Michael Albert, a friend of mine from work, did this awesome cover of “”วณิพก” “Wanipok” that even contains an Easter egg from another famous Carabao song (listen for it). Michael lives in the United States and is not Thai. Long ago, I introduced him to this song with the English translation. He loved it! I emailed him the words to google in Thai, and he started listening and studying all versions of the song “วณิพก” and the rest of the “คาราบาว” music. A week later, with no further input from me, he created a version of the song that you hear at this link. Various Farang fans of Carabao, including one Carabao sound engineer were blown away. The typical reaction was “Goosebumps . . .” I sent it to Carabao Foundation, who reposted it. Years later, Michael surprised me with a new version. It is even better than the first version. He intended it as a going-away present, as I leave my job of 30 years. This cover proves I have achieved my mission of, bridging the language barrier, and showing the Carabao music to the English-speaking world.

Message from Michael on my Facebook page: Okay, so Ann Norman will be leaving the place where I work in the near future and I kind of had said I was going to eventually record another version of this song that she’d translated/adapted as part of her project to bring the music of Aed Carabao and his band to the West..

So, I sat down earlier this afternoon (I guess 4 or 5 years after the first version) and did this. It is just a rough draft, but it was fun enough to do. This is essentially an improvised recording and my “Warts And All” principle applies.

The drums are courtesy of Garage Band. The three guitar parts are my ole Strat that Shari Reynolds Albert bought for me at the end of the 80s, and the Hondo 830 that I bought for her sometime back in the ’90s provides a serviceable bass. My trusty Sennheiser MD421 does its thing.

(Warning: I continue to be mostly deaf on my right side, so this was rough-mixed with speakers. The panning on headphones leaves much to be desired. This is best listened to on a car stereo where the flaws are absorbed by whatever makes things sound better in the car.)

Anyhow, [LINK TO THE SONG ON SOUND CLOUD]

More translations of Carabao songs can be found here [at Carabao in English]. Actual versions of Wanipok (and other songs) by Carabao are 1) much better than mine 2) available at a video/music site near you. You should go listen to them.

.mpa