After having more karaoke sessions, I'm brought back in time and begin to reminisce the days when songs were just music. I guess I was too young or naive then to realize what the lyrics mean or what emotions were being conveyed. It's only now that I'm having this deeper connection to these songs. Quite a few of them, I actually don't recall the title or who the singer/band was. Luckily, in this day and age, a quick Google search can solve that. There's even an app for recognizing songs for you.
So now I've spent a day downloading all these songs from my past, reading the lyrics over and over again. The most recent in the list is Eraserheads's Ang Huling El Bimbo (The Last El Bimbo in english). I don't think translating the lyrics in english will have the same effect as hearing it in tagalog. But the story of the song is basically a guy who's reminiscing about his school days during which he learned how to dance El Bimbo from a very beautiful girl. He describes how his love for her developed but not once was he able to tell her. However time has now past and the last he has heard of her, all these sad things happened including her death.
My favorite lines are:
Magkahawak ang ating kamay at walang kamalay-malay (We're holding hands and not realizing)
Na tinuruan mo ang puso ko na umibig ng tunay (That you've taught my heart to truly love)
Back in the days, I did make a list of resolutions every new years. I'd probably have about 10 things in each list. To summarize, I've probably only successfully accomplished 3 of those and it wasn't even on the year I made it for.
1.) Get my driver's license. Pretty sure I promise this myself at 17 and I did get it only it expired and I haven't really tried again until I was 20.
2.) Lose weight and maintain the ideal weight. Still an on going project and probably forever will. Lost roughly 30 lbs since my university graduation. 15 more lbs till I reach my ideal weight.
3.) Live abroad by myself. This was more of a bucket list but I added it officially on my resolution list after grad. Who knew a few months later it'd come true. South Korea is now my 3rd home.
Hopefully to add a fourth one on the accomplished resolution list is to learn how to play a musical instrument. It's pretty hard as no one in the family has any musical talent. Nor was it ever fostered. It's not that we couldn't afford it but it certainly wasn't a priority. Since I now have free time and am blessed by God by not having any debts, I think its time to make that resolution come true. I'm borrowing my best friend's guitar for now since we're sorta on the same boat... wants to learn how to play an instrument but its not a priority thus guitar is now collecting dust. If I really do get into it, you bet I'll be buying my own.
Learning will be difficult as I absolutely haven't retained any info from my last music class which was way back in elementary. I'll have to learn how to read a sheet music; somehow translating those notes into sounds on the guitar; remembering finger positions and how to make what chord; tuning my ear to tell the difference between pitches and other musical terms you can think of. It'll really be from scratch basically. Now, I don't intend to be a genius composer/song-writer here but the gist of this resolution is to be able to play my favorite songs.
This passion honestly stems back from listening to OPM songs. I find it to be more soulful, the lyrics do make you emotional and the instrumentals are more eloquent. Even if someone didn't understand Tagalog, I think they can tell from the singer's voice and the instruments what emotion is being conveyed. So it makes sense that the first song I want to be able to play is OPM.
Forevermore by Side A is my ultimate favorite OPM which I sing over and over again on my karaoke. Sure, I might've botched up the song but I love it so much that I don't care. CD happens to like this song too but he plays it on the guitar, not sing it. (Lemme say it now that I'm learning how to play the guitar / this song not because of CD but for me)
Hopefully I'll be able to make a video of me playing this song on the guitar. I promise no singing involved!
