Sing The Low Budget Monday Blues

Monday. Monday. Monday. What a dreadful day. When you're out with friends and you go "it's Monday tomorrow", you all just let out a collective sigh. Everyone understands what you mean and how you feel.

I'm so glad that "Narda" won Best Song of the Year in the NU Rock Awards. Congrats! Some people might think it's 'corny' to be singing about a fictional character. But when you listen to the song, you can tell it's inspired. The song evokes the feeling of longing in both music and the vocals. I love it. Great, great, great news. It brightens up the Monday blues a bit.

When I heard that Kamikaze won for Narda, it reminded me of one Sunday night about two weeks ago that I spent with the missus. Since Christmas was coming and because it was one of my all time favorite songs, I asked the missus to listen to 'Pasko Na Sinta Ko' by Gary Valenciano. Cheesy, yes, but that's me :) She listened to it with me and because she couldn't understand all the words (she didn't grow up in the Philippines so her Filipino is mostly colloquial) to the song, I translated the words or explained the meaning to her. Since she enjoyed that, I played her a few more Filipino songs I had. I kept a play list of the songs we listened to that night (including 'Narda'):

Gary Valenciano - Pasko Na Sinta Ko
Sharon Cuneta - Sana'y Wala ng Wakas
Kamikaze - Narda
Eraserheads - Kailan
Eraserheads - Minsan
Rizal Underground - Bilanggo (acoustic)
Cooky Chua - Pers Lab
True Faith - Muntik ng Maabot ang Langit
Color It Red - Paglisan
Orange and lemons - Yakap Sa Dilim
Apo Hiking Society - Batang-bata Ka Pa
Apo Hiking Society - Awit Ng Barkada

I love classic Filipino love songs especially those that have that old Kundiman feel to it. Of course, I like the new ones too (like Narda!). But the classic Filipino songs remind me how beautiful the Filipino language is, but at the same time it shames me that I don't use it as often as I should. Since I graduated college, I don't remember writing a paragraph of straight and proper Filipino. Everything I've written since has been in either English or Taglish (side comment: isn't it cool that Taglish has a definition in Wikipedia? And it comprehensive too. ), which is even more horrendous.

Anyway, that Sunday night was beautiful. It reminded me of the things we used to do during our first few years together. I would write her love letters and take her for a stroll in CCP and watch the sunset. Yes, we went for strolls in CCP's breakwater. Yes, baduy, but I didn't have much money to take her to movies and fancy restaurants. Yes, I'm getting defensive. Most of the time we took public transportation when we went out. And during times that we did manage to borrow a car, she would drive because she had a driver's license and I didn't. Yep! I was a regular prince charming. Sometimes we even go Dutch treat on dates. And when she got a job teaching while I was still in college, she paid for everything. Of course I would protest, but that was just for show. That was a cool year too! She was teaching and I was a student. I was a student dating a college teacher, I have to say I got some satisfaction out of that :P Fine, I'm shallow.