Get Acquainted With Singapore: Learn Singlish La! Siva Choy

Bengyap's video of Siva Choy and The Crossroads original rap: Why You So Like Dat?

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With the Kopi Kat Klan, Siva Choy (one half of 60's pop music duo The Cyclones ) wrote, directed and performed Why U So Like Dat? a popular comedy album comprising Singlish songs and kopi tiam skits. 

It was Singapore's first English-language comedy album and was so popular that it had sold more than 50,000 copies to date. The October Cherries' percussionist Richard Khan was playing the drums and one of the musicians helping out with the recording.

*Why You So Like Dat?  

By Siva Choy
Written by: Farid Long

Chorus:
Oui, why u so like dat ah?
Hey why u so like dat?
Why u so like dat ah?
Hey why u so like dat?

1) I let you kopi all my sum,
Because you always blur,
But when I try to kopi back,
You always call the Sir!

2) I always give you  chocolate,
I give you my Tic Tac,
But now you got a Kit Kat,
You never gimme back!

3) You tell me dat you don't like girl,
I also donno why,
But when you see a pretty girl,
Your voice go up damn high!

(4th verse very cheem; better listen carefully).

*Singlish Lesson for off-shore Ang-Mohs (Caucasians):

Why you so like that = Why're you behaving in this way?
kopi = copy (coffee in Malay)
sum = as in Mathematics.
blur = unaware of what's going on around you.
I also donno why = I don't understand.
cheem = too difficult to understand.

It's all tongue in cheek dear. Don't take it too seriously.

Connect to Siva's previous post:
http://singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg/2012/07/why-you-so-like-that-uh.html

Tribute from Jerry Fernandez:

https://singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg/2018/03/siva-choy-rip-tribute-from-jerry.html

You Tube video: by bengyap.
Image: From Siva Choy Facebook.

Calling All Princess Elizabeth Estate 60s Bands

Hello Andy,

My name is James Tann and I was at the talk you gave at the Old Parliament House last Saturday. I am a friend of Peter Chan as well as Lam Chun See, who inducted me into the FOYERS group last year.

Congratulations for giving a fine address and the Sentimental Journey. This song always brings me back to memories of the days when I sat beside my home 'hi-fi' record player and played Doris Day over and over again.

As you are *the acknowledged expert for Singapore music of the 60s, I am trying to tap into your wide database for some information.  I write a heritage blog called Princess Elizabeth Estate: memories of my old home village. Princess Elizabeth Estate was an old SIT estate located off Hillview Avenue in Bukit Timah, now demolished as with so many other heritage losses. My blog has articles of events mostly from the 60s and 70s and focused on the estate and its surroundings.

Princess Elizabeth Estate was also the home base for the 60s band Pest Infested (right). I also know that quite of number of the boys from Princess Elizabeth Estate later joined or were part of bands like the Surfers (October Cherries), Blue Stars and Siglap 5.

I am in the midst of writing another article on these boys who went on to form some of the bands in the 60s. From your vast knowledge, do you know who else, beside the Pest Infested, were from Princess Elizabeth Estate? I have the Pest Infested covered as I knew them personally as well as their parents too but the others from the estate who joined other bands I am not to aware of. These 'lost' boys are the ones I am interested in.


Princess girl Bridget Ong Mei Li was Miss Singapore/Universe in 1967.

Slightly later boys from Princess Elizabeth Est who became 'famous'  are people like Ramli Sarip and his brother (Sweet Charity) and Moliano from Lovehunter.

I hope you can find some time to help me with some details,

Best regards
James.

*Thank you James but I am not an expert but a student learning about our local 60s music.

Readers can write to me or directly to James' blog below. His email address is available too but do write to either one of us.

James Tann's blog: http://www.ijamestann.blogspot.com
Images: James Tann Blog.

MPs For A Day For 60s Music Heritage Bloggers

Thanks to a Singapore Heritage Festival bloggers' workshop some of us acted as though we were MPs, if only for a day. But it was at the Art House -  the former Parliament building - that we aired our views on 60s music.

Three sessions for Past Forward: A Heritage Blogging and Social Media Workshop, held in the main chamber on 14th July were moderated by Yu-Mei Balasingamchow (top left) who co-authored the book, Singapore: A Biography.

Panel speakers for Session 2, Not Just Nostalgia: Music of the 1960s,  were yours truly  and Georgiana Glass (top right), blogger at modcentric.blogspot.com  Others who were either on panel workshops or guests included Lam Chun See, (author, blogger), Victor Koo, James Seah (bloggers) , Peter Chan (archivist, photographer), Yusnor Ef (cultural medallionist, author, lyricist ) and Audie Ng (Silver Strings band leader, bassist).

The main thrust of the panel discussion was to encourage all Singaporeans to post their memories on a blog or share online about heritage.  The speakers  related stories and provided tips from their online blogging and experiences to "demystify heritage blogging" and "help people to feel that they don't have to be experts in order to blog."

In this session, I raised a question as to why local Singapore 60s songs like Shanty, My Lonely Heart and other popular ones have not been orchestrated and performed by SSO while second panel speaker Glass advised her youthful audience that they do not, "need to live in the 60s to blog about music from that period."

Ivan Chew (Singapore Memory Project), Dan Koh, Rosenah Omar, Adrianna Tan, Char Lee and Zakaria Zainal were the other session panellists during the workshop. A wonderful gathering it was with reasonable audience participation.  But the rain outside...

The above article is not an official report on the Workshop but a personal observation.

Images: Peter Chan and James Seah Collection, Copyrights Reserved.