Random Musings

My Singapore
Music & Lyrics by Jeremy Yew

When I take a look around me in this city that I love
In our island so beautiful and free
See the red and white, the stars, the crescent flying high above
I think of how it flies for you and me

Hand in hand we’re marching onward, strive to do the best we can
Based on justice and equality
And it warms the heart to feel the passion for our fellow man
Different races, live in harmony

Chorus:
And it’s Singapore, my nation, my fortress strong and free
This is Singapore, my homeland, my one big family
Let our one united spirit soar, over all of Singapore
In our hearts, there’s one place we call Home

As we walk along the River, think of those who’ve come before
Our forefathers, toiled to build this land
Lion City, Singapura, march we onward Singapore
As we strive together hand in hand

Bridge:
We’ve built our hopes and dreams on this very land
Through thick adversity our nation will withstand
With one dream, one hope, one love, one heart
One people, one voice one Singapore!

(YouTube version, with chords)

…

Notes

Credit: Firstly, all the credit in the world goes to Betty for bravely pulling this song off.

I could tell it was quite a challenge for her because the range was a bit high, and there were instances where she had to hold a high E…but I felt she pulled it off remarkably. Considering she is an alto, I think she did great!

Key: I definitely wanted the key to be in A Major, cos I believe that A Major sounds “grand” and “anthemic”. That’s why I was reluctant to alter the key, even if it meant the singer sustaining high Es, haha!

Inspiration: For this year, I decided to write a more “safe” version of an NDP song. I wanted to write something that the NDP Committee would potentially listen to.

Basically, that means being extremely politically-correct.

However, I still wanted the lyrics to be well-written and well-thought out. I looked through various websites such as the Singapore wikipedia page, the Uniquely Singapore website, and the Singapore Infomap portal for lyrical ideas. I also read up on the Singapore pledge, the Singapore flag and other things to gain more ideas…hence the references to the Singapore flag, the Singapore national anthem and other small references in the lyrics.

The basic skeletal tune came to me quite quickly. I was just fooling around at the piano one night and started playing chord progressions in A Major…and suddenly a tune started to surface. I used the “ascending” chord progression (A-Bm-C#m-D) as I felt it was rather anthemic and kinda induces you to wanna rise up and raise your spirits when you hear the song. It has that kind of feel.

Sadly, the lyrics took me a really long time to finish. I just couldn’t find enough inspiration to write an entire song full of politically-correct cliches (but I managed to squeeze it out in the end). There were also some melodic lines which gave me HUGE problems, like the 3rd line of the chorus (“Let our one united spirit soar…”). I took the longest time to finally decide on the tune and lyrics for that 3rd line.

Overall: Overall, I’m very pleased with the way the song turned out. I think the reception to the song at Songcraft last night was pretty encouraging too.

Some commented that the key was a bit too high, which made singing along a bit difficult, since an NDP song is supposed to be sung along by everyone. I think that’s a very valid point.

I’m looking forward to presenting it at this year’s Songcraft mini-concert!