as it has been, has brought us closer together. The shared ordeal will toughen a whole population, and bond us together as one united people. Just like how the Pioneer and Merdeka Generations were tempered by Separation and Independence, and economic crises in our early years as a nation.

In the pandemic year of 2020, on August 9th, Singapore turns 55. Our independence is hard won, and every year is a balanced fight to maintain it, even as we withstand external pressures. Our economic survival is an adorable miracle that is being tested every day; we hope it would last for a few more generations. So while we ought to treasure it, we also need to pay attention to other aspects of life's social causes and living. We probably should decide what sort of global trends and culture we want to adopt. We need to advance as a discerning civil society. As a people, we should at the very least, check our majority privilege, stamp out pockets of racism and ignorance, and continue to be sensitive to issues of gender and toxic chauvinism. 

Choppers practicing the flypast of the state flag at East Coast Park in late July.