2003 FEBRUARY 19 #050
Cambodian Funk Yodeler - Unknown Title
Found in a cheap record store bin back around 1993. For all we know it's a story of a true cross-cultural love, Cambodian boy meets Swiss girl in ski resort. Legitimate music.
- Stephen Downs
TT-4:17 / 5.88MB / 192kbps 44.1khz
from Cassette
Stephen writes back on March 15th:
I just found out from a Cambodian woman that the
singing on "Cambodian Funk Yodeler" is actually
Laotian!
John Davison writes:
I'm sitting here with my friend Tohny, a U.S. citizen
who speaks Thai, Khmer, and English. He's telling me
a little bit about this song. The singer is singing
in Thai, but with a distinctly Khmer/Lao accent. (This
is not at all uncommon. Tohny claims that there is a
disproportionate number of ethnic Khmer personalities
on the Thai pop music scene. There's a huge cultural
overlap among the Thai, Khmer, and Lao.) The song is
essentially an ode to the Kuntai Isan (northern Thailand),
north of Surin. ...they love to eat "bla"
(fish)... Another sentiment expressed in the lyrics
is that "It doesn't matter what part of the country
they live in...they're still Thai..." It's _not_
a love story. It's mainly a song describing how nice
the people of the Isan are. "All of them belong
to one country, and they love each other..." Tohny
does recognize the singer -- he's an "old guy...famous
from the 1960s..." He has this singer on an LP
at home, but he doesn't remember the man's name. If
he finds out who it is, he'll let me know.