By ยืนยง โอภากุล Yuenyong Opakul, aka แอ๊ด คาราบาว Add Carabao
From the Album: โน พลอมแพลม No Problem (1990)

Note: The Bhagavad Gita is a key Hindu religious text. The set-up is that the great archer Arjuna comes to the battlefield to fight, and immediately starts to cry and at first refuses when he sees that the two sides are close relatives, the armies of two brothers. Krishna, who is an avatar of the god Vishnu, then sings the verses that contain the Hindu wisdom trying to convince him to do his duty and fight for justice. In the legend, Arjuna eventually does fight. I think this song focuses on Arjuna’s hard decision, with the pro and con arguments (from the story) going back and forth. For two other takes, by Yuenyong Opakul (Add Carabao), on the story of Arjuna from The Bhagavad Gita, see “The Arrow of Arjuna” and “The Tears of Arjuna.” The first seems to say that Arjuna/we should fight  (metaphorically speaking) against injustice “with our hearts/minds, not with a weapon.” The second seems to lament Arjuna’s decision to go to war.

อรชุน อรชุน อรชุน อรชุน
Arjuna, Arjuna, Arjuna, Arjuna

กฤษณะรายณ์ กฤษณะรายณ์ แสงแห่งเทวัญ
Krishna/Vishnu, Krishna/Vishnu, Light of the gods
อาตมันกาย กฤษณะรายณ์ชายผู้ชี้นำ
Atman body, Krishna/Vishnu, a man who is a leader

* รบเถิดอรชุน หากท่านตายในสนามรบ
Fighting gave birth to Arjuna, even if he dies on the battlefield
สวรรค์ยังรอท่านอยู่ ยังเปิดประตูรอผู้ปราชัย
Heaven yet waits for you; the door is still open waiting for the defeated
แม้หากว่าท่านชนะ ความเป็นใหญ่ในแผ่นดินนี้
Although if you succeed, greatness in this land
ทุกพงพื้นปฐพี รอให้ท่านเข้ามาครอบครอง
every bush of this land waits for you to come and rule

** โอ้ อรชุนไยไม่ยิงศร
Oh, Arjuna, why don’t you shoot your arrows?
ดูเจ้าอาวรณ์ เหนือความเป็นธรรม
It looks like have concerns above fairness/justice
จิตเจ้าโลเล ใจเจ้าเหลียวหลัง
Your heart is indecisive. Your heart looks behind
แรงเจ้าอ่อนล้า ตาเจ้ามืดมัว
Your strength is exhausted, your eyes become blurry [with tears]*
ทั่วปฐพีมีเพียงคมศร
The whole earth has only sharp arrows
อิทธิฤทธิ์รอนลดความรุนแรง
Supernatural influence reduces violence
แสงแห่งเทวัญ อาตมันกาย
The light of gods, the Atman body
กฤษณะรายณ์ ชายผู้ชี้นำ
Krishna/Vishnu, a man who is a leader

(*,**)

อรชุน อรชุน จิตเจ้าโลเล ใจเจ้าเหลียวหลัง
Arjuna, Arjuna, your mind hesitates, your heart looks back
แรงเจ้าอ่อนล้า ตาเจ้ามืดมัว
Your strength is exhausted, your eyes are blurry
กฤษณะรายณ์ แสงแห่งเทวัญ
Krishna/Vishnu, light of the gods
อาตมันกาย กฤษณะรายณ์
Ataman body, Kritsana/Vishnu
ชายรายณ์รบเถิดอรชุน
The man Vishnu fights giving birth to Arjuna

*Also see the song “Tears of Arjuna”

I don’t know if Add Carabao directly identifies as a humanist. He does strongly identify as a Buddhist and accepts the label “Songs for Life” as the genre that he usually works in. [See a recent interview in which he mentions how Buddhism and “yonisomanasikara” [proper attention] in particular help him in songwriting.] But as an atheist and a humanist myself, I have noticed that Add Carabao’s works seems strongly humanist. To make that point, I give a definition of humanism below followed by excerpts from 32 songs that back up my observation that his work is humanist (has all the important humanist elements). I have only translated 300 of Add Carabao’s songs, so perhaps 10 percent of his work is strongly humanist in a way that feels universal.

Of course, many of the more Thailand-specific songs would also be humanist (for instance “นส. 3 ก.” or “NS3K Document”) but would be harder for a non-Thai to understand and so would not be used an example here.

So here is a definition of Humanism from The Humanist Magazine quoted prominently at the website of the American Humanist Association: “Humanism is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports the maximization of individual liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. It advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice. Free of supernaturalism, it recognizes human beings as a part of nature and holds that values-be they religious, ethical, social, or political-have their source in human experience and culture. Humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.”

If we compare the humanism seen in Add Carabao songs to western humanism, the biggest difference might be the enthusiasm for moderation (the Middle Path).

Browse the translated lyrics below and draw your own conclusions. Before you start, check out the entire songs ความจริง Kwam-jing   “Truth” and คนล่าฝัน Kon La Fun “Dream Chaser” if you haven’t already. And perhaps read my review of the recent compilation album Poem (I have discussed humanism in those songs elsewhere and so don’t cover those important songs here). If you are skeptical that Add Carabao is “free of supernaturalism,” read the interview I have titled “Add Carabao clarifies his religious position.”

Below are 30 key songs lyrics excepted in English translation (a few of the songs, including the first one, were not actually written by Add Carabao, but he was always in control of which songs went on the official Carabao albums and, of course, on his own solo albums). Click on the hyperlinks for the song with full details. And remember the music carries meaning on its own, even apart from the lyrics.

ปลาใหญ่ ปลาน้อย Bplaa Yai Bplaa Noi Big Fish, Little Fish

“One animal has a body large and bold
Has great strength and is totally savage
Devouring the small animals, so they die and are gone
It is natural law that brings it about
Big fish eat little fish
Big animals eat little animals
It’s a law . . . Not [for] people

Look around at human society
Having hands that overflow with merit/virtue
People have moral principles that will lead them
The light of Dharmic truth guides us like a golden light

Be king and generous to each other, brothers and sisters
Compassionately support/maintain the world, brothers and sisters
It’s not like we’re [pieces of] dead wood; we’re friends

…Big fish are friends with little fish
Big animals are friends with little animals
It’s a law . . . create/build the laws together, people!

(1981)

มนต์เพลงคาราบาว Mon Pleang Carabao The Spell of Carabao Songs

“Come sing songs to soothe the heart and give [us] energy
to study diligently, to pursue learning
to at last be way out in open, not inactive
A rhythmic trance, being into the lyrics of the song

There is no competition in music
There are truth and dreams in music
There is music played in this world of freedom

There is music played to signify the lives of people.
The tune reflects real life
It is essential advice for real life
beautiful and meaningful. Don’t leave it behind
[and] forget [it] while dancing in the center of the floor”

(1981)

บัวลอย Bua Loy

Note: This song celebrates the sacrifice of an ordinary soldier, whose name Bua Loy means “Lotus Leaf.” This works for the song because a lotus grows up through the water and finally blossoms above the water. Bua Loy matured and “blossomed above the water” in his selfless final act. It is one of the best known Carabao songs. Below is my singable, rhyming translation.

“Bua Loy, this guy I know
He always limps, he’s got crossed eyes
He’s not that much to see
but his mind is high, like the Lotus Leaf
A friend when you need a friend
A cook when you need to eat
A doctor if you scream in pain
He’ll get you back on your feet

Bua Loy’s been handicapped
And so of course he escapes the draft
But still he volunteers
The man is brave and he endures
He works hard all the time
A humble, normal guy
Helps out every friend
He’s there through thick and thin

. . . One day the guns resound
Bua Loy is lying on the ground
Mumbles “Are y’all OK?”
The very last words Bua Loy will say
From that day ’til this day
In a farmhouse on a hill
Bua Loy is absent still
It’s listless there and grey

Spoken:

This world is all messed up
‘Cause some care just about their own needs
How many people in this world
Rise as high as this lotus leaf?

Sung:

This world is all messed up
‘Cause some care just about own needs
How many people in this world
Rise as high and become free . . . . as Bua Loy!!!!!”

(1984)

เรฟูจี Refugee

“. . .all that’s left is boats drifting in
Come on, come on, welcome Refugee!”

(1984)

เสียงเพลงแห่งเสรีภาพ Siang Pleang Heng Saripaap Music of Freedom

“If we want to go forward
[one] must create confidence
or democracy
that is really true, like we long for
so that Thai people can have freedom

Music so [we can] express [to everyone]
that we yearn for a great freedom.
Music so we can express
We long for liberty
Music of freedom

Free-dom!
Music of freedom
Free-dom!
Music of freedom
Free-dom!
Music of freedom
Free-dom!”

(1985)

ประชาธิปไตย Bprachaatipbpadtai Democracy

“Let the citizens have the right to vote
People come grab the reigns of the lives of citizens
[We] will rule the democratic system
Will we play Thai-style or like the system internationally?”

(1986)

ถึกควายทุย ภาค 8 Tuk Kwai Tuey Pak 8 Tuk, the Buffalo with Short/Twisted Horns, Part 8

Note: Bamboo spreads by sending out runners that send up new shoots from underground. In the song “Mai Pai” all the people in the world are said to be related to each other like the bamboo in a clump or grove. In the context of the song “A clump of bamboo” means other people will pop up to take up the project even after you are sidelined from the action.

“Manohk, oh, Manohk
The world still needs people who do good
You are not all alone
On the contrary! A clump of bamboo!

There are still bamboo shoots
putting out leaves, splitting into new clumps
To be shoots to be rows
To be skin and flesh
To be energy
To be strength of spirit
To give moral support”

(1987)

เพื่อเมืองไทย Peua Muang Thai For Thailand

Note: This song originated as a Coke commercial and is addressed to Thai young people. The word “kwam bpen Thai” that I have translated “Thai-being/Thai culture” is usually translated “Thainess,” and “Thainess” is often held up as a standard that young people must conform to. Add Carabao has turned this idea on its head.

“Now the river basin of Thai-Being/Thai culture
goes however we go,
is as we are
No exceptions ever
[If you] don’t try, of course, you won’t know.
It’s something deep from the thoughts in the heart.
If [we] let you teach, will you teach?
If [we] have you think, what will you think?
If we have you do/make [something], then what will you do/make?
[Go ahead! Do it!]

With love and intention
Confident even for a long time
You are the beautiful future
People who carry on the creation of Thai society
It’s something profound from the thoughts in one’s heart
If [we] let you teach, can you teach?
[We] want you to think. What do you think?
[If we] have you do [something], what will you do?
It’s something deep from the thoughts in the heart
Open doors! What doors [will you open]?
[We] want you to think. What do you think?
We’d have you do [something]. What’ll you do?
It’s something deep from the thoughts in one’s heart.
We’d have you do [something]. Can you do it?
For Thailand with [your] heart and mind.
For Thailand, what will you do?”

(1991)

ในนามแห่งความรัก Nai Nam Heng Rak In the Name of Love

“Tell the person beside you, please tell them loudly, that love still exists
What disappeared from this city is still fine; it hasn’t fled anywhere
A city where people urgently push and crowd and rush around
The city where there the cars are stuck in traffic and [drivers] compete for breathable air
Nature had to be destroyed
Exchanged for drunkenness, lust, and passion . . .Lust and passion

Tell the person beside you, please tell them loudly, that love is calling for you
But in this period, people right now are dazzled by civilization [by the big, bright city]
Walking like blind people, their eyes unseeing
Groping for a way to survive, devoid of kindness
Where are there any schools or universities that teach people to be human? . . .Teach people to be human?

But great love hasn’t yet arisen. Support each other if you are able.
Until the sky collapses
The land crumbles
Even if the world is razed to the ground and destroyed by fire for all time
There in a dream, at one time love had arrived
On the earth, once upon a time, it’s beautiful with color,
nature, many species of wild animals and plants,
People love each other like a verse of poetry, brothers and sisters!
(2X)

Tell the person beside you, please tell them loudly, that love is begging you
The love from two people, has a harmony that is beautiful, wonderful
Young people are [our] strength; they are [our] hope
[One’s] two hands are where [it starts], not [with] some third party
Love wants me to follow it. I come in the name
of love!
Love wants me to follow it. I come in the name of love!
Love has me come along. I come . . . . in the name of love!”

(1994)

หลวงพ่อคูณ Luang Por Koon

Note: This song is about the famous monk Luang Por Koon, who passed away (in 2015) at the age of 91. This song is on the album, “People who Create the Nation.” It seems that Add and other Carabao band were followers of Lung Por Koon, as were many Thai people. He was thought to have especially strong magical powers, but this song makes fun of the superstitious followers and has Luang Por Koon telling his followers that it is really up to them to fix things. The notes under the official video say [in translation]: “Don’t be wrapped up in waiting for fate or relying on a Buddha image only. It should also depend on the efforts and perseverance of each person.”

“Auspicious, great, kindness
But upright people, students of Luang Por Koon
All flow in to make merit.
The blessing of Luang Por Koon:
May you be rich, rich!
Accepting and giving out auspicious objects
and sprinkling holy water
His holiness helps upright people
To walk on the path, safe, going along beautifully,
doing business, rich
Like winning the lottery, a big number

Just this please, Luang Por Koon?
Please protect us, please protect us!
[They] grab and soak in the holy water

There are many disciples/followers
There are many government ministers, and members of the House of Representatives
They all ask for blessings continually
Luang Por tells these young guys,
the kickboxers, gangsters, and players,
the stars, lucky and prominent, confident to the point of amazing
Luang Por Koon, he tells these young guys,
It’s [really] up to you guys
to be thinking about good and evil
Good and evil is inside the skull
I come and knock [it], bonk! bonk! Be sure to remember and not forget!
(Good and evil is inside the skull)
I come knock [it], bonk! bonk! Be sure to remember and not forget!
Enter all you government ministers,
Members of the House, mischief makers, I will give a blessing:
Go sit in Parliament
I won’t have you speaking abusively. [You] must be aware!
Hang a monk or Buddha [amulet around the neck] to be an model
The citizens are distressed
And so they march [in protest]”

(1994)

รกกำเนิด Rok Gamnert Original Placenta

“The tall skyscrapers are so beautiful you crane your neck [to look up]
Manufactured products come from minerals and woods
However tall you build it, there is likely no point [no benefit]
If the forested mountain must be completely destroyed

In less than 100 years, that’s all, one’s home is pounded to dust
A very tall building will not endure as long as the mountain
Why do humans lose their way and damage their original placenta?
Nature, oh, Nature! . . . Tears fall”

(1997)

ดาวแห่งโดม [ปรีดี พนมยงค์] Dao Haeng Dohm [Pridi Panomyong] Star of the Dome [Pridi Banomyong]

Note: Pridi Banomyong led the revolution that changed Thailand from absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in 1932, so he the founder of Thai democracy. He is also the founder of Thammasat University.

“The human world will be beautiful if people dare ask themselves,
Throughout life, do I ever dare challenge injustice?
Let this bruised gloomy burned world meet its fortune and fate
But the person named Pridi dared to do it. Remember this for sure!”

(2001)

ดอกไม้สีชมพู (Dok Mai See Champoo) Pink Flower

Note: This is a heart-wrenching song about the plight of a transgendered person. Add wrote it in 2002 in the first person, and sings it himself (similar to the song “Please, Answer the Child” where he puts himself in the place of a child.)

“My fragrance stimulates the heart. I’m a pink flower
lonely, shimmering. In the end, I’ll be alone and depressed
I want to scream and cry so the world knows
Ask them, Just where am I wrong?
Am I wrong that my heart is a girl?
Am I wrong that my body is a boy?
My body I still don’t understand
I want to have someone to come and understand me [enter my heart]

A flower has no right to chose
A group of insects come to smell
Bow the head and accept the bruising.
I’m a pink flower.”

(2002)

ไม่ยืนยง Mai Yuenyong Not Endure [Forever] 

Note: Add Carabao’s real first name is “Yuenyong” which means endurance. So when he is saying endurance doesn’t endure. He is talking about his own mortality.

“My hands have a guitar. With perseverance [I] distill songs from tears
Loves songs are written by a pen, but my songs are written by life.
Lyrics for life.

The sky is still wide open. The sparkling rain waits to sprinkle the ground so perennials are waving branches in the wind
The story of a small person who becomes a popular is like [when] insects come and joyfully smell a blooming flower. . . .

[There’s] the saying that endurance doesn’t endure. Endurance doesn’t endure.**
Oh . . .Oh . . . Yuenyong doesn’t endure.”

(2004)

ความหมาย (Kwam Mai) Meaning

“Life’s meaning is determined by [those] having life.”

(2005)

เว้นวรรค Wen-Wak Some Space

Note: According to Thai Wikipedia, there were many Songs for Life artists and music stars with the crowds gathering to drive out Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, but not Carabao or Add Carabao. Someone asked his opinion and he immediately wrote this song, which was interpreted to mean he thought Prime Minister Thaksin should step down. He refers back to Cruel May 1992, a mass popular uprising, in which he participated, that ended with a  massacre of protesters by the military.

“Lower the temperature of harshness
Everywhere people are glaring suspiciously at each other
The ghosts of the city whisper of evil omens coming
The blood and tears of Thai people will flow to caress the land

Cruel May [1992] I hear/feel the sound of the guns resounding,
lashing into [our] mothers, father, sisters, and brothers at Sapaan Paan Fai [The King’s Bridge]
Fear speeds over to impress itself on the heart. Death is carried on its back
[You]  tell [your]self “I’m outta here,” get out of the way, and hide from the violence

Everyone retreat their different steps, so afterward we can move forward
Democracy will gain strength
For Thailand, why must we buy [it] expensively?
In a dignified way, [we can] lower the harshness by taking a break [by means of spacing]”

(2006)

ขี้เมากะเพราแตะ Kee Mow Graprow Dtae The Drunken Basil Flip-Flops

Note: From a silly song that tells the story of a wife who gets sick of being bossed around by her husband at his drunken party, and when she runs out of food in the refrigerator and he is still demanding more stir-fried basil dishes, she cuts up her flip flops and makes stir-fried basil flip flops to serve him and his friends.

“This is the story of basil stir-fry that quite clearly stir [fries] for women’s rights
Watch out! The alcoholic who likes to oppress will one day encounter the drunken basil stir-fried flip-flops”

(2006)

ตอบหนูที “Dap Nu Tee” Please Answer the Child

Note: This song is about a terrorist attack on a school. And the pronouns used are all the pronouns used by children, so this puts the song in a child’s voice (although Add sings it).

“The smoke drifts and lingers
The truth appears before us
The scene blurry because of a curtain of tears
Alas, the school was burned last night
The sadness isn’t over [?]
The teacher died, hit by a bullet
This morning we still had a teacher standing
beside us kids
looking at the ruined school

What was it my school did?
Why’d you have to burn the school?
Did my teacher do anything?
Why’d you have to kill the teacher?
Was my school hurting anyone?
Why destroy the school?
How was our teacher in the wrong?
Why did you have to kill the teacher . . . of us children?

So I now I will study wherever
And who will come be the teacher?
And why be so cruel to me?
Whoever knows, please answer me”

(2007)

ผ่านพบที่ผูกพัน Paan Pop Tee Pook Pan The Encounter that is a Lasting Connection

“As life goes along, the more you look, the more it resembles a soap opera. Shoulder love, shoulder struggle. Cross the sky, mountain, and sea.
For the most part, it’s disappointment, experiencing only failure. If just sometimes, or only once, something fulfills your expectations, it’s enough
Because life is short. You encounter [something], and instantly it passes
But it’s likely to leave furrows, buried deep in the memory.
Do you ever sometimes have someone . . . you meet and are instantly bonded?
Even through day and night you dream away and don’t forget . . . . the encounter that is a lasting connection

Himalayan glaciers melting and flowing down to sea. This life is like that: it begins then dies and disappears.
But love, on the other hand, is secure, arising as a legend, calling out [a song] –a melody of happiness mixed with suffering mixed with relationships/strong connections.
Because life is short. Encountering [something], it shortly passes
But it’s likely to leave furrows, buried deep in the memory.
Do you ever sometimes have someone . . . you meet and are instantly bonded?
Even day and night you dream away and don’t forget . . . . the encounter that leaves a lasting connection

In the place we struggle (even if in the end, we arrive at the same place as before) – in the place we yet walk, it’s still good to have love
This mix of happiness and suffering is only an obstacle. In difficult places one is likely to come across the encounter that leaves a lasting connection.”*

(2008)

* I found a video in which Add introduces the song. He says: “In this life of ours, we are born alone and die alone. Maybe there are some times—some times or some people who give rise to a feeling of awe or being impressed, never to be forgotten. You might take it and turn it into lyrics or poems or compose a song. Or some people will go create movie or a TV drama. I believe all of us have something like this that comes our way. It’s not necessary to tell anyone. Keep it to yourself in your heart, know of it yourself, and you’ll be happy just you yourself. If you do this, you’ll feel good. But if you tell someone, nobody will criticize.”

เพื่อชีวิตติดล้อ Peua Cheewit Dit Lor For Life on Wheels [The Motorcycle Song]

“We get one life. Use it complete,
So it’s enough. Two wheels, just pay for fuel, and drinking up”

(2009)

เพื่อผู้ลี้ภัย Peua Poo Lee Pai For Refugees

Note: From a song that advocates alternatives to refugee camps for refugees.

“Freedom is a life that people have a right to by birth.
Freedom is something that every person seeks. They want something more than a refugee camp.

Immigrants are all along the back of the ax.* They all have spirits and minds aiming for freedom.
I want the world to know through this song that refugees here and anywhere are people

This is an appeal to [my] Thai brothers and sisters
Please recognize the story of refugees
Counting to 100s of thousands of lives. They remain waiting with hope
Waiting for sympathy to help them push forward
See the significance. People change lands
In order to have lives of human freedom
That freedom is a life that people have a right to by birth
The freedom we all seek is to have more than the
rights of only a refugee.”

*The map of Thailand is compared to an ax, so along the back of the ax would be along the border with Myanmar.

(2008)

สุดขอบฟ้า Sud Kob Fah The Horizon

Note: Add wrote the hook for this inspirational song by the rap group Thaitanium.

Add sings

: “…If in that day [they] didn’t try,
today who knows where we would be standing?
[One] must live life with regret that [one/someone] didn’t do it.
Life would probably lose its meaning if we don’t do it. Woot! . . .

Day raps:

Way up high in the sky, it’s very cold
There is a storm, there is a story.
You can’t see, there’s a white fog. Really?
Up in the dark sky, a shiny star is sparkling
Shining brilliantly. Who is that star?
Tell me, who are you?”

(2010)

กำลังใจคาราบาว Gamlang Jai Carabao Carabao Strength of Spirit/Moral Support

Note: This song celebrates the 30th Anniversary of the band Carabao. (They always have special songs on the multiple-of-5 anniversaries of the band).

“On the road, our Songs for Life are a product of social ideology
Good and bad [examples] in the songs that one day will be a legend, a spirit aiding each other
But on the Middle Path in religion, certainty is uncertain
Bow and accept life as it comes, like a person who is drenched until you know [you are] awake”

(2011)

แสงทองส่องทาง Seng Tong Song Tang Golden Light Lighting the Way

“Every person should have the right
to think and to see what seems to be problem.
Why don’t you ask yourself sometimes,
why must [they] always be flexing muscles?
To be in a warm embrace, is something everyone needs
But not teargas [and a] spray of bullets!

. . . .A bird flies where he likes,
[If he] wants to eat, to sleep, he has the freedom
Why don’t people have freedom,
even though people are much more sophisticated than birds?

. . .Young men and women you have a pure heart
Continue fighting. This world will be in your hand.
Guardians come and then pass by
Citizens are the ones who will continue standing up
To be in a warm embrace, is something everyone needs
But not tear gas! Not a spray of bullets!”

(2012)

ยังบาว Young ‘Bao

Note: From the theme song for the movie Young ‘Bao, a movie about the formation of the band Carabao.

“If this world didn’t have songs, people would remain colorblind
For the one life that [we] have: lively music, lively dancing to refresh the heart!”

(2013)

อยากได้อะไรทำไมไม่บอก Yaak Dai Arai Tamai Mai Bok If You Want Something, Why Don’t You Tell [Us]?

Note: This is a song addressed to the Muslim population in the south of Thailand. He is pleading for a peaceful resolution of the problem (in an area conquered by the Kingdom of Siam in 1785) rather than terrorism (as mentioned in the song ‘ตอบหนูที “Dap Nu Tee” Please Answer the Child).

“If one could apologize on behalf of others, I want to apologize, on their behalf, for the purpose of redemption
To withdraw the sin that was committed already, to eradicate [it] all until the seed(s) spread(s) out to the tip of the ax*
So sorry for our country. Our Southern home. The end of tranquility.

The suffering that is covered up and pressed down[?] [Let’s] help each other take account of it. Help each other bring it out, and fix it.
Lets combine our thoughts, our strength, our hearts. [If] you think something or want something, we want you to come explain it.
With reason, search for a conclusion, and [we] will break free towards peace.

If you want to get something, (peacefulness, peacefulness) why don’t you tell [us]?
If you want to get something, (peacefulness, peacefulness) why don’t you tell [us]?

If [you] want something, then tell us. Our mutual desire is still peace
The country probably won’t cling to stubborn convictions. The religions of ethnic groups can be different from each other.
We can live together. We can portion everything out. Please tell us.”

*The shape of Thailand on a map is like an ax. The Southern part of Thailand is the handle of the ax.

(2013)

ค่าของคน Kaa Kong Kon The Value of a Person

“The golden sun, the indigo sky,
[they] have a question: Will you struggle?
[You may] think only of being discouraged, only of waiting for luck
[Think], Where is the true value of a person?
People are born very precious/excellent
Born beautiful human beings
The value of a person still waits for the proving
So what about you? What kind of person do you want to be?

Be like the birds that soar
Out to find food to nourish their bodies
Your value that is true
I know where it is
Oneself is up to oneself
Only you yourself can support it.
Make up your mind to do it to the fullest
Be proud of the duty/function that you have
The value of a person is right here
Right here is the value for society

You have usefulness for society
You ARE a benefit of society”

(2013)

วางดาบ Wang Dap Set Down the Sword

Note: This song may annoy some people because of the context. It came out right after a coup. Add Carabao appeared to take a “give dictatorship a chance” approach (my words, not his) to avoid further violence (many died and were injured in the government crackdown on the protests.) But with or without context, the song is remarkable for its driving rock ‘n roll enthusiasm for moderation.

“Confucius once told us: Those who like to play chess
Don’t only think of attacking, so you must also have a way to retreat from an attack
It’s natural that people have their stubborn convictions
But the superior type of person sets down the sword

[To] put down the sword, trust, and back down is normal
Put down the sword in equanimity. To live as normal is more precious than anything.

People consider being born into life as so ordinary
And never think to be amazed about it
But as soon as they fall ill and the doctor tells them it’s a horrible disease
They want [everything] restored to normal

While we still have life, we need to learn to be happy
Don’t increase all the suffering with fortune, rank, desire, and passion
People are born into one life. It’s a precious creation
Normal life puts down the sword

[To] put down the sword, trust, and back down is normal
Put down the sword in equanimity. To live normally is more precious than anything.

(If it’s too heavy to bear, put it down! Then [you’ll feel] light and comfortable . . .)

Because ordinary things, actually already are special things
Really, really [special] for humans like us

[To] put down the sword, trust, and back down is normal
Put down the sword in equanimity. To live normally is more precious than anything.”

(2014)

อยากได้ยิน Yaak Daiyin Want to Hear

Note: This is another song that came out right after the coup. It pleads for reconciliation between people with polarized political views.

“What words would you like to hear from all those many people who pass back and forth?
“Hello,” sending a smile your way, would likely be better than a suspicious frown
Because in our hearts, we don’t hear their hearts. And their hearts also search to hear our hearts
If hearts can sense each other and share the suffering, happiness is not far off.

This world still needs love. This world still needs empathy/mutual understanding
Catch each other’s eyes with forgiving love, and move forward learning from it.

We have mountains, rivers, and oceans. We have all kinds of animals sharing the habitat
There are humans, there is you and me. Here is paradise: the one and only world right here.
They say that our world amounts to the tip of the antennae of a snail, [that] life gets tossed away like a cigarette butt
[We] must learn about our hearts and minds; release the spirit to cross the bridge to freedom

There is no happiness comparable to peace. All [our] experience shows this is true
There is true, earnest anger. History is [our] example.
It’s a question awaiting an answer from people.”

(2014)

น้ำ Naam Water

“The most important thing about humankind is that life is precious
We are born because we are born. It wasn’t destiny or the business of anyone
The time we have isn’t that long. We must do [what we do] following our love and desires
The water is polluted because [we] give up on our beliefs [and] don’t persist in searching for truth, which is a thing that doesn’t die”

(2015)

เพลงของกู เวอร์ชั่น 3 Playng Kong Gu Version 3 My Song, Version 3

Note: This song, posted straight to Facebook, seems to respond to criticism that Add Carabao had strayed too far from his early Communist and then pro-working class ideology, becoming a rich capitalist.

“Songs for Life arose and still exist
They are a door, they are defining
October 14, 1973 [a famous popular uprising against dictatorship]
A tragic day this world must remember [because so many died in the struggle]

But this song here, is MY song
Written from what I know
Know from Buddha’s teachings
Know from a heart that is brightened/clear

Songs for Life were written to join the struggle
In the middle of the jungle, in the middle of the mountains. The troops in the jungle have guns
Saying goodbye to the classroom. We let it all go
Many hundreds and thousands [for] not a very long time.

[Our] ideology lead us far
Then we were defeated. It was like waking up from a dream,
turning back to reality

MY song. MY story.
The song of me. It doesn’t stay still
Everything changes according to the factors
Everything changes, and the lyrics also are not the same as before

The Songs for Life are dedicated to those people
Who still fight throughout the country of Thailand
Relieving sadness, a blanket for the heart
Just this, which is all I can do. Just that, which is what I know

But this song here is my song
My body is mine. My songs are mine
For a life of independence [not under anybody else]

My song. My story
My story. It doesn’t say still
Everything changes according to the factors
Everything changes, and the lyrics also are not the same as before

[Then he starts singing in Pali (seems to be a Buddhist chant)]:

Wa ya taama sangkara
Aba ma tay na sambpa tay ta”

(2017)

กัญชาคอมมิชชั่น Ganja Commission [Cannabis Commission]

Note: Carabao played a role in a successful campaign to decriminalize marijuana in Thailand! In order to do it, they had to openly apologize for an early song that (probably disingenuously) condemned marijuana.

“Ganja. America makes cold war
Ganja. Pressuring the UN
To force the third world, as with Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia
to pass laws [treating] ganja as an addictive drug

… America forbids us, but they turn around and use
Both cultivating and selling, [cannabis] blooming is [big] business
Thais and ganja have been closely tied since forever
Then the law comes along and classifies ganja is an addictive drug
Those who grow it and add it to chicken soup are still guilty!
It’s an infringement on the rights and liberties of the people!
So who takes commissions [to grow ganja] and kickbacks from the Cannabis Commission?

… Ganja is a medicine, a local herb
That’s been around for so very long, since the Age of Narai [1631-1688]
But America is afraid they won’t be able to sell it [because Thailand will underprice them], and so they obstruct the Thai people
[They] hold that planting and using [it] is wrong
May Thais please have their rights to access marijuana?
Can we please fix the law, unlocking [ganja] from [the category of] addictive drugs?
And together we’ll help oversee use of marijuana, so that it isn’t abused
That’s better than to keep infringing on the rights and liberties of people.
It’s better than taking a commission or kickback from the Cannabis Commission”

(2019)

ยอดมนุษย์ 2% Yot Manut Song Percen The Top 2 Percent of Humanity

Note: This song relates to Add Carabao’s 68th birthday on November 9, 2022. I assume he is calculating the odds of survival for someone born in his cohort, in 1954. It includes words in Sanskrit that are used as a protective incantation. In the context of the song, it means something like “knock on wood.” The jist of the song is “We’re lucky to be alive.”

“There are 7 billion people on this planet
Do you know previously, [by] only 14 years of age,
26 percent left this world, and died, even though they were still young

[REFRAIN] Not quite yet, it’s still not our turn
We’re not buried, not burned [in a cremation ceremony] “Vaya-dhamma sankhara”* [“Decay is inherent in all compounded things]

66 percent left [this world] between ages 15 and 64
There are only 8 percent who live and eat well, until today. That is our blessing.

REFRAIN

At 65 years still 8 percent left
6 billion have left this world
The people born at the same time as me have dropped away in great numbers
I’m already lucky to have passed through young adulthood

REFRAIN

When I was born, the word was still low-tech.
Today the internet shrinks the whole world
You don’t have to go to the bank to withdraw money
Cars and trains don’t need to refill with gasoline

“Vaya-dhamma sankhara …” –– a protective incantation.
Who passes 90 years? It’s the top 2 percent.”

(2022)

This video has an excerpt from the whole statement. It turns out I can’t share the video that was recorded live and sent straight to Facebook. [EDIT: The band has since decided to keep going.]

At the Bom Sincharoen Fan meetup No. 4, October 11, 2023, after playing เวร Wayn (Fate/Misfortune) and then ฝ่าลมฝน Faa Lom Fon (Braving Wind and Rain), Add Carabao (Yeunyong Opakul) dropped a bombshell. (You can hear someone in the audience exclaim, “ไม่น่าเชื่อ” or “unbelievable”). In the lead-up to the announcement (which does not seem preplanned), Add is talking about the marketing of the early albums and what kind of deals they had over time and then he says he won’t be a slave of anyone. Then he says that he kept the band going for the sake of the band members so they would have work but . . . [Approximate translation:]

“ . . . when you get a band of old people, let it go. Because right now all of us are really old. Also four people in the band have illnesses. And we will break up next year after a last concert on April 1, 2024. And we will just quit. I’m telling you, brothers and sisters, this is the truth! It’s that we just can’t do it anymore. Every last one of us is old now. [It’s like] three days, good, 4 days sick. These days, there two people sitting with me playing and another two people lying in beds in the hospital. And they just recover and come back to play. Which means, OK, it’s gotten to the time that we must let it go and accept the truth that we are old. But we are still cool!

Whoever wants to go play with someone, whoever wants to go do something, they should do what makes them happy.

I’m not taking the younger brothers, the kids, in the band along further. Incidentally, meet my nephews right there, these ones, who just turned 18. I’m asking them to come help me. They are also guitarists and can do many things. They make it so my heart is still happy living with songs/music. My life . . . I’m not a musician, I’m not a guitar player, rather my life is to be a songwriter. And it makes me happy to walk in here playing songs. One day I compose a song and can record it, and then see the song go out to society, and I sleep with pleasant dreams. I’m happy. It’s not a matter of money . . .” [Then he talks about the charities that he supports]

This was a very small intimate gathering, with like 80 people watching live on Facebook (I watched live but after the announcement), and if the video becomes available as a YouTube, I will post, because the music was AWESOME!!!

Carabao: 40 years of Legendary Songs for Life
Interview by The People Co. Premiered Sep 18, 2023

The translated intro from The People Co., begins, “The People” interviews the core members of the band, including Add – Yeunyong Opakul, Lek – Preecha Chanapai, and Thierry Mekwattana, who are members who created legendary ‘Songs for Life’ ever since the album Made in Thailand, which is packed with timeless songs.”

I’ve translated the interview in full. The video begins with highlights from the full interview. These comments are out of context, and will come up again in context, so I didn’t translate them. So my transcript begins at minute 1:32. I’ve added some of my own headings in green, in addition to translations of the text headings provided in the video.

DISCLAIMER: This translation has not been checked by a second translator. Consider it an aid to further research. That is before you depend on it, check the translation yourself.

[The words on the black screen: “40 years Carabao. From the start of the fight/struggle until today they are a legend.” Bua Loy plays in background]
Add’s early musical influences
Add: My life of music began from home because my father was a musician and the leader of a provincial band: Ch. S. P. Band, or Band of the People of Suphan. I came up seeing only musical instruments filling the whole house. So I came into Bangkok and sang folk songs. I graduated from Uthen [Uthenthawai Vocational School] here, then went on to further studies in the Philippines. I intended to study and graduate as an architect, but as soon as I got to the Phillipines, I encountered a song that had just come out in 1976. It was the song Freddie Aguilar’s song “Anak.” I liked this song a lot, and it was the inspiration for the first song I wrote, the song “Lung Kee Mao” (“Drunken Uncle”). As soon as I heard this song, I thought, I need to be a songwriter. I wanted to be a songwriter. That was the minute that changed my life. When I got back to Thailand, I worked in the Housing Department. But still continued to play music. I didn’t give it up. At that time, I lived with Kai [Sanit Simsala]. At that house, Kai had a turntable, but there was no speaker. We only had headphones. I got Led Zeppelin. I had the Eagles. I had Rod Stewart, I had many, many people. It was something that added to my spirit in the way of music so my knowledge greatly increased. I was born into the local culture, but as soon as went and got the Western influence, there was a blending.

[The heading says: “Num Suphan” (“Young Man from Suphan”)* Album “Kee Mao”(“The Drunkard’)]
Add meets Lek and Theirry
Add: I met Lek [Preecha Chanapai] in school when I was at Utaen. I saw him exchanging punches with a friend of mine. [They all laugh at Lek] Oh! I was watching [thinking], “This guy can’t fight at all.” [Everyone laughs] And that guy was bigger than him too.
Lek: I can’t remember anymore
Someone off camera: How did it end, Pi Lek?
Add: But P’Lek was totally the musician of the school, and when there was a school event, P’Lek would get up and play. Back then I was like, “Whoa! This playing is beyond the ordinary!” Back then, Lek played bass. Did you play with Mook? Mook played guitar and violin. Lek played bass back then. Whao! So cool! A friend of ours.
Theirry: At that time, I also played folk songs with P’Lek, you know! Three of us.
Lek: Nana
Theirry: And P’Add came to Nana school. When I first knew P’Add, I’d only say “Hello” [and wai]. He would come sit and watch, we were like whatever, and didn’t chat, and only said “Hello, Brother” [and wai.] P’Add invited us to be in a band with him. I told him I couldn’t do it because now I was going to a foreign country.**

Add gets fired from his gig for for playing a Thai song (Lung Kee Mao) at the urging of Lek/ Lek joins Add’s band.
Add: I didn’t have a band. It was me trying to find a band. I didn’t have a band. When I made the first album “Lung Kee Mao,” it was like P’Lek has said, [like] a solo album. But I used the band Hope, a band of P’Suthep as backup. In those days, I played at Dicken’s Pub. I played with Suthep of Hope. And P’Lek came in with … was it … or not. Three of them.
Lek: At that time, I was drunk.
Add: Drunk. At that time, he had just stopped. And he asked for the song “Lung Kee Mao” (“Drunken Uncle.”) I told him, “Oh, they don’t let us sing Thai songs,” [and he was like] “No, I’ll listen. I’ll listen. Just play!”
[“Lung Kee Mao” plays]
Add: As soon as I played, the manager comes out and says, “You! Get out! I already told you not to play Thai songs, and what song are you playing? This is a restaurant selling alcohol. And what are you singing? A song where a drunkard drinks, lies down, and dies!” So I lost my job as of that day. And P’Suthep kicked me out of the band as well. So I told Keo [Kirati Promsaka Na Sakolnakorn]. And Keo had to decide, would he go with P’Suthep or would he come with me? Keo said he would come with me. So Lek said, “I caused you to lose your job, I’ll come with you. I’d better come help you out.” And so we came and made Bpae Kaai Kuat (The Bottle Collector) together. It was recorded at Flat … 2, of Lek’s. We sat and made it together.

[The song “Bpae Kaai Kuat” plays] Heading says “Formation, ‘Bpae Kaai Kuat’(The Bottle Collector]-‘Wanipok’(The Busker)”]
Add works at the Housing Department while building a musical career
Add: At that time, I worked in the Housing Department. I was lucky that I had a boss that was P’Ganak Buddhinan, who was the older brother of P’Der- Rewat Buddhinan [a founder of Grammy Entertainment], and it so happened that a relative of P’Der was married to my older sister. And so we were all related. We were “pickeled” together. And so it was comfortable. Back then I still didn’t know we were going to be successful in — whether we could make a living from it or not. So first we had to hold onto [our] careers, even though the monthly salary wasn’t that high. I started at 3,030 [baht] ($84) [per month]. But to pay for one room, it was OK, because that room Flat 17, was the product of my work — “Wanipok” and all the various other [songs] — those products. I did it for 5 years, and then I did, “Made in Thailand” and experienced success. I didn’t have any time to come sit and work [at the office]. At that point, I needed to work with music.

[“Wanipok” plays. Heading says “WanipoK, the album Wanipok”]
Add: Honestly, the songs on the album Wanipok are what allowed us to announce our birth before Made In Thailand [came along] as well. But Made in Thailand was then our peak period. P’Der said it was 5 million cassettes tapes. Because we didn’t … we had Grammy be the ones to sell it. It was the best-selling album. But we already had money in the millions [of baht] [tens of thousands of dollars] after Wanipok. When I first invited Lek and Keo to come [join me], I told them, in 3 years, we are going to have money in the millions. But it was in just one year, one year only, that we had money in the millions.

[Made in Thailand plays. Header says, “’Made in Thailand,’ An Immortal Album”]
Made in Thailand, “Nang Ngam Dtu Grajok” (“Glass Cabinet Beauty Queen”), and the issue of prostitution in Thailand
Add: Whoa! It came from each individual band member, whether it was rock, as with the songs Luuk Gaew, Luuk Hin, and whatever like these. It came from Thierry with regards to cords and whatever. If you name it like Americans [would], you could say it’s style is “Americana.” Or call it whatever you want. There was country, blues, folk; it had all sorts of things mixed together. But our style was “Americana, Thai-style.”
Add: I determined that P’Lek would sing songs about children and their families. Thierry would do love songs. I would sing songs about society. I assigned it like this.
Person off camera: There was only one song that P’Thierry sang on the album “Made in Thailand,” and that was the song “Nang Ngam Dtu Grajok.” [“Glass Cabinet Beauty Queen”]. Why was it Thierry who sang it?
Thierry: Yeah, exactly. [Meaning, “good question!”]
Add: It was appropriate that he do it [laughs].
Thierry: There are two people together. Two people. When he [wrote] “Glass Cabinet Beauty Queen” I thought that, wow, [the line] “Ten, a hundred, a thousand until the prime minister” [using the services of a prostitute] would get this song banned for sure. But it didn’t happen. They went and banned หำเทียม “Ham Tiam” (Dildo)! So I thought, that was lucky!***

At minute 8:50: [Visual excerpt from music video for “Glass Cabinet Beauty Queen”]
Add: Thailand is a country of lies. There are so many people gambling, but it seems there are no casinos. And Thailand is a country famous for having lots and lots of brothels, but there has never been a single person in Thai government who wants to say “let’s make them legal.” Until Move Forward wants to make them legal. I agree 100 percent. Make it so they are legal, no matter whether they are casinos or brothels. Make them legal and keep the taxes for the state. They’re all adults now!

Can Add repeat the magic of Made in Thailand?
Add: I think that I am [like] one bottle of liquor. One brand new bottle of liquor. You open it up and have abilities equal to the kick of the liquor in the bottle. But as you use it up, you won’t have it. The albums to come therefore won’t have it. There won’t be any further albums that will gleam like Made in Thailand because now I’m like this good bottle of liquor here that we’ve opened and drunk together. And after that, there’s no more. Because I’ve used all my strength in wanting to do this album, all of it has gone into it. After that, there’s no more. Because the source that I have in myself, it’s like the liquor that’s in that bottle. Now the liquor in that bottle had been totally used up. Unless we go find a new bottle.

[Header says: Times change after Made in Thailand]
Temporary Breakup of the Band’s Big Three and Reunion
Add: I can’t really remember, but I know that that day, we all wanted to do something following our own hearts. So Lek went his own way. Ree [Thierry] also went his own way. I went my own way. We each went to do our own thing. And in the end we knew that, if we join together, we are great. If we separate, it guarantees we are finished.
Lek: I’ll tell you this: The incidents back then, makes it so we have today. I’m thinking right. I believe I’m thinking correctly. P’Add thinks correctly that every person left because of every person. Me and P’Add here stand together with regard to work. We always argue about work; we have never argued about money. Because being in our youth, we were hot-blooded. How can we know who was right and who was wrong? Can [anyone] figure it out? Our work, I believe is ours. That’s the best way to think about it. As soon as we’ve matured, our egos are so big, both of us, all of us, that we go off and so some special solo work. Not long after we were on our own, we came back together and have worked together ever since. And it’s been smooth ever since. And we never argue anymore about work … We don’t have this in the band Carabao….

[Three of them playing Mai Pai]
Origin of the term “Songs for Life”; Add’s involvement with communism
Add: The words, “song for life” arose and are particular to Thailand. Because before that, there was the band Caravan. And there was a writer, and one of his books was called “Artists for Life, for the People,” and that writer was Jit Phumisak. Because of that, once the band Caravan came about, one writer wrote [the words] “songs for life.” But that came from this book here: “Artists for Life, for the People.” And so it gave birth to the words “songs for life.” I went and searched this world. Is there “song for life” or “protest song”? No, there’s nothing. There is no person who named them that.

Add’s relation to the October 14 (1973) and October 6 (1976) events and communism
Add: Maybe I wasn’t an October person; maybe I wasn’t a real October person, but I worked for the communists for 6 years without these guys knowing it [points to Lek and Thierry].****
Lek: Me, I was a professional musician. Like a true musician. When I came to know P’Add, it was like I knew a communist. Also, it was P’Add, who introduced us to the band Caravan, to know things like this. You have to understand that in the life of a professional musician like me, you have to drink soda pop. But the communists in past times, they didn’t even drink soda pop. Think about it. And it surprised me. Because just a moment before [Add told me that], I’d drunk some.
Add: And you also couldn’t wear high heals.
Lek: And I’d just drunk some and I was like, “Whaaa ???” And he said, “So this guy drinks soda pop!?” [Lek clutches his throat.]  And I’d just drunk some. Something like this. So I guess it’s going to be like this? Back then, P’Add’s life was intense. He led us to meet the communists. I was confused like, “Whao! What’s this?
Add: [We] couldn’t even look at women.
Lek: Uh . . Look! He told me “Lek, as soon as you grow up to be an adult why do you only look at woman in this way?” [I?] said, “’How come the adults look?’ Why do children look at girls?
Theirry: Would you have us look at men?
Lek: The way that P’Thierry looks at men is OK.
Add: I was kind of strict with the band, with the band members in that era. In the era of Made in Thailand, I’d check names. At 10 o’clock, no one has arrived. There is a board to check names.

Are the Songs for Life supposed to fight injustice?
Person off camera: P’Add, you have written in a book/magazine that Song for Life are things that fight injustice. Do you still look at the songs for life from this perspective?
Add: As for myself, throughout my life, I’ve written songs like that. For my whole life. I’m unable to write any other type of song. Actually there are some songs that are only about love, which I’ve written for Thierry to sing.
Lek: It’s that I look at the world like, in reality, us humans, you must admit you have a dream. Every person needs to eat and live happily and comfortably. About this, humans must … we must not first lie to ourselves. I hear people talk so much about ideals/ideology, but I ask you honestly, if you can’t provide for yourself, how are you going to help anyone in society? You will let your kids and wife have nothing to eat and you will help society? I don’t believe it. As for that, we must save ourselves first. We have to clean our own houses first. Then we can extend the cleanliness to the surrounding next to the house. If we have something to eat, if we have strength, we are able to make it so the world is nice to live in, to the extent that we have energy. I don’t believe that one person alone can change anything very much.

Where Add gets his ideas for songs
Thierry: Have happiness. And I got an idea also. P’Lek has your own melody. P’Add has a melody. I have a melody of my own. That’s like how I say, “Three buffalos.” P’Add has tons of stories in his head, which wherever he goes, he brings a notebook to jot them down. [pantomimes his writing in a notebook] Something like that. Bring anything to him, instantly it just comes. In a minute, it comes. The lyrics have already come [to him].
Lek: He reads so much, P’Add does.

[Heading says: Arriving at 40 years of Carabao]
Promoting the 40 Years, 40 Songs concert
Add: 40 years, 40 songs played till sick [of them] for you [honored you]. The words “played till sick of them,” mean that all of us have played together until we are bored. We play those songs until we are sick of them in order that we can play them for you [honored you]. Not that we play them so that YOU are sick of them. Those are two different things [laughs]. Decode that correctly. [We]’ll hear the songs that are familiar; doing it this way is better. But if we play the songs that aren’t familiar, like in previous eras, when we arranged a concert, other people are going to be like “you need to play that song and this song.” And they’re not familiar and we will be able to endure playing. Some of the playing will be wrong and some right. Because it’s not familiar. But for this time, 40 songs will all be familiar.
Lek: This will be special, which we have never done. We’ve never done it.
Add: We’ve never done it. For the most part, there are people who come force us: do it like this! Do it like that! But this time we do it in a friendly informal way.
Thierry: This time must be more special than all the other times because we will play following our hearts [or as we like]. Yes, let’s use these words.
Add: P’Thierry has [something] special. He will have คลื่น waves/rhythm. [Add and Thierry start making wave motions together]
Thierry: Right now I have many postures. I’m a dancer.
Add: Marine department [I think it’s a pun].
Lek: Entertain.
Thierry: I’m a clown for anything like this. I want everyone to be happy.
Thierry: I got to this age, where if I want to do something, I do it.
Add: You’re close to death at this point.
Thierry: Close.

[Header: Remembered Concerts]
Fighting at Carabao concerts
Add: That, it seems like it was a set up. It’s a Pluak Daeng garbage disposal pit, and it appears there are people saying, I oppose the creation of the garbage disposal pit at Pluak Daeng, which I didn’t know anything about. On that day, I remember that many Thairath reporters got up all over on stage. On on that day my pictures was on page 1 [of the newspaper]. [I] jumped down and kicked [them]. Do you know why? After the first song that they got up on stage, I’m playing, they come, [he mouths a word that they whispered at him]. And they are sitting along the fence. [He mouths the word again.] It was a set-up! They set me up! Because the movement of the reporters was really strange. As soon as the third BLEEPED EXPLITIVE, I jumped off the stage and kicked him in the neck.

Add: There was one time someone threw a bottle onto the stage. He threw it towards the stage but didn’t quite make it. It hit against the stage. Bang! It smashed. Bang! This was at Surat Thani. I jumped down. Expletive, this expletive guy was huge. But, anyhow, I had already jumped down and put [it] on first.
Lek: Being on the stage [you] miscalculated, huh?
Add: As soon as I jumped down, woah! Expletive huge. So big.
Person off camera: P’Add, do you ever think about why the song Bua Loy would have fights [between gangs breaking out during it]? Why Bua Loy [particularly]?
Add: With the beat of Bua Loy, it’s very มัน (pleasing/enjoyable). The beat of Bua Loy is มัน. While [in] the lyrics of Bua Loy, he’s a fighter. So I don’t know. Maybe they will punch and hit each other, I guess. I really don’t know. You have to go ask them.

__________________________________________________________________________________

*”Young Man from Suphan” is a humorous Carabao song about a young man from Suphan coming into the big city. It is used here because Add himself was a young man from Suphan who came into the big city, Bangkok.

**Probably Laos, where young Thierry Mekwattana was an actor in a TV show, or Switzerland [Thierry is half Swiss]. The meeting of Add and Lek, and Thierry’s show in Loas is illustrated in the music video for the 4oth Anniversary song: 40 ปี ฅนคาราบาว See Sip Bpee Kon Carabao (40 Years of Carabao People) [Ye Olde Carabao Band: 40 Years]

***By “two people together,” maybe he means Add wrote that song and Thierry only sang it. And it was lucky from Thierry’s point of view that “Ham Tiam” was banned and not “Nang Ngam Dtu Grajok” because Add sings “Ham Tiam” and Thierry sings “Nang Ngam Dtu Grajok,” so the song Thierry famously sings wasn’t banned.

****To learn about the concept of an “October Person” see the Carabao song “Tears of the October Friends” and my introduction. To learn more about young Add’s involvement with communism (he wasn’t yet Add Carabao, which is a stage name), see “Che 2018” and the introduction. Some math: If Add’s 6 years helping the communists began around October 14, 1973 (including mass protests around Democracy Monument that Add says he attended as a young person who didn’t really understand what was going on) and lasted till the government amnesty for communists in 1980 (which Add has expressed his thanks for) that would be about be about 6 years, corresponding to ages 18 to 25, and he would have been 21 during the October 6 event (the massacre of protesting students at Thammasat University), which deeply affected him although I don’t he was directly there that day. The first Carabao album came out in 1981, one year after the amnesty.

Many of the Add Carabao and Eed Opakul song lyrics are in fact a glon กลอน, which is the most common style of Thai poem. Once you learn the glon rhyming scheme, you will find it everywhere in popular Thai songs. Thanks to Luke Bruder Bauer, for alerting me to this pattern.

Quickly,
1) The last word of the first line rhymes with the middle of the second line.
2) The ends of the second and third lines rhyme with each other, and with the middle of the fourth line
3) The last word of the last line rhymes with the ends of the second and third lines OF THE NEXT VERSE.

So for instance, in that ultra-catchy motorcycle song “เพื่อชีวิตติดล้อ” (“For Life on Two Wheels”), that Add Carabao wrote and sings with Sek Loso, I’ve highlighted the rhymes in the lyrics below this video:

In addition, it’s good to have words next to each other match in some way (rhyme, near rhyme, alliteration) if possible, especially at the early part of the line. So for instance, in the 4th verse (I don’t see it in the other verses):

ยากดีมีจนก็แค่คนขับสองล้อ
yâak dee mee jon gôr kâe kon kàp sŏng lór
เกิดมาชาติเดียวก็ใช้มันให้พอ
gèrt maa châat dieow gôr chái man hâi por
เพื่อชีวิตติดล้อ ขอแค่เศษสตางค์ เติมน้ำมันน้ำเมา
pêua chee-wít dtìt lór kŏr kâe sàyt sà-dtaang dterm náam man nám mao

And the last verse has this going on with both similar vowel sounds and alteration:

เอ้า…สองล้อพอเพียง แค่นี้ก็เพียงพอ
âo … sŏng lór por piang kâe née gôr piang por
สองล้อพอเพียง ชีวิตที่เพียงพอ
sŏng lór por piang chee-wít têe piang por

And here is my singable, rhyming translation of “เพื่อชีวิตติดล้อ” (“For Life on Two Wheels”).** This is one of the later singable translations done after learning of this rhyming scheme. (More recent singable translations should all have this feature, while my earliest singable translations do not.) At the risk of confusing things, I’ve also pointed out some “bonus” rhymes in the last line, arguably similar to the pattern of the original song:

อยากลืมเรื่องราวที่ปวดร้าวใจ
Forget the worries that pain your mind
ปัดเป่าทิ้งไป…บนทางไฮเวย์
Toss them behind on a highway
มาเถิดพี่น้องเพื่อนพ้องฮาเล่ย์
Come Harley friends let’s leave today
ถึงรถจะเท่ ไม่เท่ ไม่ใช่เรื่องสำคัญ ใช่
Two wheels? OK. Cool deal. For real, it’s swell . . . yeah

มีฝันมีหวังมีหนทางเสมอ
With dreams and hope, you have a path to ride
รวมพลเพื่อนเกลอ ถึงไหนถึงกัน
Friends at your side to heaven or hell
มีแค่วันนี้และไม่ต้องแคร์วันนั้น
There’s just today. Other days, oh well!
ถึงนรก…สวรรค์ ยังมีเกลอและกัน จะสนมันทำไม
If bad luck fell, we’d have friends and roads that bend, so why worry too?

*จอกนี้แด่เพื่อนและมิตรภาพ
I’ll raise this glass: I love you guys
ที่ซาบซึ้งมานานแต่ไม่เคยอธิบาย
Though I’ve disguised just how much it is true
ไม่เสียชาติเกิดแล้วล่ะมิตรสหาย
I’ve kept my homeland and all of you*
ที่มีเพื่อนดีๆอย่างนาย ที่มีเหล้าแรงๆย้อมใจ ฝันร้ายก็กลายเป็นดี…ดี
With GOOD friends like this crew, en-courag-ing me through, bad dreams change into sweet

**ช้างป่าอยู่ป่า ฮาเล่ย์อยู่ถนน
Elephants in woods, Harleys on the road
ยากดีมีจนก็แค่คนขับสองล้อ
Don’t load much stuff, I’m roaring down the street
เกิดมาชาติเดียวก็ใช้มันให้พอ
We get one life. Use it complete,
เพื่อชีวิตติดล้อ ขอแค่เศษสตางค์ เติมน้ำมันน้ำเมา
So it’s enough. Two wheels, just pay for fuel, and drinking up

Solo *, **

เอ้า…สองล้อพอเพียง แค่นี้ก็เพียงพอ
All I need’s my bike. Just this, I’m alright
สองล้อพอเพียง ชีวิตที่เพียงพอ
All I need’s a bike. The life that’s alright!

You can also rhyme the last word of a verse with the end of the first line of the next verse. The pattern of the กลอน (glon) is also easy to see in the new song “บันไดรุ้ง” “Ban-Dai Rung” (“Rainbow Stairs”) that Add Carabao posted on Facebook (look at the Thai and not the English; I did not do a rhyming translation). In fact “Rainbow Stairs” may be a purer example of a glon because the last line of each verse of “For Life on Two Wheels” is unusually complicated. Look out for the glon rhyming pattern in the lyrics of the Thai songs you listen to.

* I now have a better translations of this line (“I’ve lived my life well with all of you”) reflecting that “เสียชาติเกิด” means “wasted one’s life” (not “abandoned one’s homeland”) as previously [mis]understood.
** My direct, non-rhyming translation of “เพื่อชีวิตติดล้อ” (“For Life on Two Wheels”) is HERE.

Rainbows

I recently translated ตำนานดวงดาว Dtamnan Duang Dao (Legend of Stars) (written for Add by ทิวา สาระจูฑะ Teewa Sarachuta) in which the goalpost people aim for in life is the arch of a rainbow, and I went WOW! That’s an inspiring image. In the song, the rainbow is setting out stripes, painting a line from the end of the sky! At the same time, you realize, while it is not spelled out in the song, that you can never reach this goal of arriving at the rainbow; it will always be before you.

The unattainable promise of the rainbow is leveraged to good effect in Add Carabao’s informally published song บันไดรุ้ง Ban-Dai Rung (Rainbow Stairs)–which I now notice is littered with other symbols often used in Carabao-type songs, including the moon, crows, and fireflies). The last line is “Looking at the arch of the seven-colored rainbow, I would like it to be a stairway.”

In Thai songs, the sky or heavens represent sacredness and god-like beings while the ground represents ordinary earthbound people. Of course ordinariness and sacredness can be associated. According to lyrics of the Add Carabao song มาเถอะมาร้องเพลง Maa Tuh Maa Rong Playng (Come! Come Sing a Song), music helps Heaven remain tied to Earth (though no rainbow is mentioned).

In at least one modern-day Thai protest songs, calling for reform of the monarchy (which claims sacred characteristics), a rainbow connects Earth and Sky—but for the purpose of undermining the dichotomy between the two! For those willing or eager to flaunt the lese majesty law (I can do it from the safety of the United States), check out the song รุ้ง or “Rainbow,” celebrating current day activist Rung (her name means “rainbow”). It is by the band Commoner and features rapper Jacobi from Rap Against Dictatorship; it is translated at the website Music of Thai Freedom.

Butterflies

The word for butterfly in Thai means “spirit shirt,” bringing to mind the spirits of loved ones being amongst you, in a cheerful way. Of course, in English we can say “butterfly” without thinking of butter; and it’s the same for Thais saying “spirit shirt”– it just means “butterfly.” Still, I have heard Add Carabao say in an interview, that many of his friends have “turned into butterflies,” meaning that they have died.

How are butterflies used in Carabao songs? ผีเสื้อนักสู้ Pee Seua Nak Soo (Fighter Butterfly), is the key song here. It’s an irrepressibly cheerful song about a butterfly (held up as an example) that happily struggles on towards its goal (a flower) although its wing is injured. This butterfly even is “snuggling with a rainbow.” I just realized that Thai-Belgian singer Palmy has a very similar, but much sadder song titled “Butterfly”  [translated at the website Deungdutjai.com].

Butterflies also used as decoration in Add Carabao’s song คนแบกเป้ Kon Baek Bpay (The Backpacker.) The backpackers arrive at the sunlit side of the mountain, and the friends stand absorbing the moment amongst flowers and butterflies.

The metaphor of a butterfly as a returning ghost is a powerful connotation in the moving song พลจันทร์เดือนเพ็ญ Polachan Duan Pen (Polachan’s [Song] “Full Moon”). Assanee Polachan was a dissident who was missing at the time the song was written. In fact he had died in Laos, as everyone would learn in another few years. The song “Polachan’s ‘Full Moon” begs the missing dissident, “Where are you?” and Add sings: “Whoever is imprisoned/ Whoever is shut in, and locked away/It’s only a body/The heart has wings/Make way to the place/Whatever place is obstructed/ That butterfly is/Polachan[‘s]/song “Full Moon” It seems that Polachan, in the form of his famous beloved song “Full Moon” can reach across all boundaries and connect people who are separated.

A song by the current-day Thai protest band, Commoner, for activist Pai Dao Din (a political prisoner at the time) is titled ฝากรักถึงเจ้าผีเสื้อ “Entrust Love to You, Butterfly,” and includes the line, “Before a body will turn down into the earth, a butterfly will fly to the star[s].” Translated at  MusicofThaiFreedom.

Bamboo

Speaking of Pai, his name means “Bamboo.”

To understand bamboo metaphors in Carabao songs, it is important to know that bamboo spreads by sending out runners underground, so that every piece of bamboo in a clump or grove is likely related to each other. ไม้ไผ่ Maai Pai (Bamboo) is one of the most poetic Carabao songs period, and is in fact the second song on Add Carabao’s recent compilation album “Poem” (available by that name on Amazon Music). I have done a rhyming English translation to prove that the lyrics are stunning. In the song, the sound coming from the bamboo flute reminds us that just as all the bamboo in a grove is related and connected, all the people in the world are related and connected.

This metaphor pops up again just once in the Carabao song Tuk Kwai Tuey 8 (The Buffalo with the Short Twisted Horns, Part 8), from a 10 part Tuk Kwai Tey series of songs spread across the first 10 albums. Manohk, the hero of the Tuk Kwai Tuey saga has had a difficult, persecuted life and has just made a mistake such that he must run away and fight in the jungle so he isn’t arrested. By song number 8, it looks like Manohk has doomed himself. But the song encourages him, saying the world still needs people who do good, “you are not alone/On the contrary! A clump of bamboo!” The next verse further spells out that other shoots of bamboo, will pop up soon, “to be shoots, to be rows, to be skin and flesh, to be energy, to be strength of spirit, to be moral support.”*

Birds

Of course birds can illustrate freedom (check out an excellent but overlooked Carbabo song แสงทองส่องทาง Saeng Tong Song Tang (Golden Light Lighting the Path), or ความฝัน-ความจริง Kwam Fun- Kwam Jing (Dreams-Truth) by Teewa Sarachuta).

But in Carabao-type songs, birds, like butterflies, are often struggling to survive, in a positive way that is held up as an example for humans. The crows in Kon La Fun (Dream Chaser), the birds in Beek (Wings),  Little Bird in Weehok Plad Tin (A Bird Falls to the Ground), and the seagull in Kae Kit Yang Mai Koie (Only Thought About It, Still Haven’t Ever . . .) are all great illustrations of this metaphor.

Birds in Carabao-type songs are also often getting lost (most famously in Telay Jai (Ocean Heart)), and returning to their nests (most famously in คืนรัง Keun Rang (Return to the Nest), by Nga Caravan). Return to the Nest is beautiful song about a famous amnesty in 1980 that allowed many Thai Communists, including presumably Nga Caravan, to surrender and return home. [Translated at Music of Thai Freedom.]

The significance of the Vulture in the famous Carabao song Reng Koi (The Vulture Waits) needs no elaboration. He “waits to see who will fall and who will die” and adds wildness and reality to the scene.

Seagulls are featured in both “Telay Jai” and “Kae Kit Yang Mai Koie.” The Thai word for seagull is นกนางนวล (nok nang nuan). “Nok” means bird, “nang” means woman and “nuan” means creamy white. In older Thai songs, including Carabao songs, woman are often described with this adjective.” An informant explained that the reason “nang”  (นาง)  (women) are always being called “nuan”  (นวล) or “creamy white” ) is it evokes the word for seagull and just sounds nice. That’s good to know. Conversely, we can infer that the seagulls mentioned in Thai songs are perceived as beautiful.

[Incidentally, the word for crow sounds like the sound that a crow makes, “Gaw.” Check out the song กา กา กา (Gaw, Gaw, Gaw) by Palmy, in which she “dances with vultures and crows,” a metaphor for independence. The dancing is awesome!] [Translated at Duengdutjai]

And of course a red bird is included on the Carabao logo, on top of the buffalo skull. I assume that it symbolizes, hope, renewal and freedom.

Buffalos

Any Carabao fan already understands the symbol of the Water Buffalo: they are hard working, uncomplaining, much underappreciated animals that used to plow the fields to provide rice for Thailand. They represent the working class. However, in Thai the word “kwai” (buffalo) is also used as an insult. It is usually not a good thing to be compared to a buffalo. The “Child of the Drunken Uncle,” in the song by that title, migrates from the countryside into Bangkok and is treated as if he is “stained with earth and the smell of musty mud and buffalo.”

The word “Carabao,” of course, means water buffalo, but not in Thai. It comes from Tagalog, a Pilipino language, where if I understand correctly, the water buffalo was used as a symbol for the working class, minus the strong negative stigma. In any case, the band Carabao was formed and named by Thai students studying in the Philippines. (A secondary reason for the band’s choice of name is it sounded like “Caravan,” a Thai Songs for Life band that preceded Carabao.)

The symbol of Carabao is a buffalo skull with a small red bird on its forehead. This symbol is referenced in Carabao songs as “the buffalo head” (Num Bao Sao Parn “Carabao Boy and Parn Girl”) or even just “horns” (secondary meaning of “Wan Waan Mai Mee Kow” (If it weren’t for Her [Today I’d not be here]. The word for him or her (“kow”) is the same as the word for “horns.” Consequently, another way to translate the title, and key line from the song is, “If it weren’t for the Horns (Carabao), today we (the fans) wouldn’t be here.”

To be clear, “Carabao” is not, on its face, an offensive word, like “kwai” (the Thai word for buffalo) might be. To make the name edgy, one has to take an extra step. A Carabao symbol of two buffalos mating does this nicely! You can see this as a sticker on some band members’ guitars, lol.

Carabao wasn’t the first Thai Songs for Life band to symbolically sing about buffalo. One of the band Caravan’s most famous songs is “คนกับควาย” Kon Gap Kwai (Person with Buffalo) set to the tune of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” in 1975. (You can google the YouTube). Though I haven’t translated Kon Gap Kwai, according to Wikipedia, it paints an idylic picture of how a poor farmer and his buffalo take care of each other. It almost certainly helped inspire the aforementioned Tuk Kwai Tuey series of songs (1981 to 1990), which is about a farmer, Manhok, whose favorite buffalo, Tuk is poisoned to death in the first song by an evil capitalist, so that Manohk will be forced to sell his land to him.

Of course, buffalos aren’t only symbolic. There is also direct concern for the buffalo as an animal and their disappearance (along with the elephant) from everyday life as agricultural technology changes. For examples of songs about Buffalos simply look for that heading under Lyrics by Theme.

Stars and hidden stars

Stars are of course a sign of hope. Stars that are hidden by clouds are nevertheless still there, to shine once again when the clouds disappear. There is an old famous Thai protest song, แสงดาวแห่งศรัทธา Saeng Dao Heng Sata  (Starlight of Faith) by Jit Phumisak [translated at Music of Thai Freedom] that I believe is key to understanding many other Thai protest songs, and the Thai prodemocracy movement in general. It is hard to overstate the influence of this song. It is sung at current-day protests and lines are quoted in speeches. And, via social media, I’ve heard it sung at both weddings and funerals of activists, including one funeral that Add Carabao attended (of a Caravan band member). There is zero chance that Add does not know this song, which became famous during the Thammasat University Massacre. Legend has it that, right after the massacre, when thousands of students, who had survived the massacre, were arrested and taken off jail, with the movement squashed perhaps forever, the prisoners spontaneously broke out singing this song throughout the prison. [Add Carabao has a lesser-known album commemorating the Thammasat University Massacre: ข้าวสีทอง: รำลึก 20 ปี 6 ตุลา( Golden Ears of Rice: Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of October 6 [1976]). Look for this album in the Lyrics by Album list.]

It is not clear to me that Add Carabao’s songs ever directly reference “Starlight of Faith,” but like the seagull adds it’s special beauty to an adjective describing women, knowing this song adds extra depth to every poetic mention of a star, especially hidden stars. I urge all Carabao fans to familiarize themselves with this song. (I was convinced of its greatness before realizing its historical significance.)

We have already noted the rainbow in Teewa Sarachuta’s ตำนานดวงดาว (Dtamnan Duang Dao) Legend of Stars. Here I note that this song, with “star” in it’s title, is very much in keeping with the feel of “Starlight of Faith.”

The song สุดขอบฟ้า Sud Kob Fah (The Horizon) by the rap group Thaitanium, featuring Add Carabao, is come to think of it, very similar in theme to both “Legend of Stars” and “Starlight of Faith.” Like “Starlight of Faith,” it makes stunning use of the metaphor of the hidden star, but with an individualistic twist. In the punchline of that song, up in the heavens, behind the stormy clouds where our fate is supposedly determined, “a shiny star is sparkling, shining brightly. Who is that star? . . . Tell me, who are you?” Very inspiring. You must check it out.

The Moon

In many Carabao-type songs, people, especially migrants, look at the moon and miss home. They often ask the moon to send a message to their families, often with the help of the wind.

Young people may not realize that in 1980s when early Carabao songs were written A) cell phones hadn’t been invented yet B) in Thailand, only a few rich people had landlines, and C) everywhere, international calls were prohibitively expensive. Once upon a time, not that long ago, when you left home, there was no way to communicate until you returned. Meanwhile there is always one moon, the same moon the world around, and it’s comforting to think that you and your loved ones, who you can’t reach, at least may be looking at the same moon.

เดือนเพ็ญ Duan Pen (Full Moon) is the iconic looking at the moon and missing home song, which has influenced many other songs. It began as a song by Asanee Polachan, as mentioned above in the “Butterfly” section, and was adapted and popularized by Nga Carawan and Add Carabao, as explained more fully with the song translation. Like “Starlight of Faith,” its influence is hard to overstate. Although it’s not an explicitly political song, its origins are political. It is loved by Thais away from home for any reason, from those going to school abroad to political refugees in exile.

The precedent for asking the Moon for favors may come from a famous Thai children’s lullaby, จันทร์เจ้า Jan Jao (Mr. Moon). A babysitter asks the moon to give the young child a list of things, including rice, and curry; a copper ring, and elephant and a horse toys, a chair, bed, a show [lakorn] to watch, and a grandmother to take care of them. This lullaby is the basis for two other Carabao songs: Summer Hill  and Jan Jao Ka  (Hey, Mr. Moon). (If you click through to “Hey Mr. Moon,” that page also includes a translation of children’s lullaby with a YouTube version of the song).

Of course, the Moon is used poetically in many other  interesting ways. Check out Chang Man Tuh Ngao (Forget it! [I’ll Be] Lonely), the last song on the Bodyslam album Dharmajāti (2014), a song which Add Carabao helped write.

[And Eed Opakul (Add Carabao’s identical twin) has written a mind-bending poem titled, กระต่าย จันทร์ ตะวัน รัก Gradai, Jan, Dtawan, Rak (Rabbit, Moon, Sun, Love) about whether love is real or just imagined, comparing it to seeing the image of a rabbit in the markings of the moon,]

The Overpass

Finally, on the first Carabao album, in the famous song “Drunken Uncle,”  the Drunken Uncle famously drinks himself to death and dies under an overpass (one imagines a walking bridge over the traffic in Bangkok). In the sequel, ลูกลุงขี้เมา Luuk Lung Kee Mow (Child of the Drunken Uncle), done for the 25th anniversary album, there is again, in Bangkok, an overpass, this time metaphorical, that Son of the Drunken Uncle expectedly will cross from poverty and hardship over to the good life.

____________________________________________________________________________
The illustration was made by the author at NightCafe.com using DALL-E and the title of this article.

*[Footnote][Actually, Manohk himself may be a metaphor for a specific person, but until I can verify that tip I won’t go into it. (For a clue, read my footnotes below the translation of the song Tuk Kwai Tuey 6, and, if you can do it, read Add’s shocking “ความในใจ” notes on the album อเมริโกย “Amerigoy.”)

by ยืนยง โอภากุล Yuenyong Opakul, aka แอ๊ด คาราบาว Aed Carabao
Album: กัมพูชา Kampucha (Cambodia) (1984)

The word เดินดิน in the title means “Walk the Land” and can be translated “walk” but there is a connotation of being “ordinary,” “down to earth” or “earthbound,” that is not associated with royalty, privilege, and the sky. Many people from the Isaan region of Thailand (Thailand’s North-East) share a similar culture and language with people in the neighboring country Laos. This was a poor region such that many Isaan people would migrate to Bangkok looking for work. The question of this song is when you see Isaan people sleeping at the train platform in Bangkok do you scoff or are you understanding?

เขาเป็นคนไทยแท้ แท้
They truly are Thai people
อย่าเห็นเป็นลาวเดินดิน
Don’t view them as Lao walking the land
ถึงเขาจะกินข้าวเหนียว เหนียว
Even if they eat sticky rice
เขาทำข้าวเกี่ยวเพื่อเมืองกรุง
They also grow and harvest rice for the capital
เมืองที่ยุ่งที่เหยิง
A city that is busy and chaotic
รถราก็ติดกันเป็นแถวยาว
The traffic is stuck in long rows
มีแต่ข่าวฆาตกรรม
There is nothing but news of murders
เมืองที่ทำการค้า
A city doing trade and business
มีน้ำท่าท่วมท้น
There is water flooding
อยู่เต็มถนนหนทาง
All over the roads
แต่ใจคนอ้างว้าง
But people’s hearts are lonely
สิ้นสุดการเดินทาง
At the end of their journey
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
They collapse and sleep at the [train] platform

ข้าวมันยากปากมันร้อง ร้อง
Man rice [cooked with oil] is hard to eat. They cry out, cry out
ว่าท้องมันหิวปลิวตาม ลม
that their stomach is so hungry they will blow away with the wind
ไม่ได้มาชมเมืองฟ้า ฟ้า
They didn’t come to admire the Heavenly City
แต่มาเพื่อหางานทำ
Rather, they came to find work
แสน ลำบากสักปานไหน
Who has it so difficult as this?
เหน็ดเหนื่อย กี่มากน้อย
However tired they are
จะค่อยทำ ค่อยกิน
They just keep working so they can keep eating
ขอแต่ข้าวเข้าท้อง
All they ask is for rice coming into their stomachs
น้องทางบ้านได้กินนม
And for their younger siblings to be able to drink milk
มีผ้าห่มกันลมเย็น
And have blankets to protect them from the cold
ใครจะฮู้ใครจะเห็น
Who knows, who sees [who understands]?*
ทำไมอีสาน กระเซ็น
How come Isaan people don’t speak [Thai] perfectly?*
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
Falling asleep all over the [train] platform

ข้าวมันยากปากมันร้อง ร้อง
Man rice [cooked with oil] is hard to eat. They cry out, cry out
ว่าท้องมันหิวปลิวตาม ลม
that their stomach is so hungry they will blow away with the wind
ไม่ได้มาชมเมืองฟ้า ฟ้า
They didn’t come to admire the Heavenly City
แต่มาเพื่อหางานทำ
But to find work
แสน ลำบากสักปานไหน
Who has it so difficult as this?
เหน็ดเหนื่อย กี่มากน้อย
However tired they are
จะค่อยทำ ค่อยกิน
They just keep working so they can keep eating
ขอแต่ข้าวเข้าท้อง
All they ask is for rice to enter their stomachs
น้องทางบ้านได้กินนม
And for their younger siblings to be able to drink milk
มีผ้าห่มกันลมเย็น
And have blankets to protect them from the cold
ใครจะฮู้ใครจะเห็น
Who knows, who sees [who understands]?
ทำไมอีสาน กระเซ็น
How come Isaan people don’t speak Thai perfectly?
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
They collapse and sleep at the [train] platform
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
They collapse and sleep at the [train] platform
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
They collapse and sleep at the [train] platform
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
They collapse and sleep at the [train] platform
ล้มตัวลงนอนที่ชานชาลา
They collapse and sleep at the [train] platform

*From other Carabao songs, like นางงามตู้กระจก, we expect the line “ใครจะรู้ ใครจะเห็น,” meaning “Who knows, who sees” that is, who sympathizes. Here the word ฮู้ replaces รู้. The word “ฮู้” (hoo) means “รู้” (roo) and is Issan dialect. So the “Who knows and who sees” question [meaning who empathizes with the difficulties of the Issan people] uses an Isaan word, and is followed by the question, “Why can’t they speak perfect Thai?”

I had long been wishing to post at this site about singer/songwriter Hugo, who is half-Thai and half-Farang (Western), and who has totally conquered both Thai and Western music scenes. My desire to rave about this artist is due to an amazing concept album/music video (at the top of this page) that came out in 2021 for which he won Best Album of the Year from Thailand’s Guitar Mag. It is titled เรือสำราญราตรีอมตะ (Immortal Night Cruiseship), and is about a futuristic cruise spaceship from the perspective of the Thais who work and travel on it. I played the album over and over, translated most of the songs, and reviewed the album for friends on Facebook. The problem was how to tie Hugo to Carabao for the purposes of posting something at this site. Hugo did play Thierry Mekwattana in Young ‘Bao: The Movie (2013) about the origins of the band Carabao. With that slim excuse, I set out to research an article on Hugo for Carabao in English.

And I quickly learned that Hugo is as tightly linked to Carabao as any of the previous artists I covered in this series! And in almost exactly the same way: Carabao band members produced, composed songs for, and sang and played on some of this artist’s earliest albums (with the band สิบล้อ Sip Lor). And, if I understand correctly, Hugo broke into the English-language market after composing and singing a striking song in English for a special album by Add Carabao responding to the 2004 Tsunami. (For serious Carabao fans, details are listed at the bottom of this article under the heading “Hugo-Carabao Connections.” For others, I focus on those aspects of Hugo’s career that will likely be most interesting to Westerners.)

Hugo was born in the UK, grew up mostly in Thailand, spent a lot of time in New York City, USA, and may now be back in Thailand. What is fascinating, is that Hugo inhabits two cultures, Thai and Western, so perfectly, that each side naturally claims him as their own. Thais note that he has “royal blood,” being a direct descendant of King Chulalongkorn, and are familiar with him from the band Siplor and Thai dramas that he acted in in his youth. In the West, he is known for writing the song “Disappear” for Beyoncé, covering Jay-Z’s song “99 Problems” as a country tune, and for two exclusively English-language albums: Old Tyme Religion (2011) and Deep in the Long Grass (2014). He is signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation label. It appears that most of his English-language fans are unaware he is Thai.

I went to see him once in New York City. Hugo sang through his English-language repertoire for the first half of the show, then announced (something like), “Heads up: I will be singing the next several songs in, strangely enough, … Thai [wild cheering from the Thai fans]. I don’t want anyone to fear they’re having a stroke” (if they suddenly don’t understand the lyrics, lol . . .).

The new album เรือสำราญราตรีอมตะ (Immortal Night Cruiseship) is fascinating. All 6 songs describe a space cruise ship using a variety of very different musical styles but all are spacey and sci-fi. The video’s amazing cartoon animation is an integral part of the whole artistic project. You will want to watch the music video at least once all the way through, and after that the album works well as background music as it is very “flow.” At least two of the songs are especially “Thai.” The second song tells about the experience of Thai entertainers among the international entertainers. The third is about migrant workers missing home, a common theme from luuk tung, mor lam, and plaeng pua chewit Thai musical styles, and he totally nails the feel of this “missing home” Thai musical convention even though the story is set in space. The fourth song is about the experience of workers in the engine room. The fifth is about the captain, who demands obedience and discipline. The sixth is about the positive experience of passengers of the ship, who it appears, find love (I haven’t looked at that one closely). Below is the list of songs, with hyperlinks to the translation (if I have done it):

1. เรือสำราญราตรีอมตะ (The Immortal Night Cruiseship)
2.( ดังที่สุดในจักรวาล The Most Famous in the Universe)
3. ลูกเรือ (Ship Staff)
4. ห้องเครื่อง (Engine Room)
5. กัปตัน (Captain)
6. เชื้อไฟ (Tinder)

Hugo explains the album concept (in Thai) here:

Hugo-Carabao Connections

[Edit: Long after writing this article, I realized that in 2002, Hugo and Add acted together a TV drama called ลูกผู้ชายหัวใจเพชร (Man with a Diamond Heart), with Hugo starring as the young man Phet (meaning Diamond) and Add playing his father Nop. This is why they are both associated with a song from the original soundtrack of that drama, which was first sung by Hugo: คนไม่มีสิทธิ์ Kon Mai Mee Sit (Someone with No Right). Add, as Nop, appears in the music video for the song.]

According to Wikipedia, singer/songwriter Hugo (born in 1981) is among a younger generation of artists influenced by the Songs for Life genre. His second album with the band สิบล้อ Sip Lor “มนต์รักสิบล้อ” (Sip Lor Love Spell), released in 2003, under “More Music with Pom” was produced by Thierry Mekwattana (one of the top three Carabao band members) with Asanee “Pom” Chotikul in charge. Siplor’s third album เสียงเพลงสิบล้อ (The Sound of Sip Lor) was again produced by Theirry. And Yuenyong Opakul, aka Add Carabao, composed one song for the album (alas, I can’t determine which one). The third Sip Lor album เงิน ๆ ทอง ๆ (Silver and Gold) was produced by Keow Carabao, because Thierry was too busy but he did lend advice and play acoustic guitar on the song ขอรักอีกครั้ง (I Want to Love Again).

Then, if I understand correctly, Hugo went “inter[national]” after he composed an English-language song for Add Carabao’s album about then-recent Tsunami. This was the most devastating tsumani in history, killing over 230,000 people the day after Christmas, on December 26, 2004, including 5,400 in Thailand (2,000 of whom were tourists). Add Carabao’s song “ซับน้ำตาอันดามัน” (Absorb the Tears, Adaman Sea) is here. Hugo’s song titled “26/12/04” song is below:

Later, Hugo played a young Thierry Mekwattana, in the movie “Young ‘Bao” (2013), the second movie made about the (somewhat fictionalized) origins of the band Carabao, the first being เสียงเพลงแห่งเสรีภาพ (Music of Freedom) made in 1985 with the actual band members playing themselves. Thierry, like Hugo, is half-Thai and half Farang, which may be a reason Hugo was cast as Thierry. Here is my review of Young ‘Bao.

__________________________________________________________________________
Further information available in Thai in this joint interview with Hugo and Add: “คู่หูทางดนตรี คู่ซี้ต่างวัย แอ๊ด คาราบาว และ ฮิวโก้ จากรายการ พัน” (“Music duo, Best friends of different ages: Add Carabao and Hugo, from the show A Thousand Moons”) https://youtu.be/Bw3byFo3G3U?si=mL3cQD46jeS-LE

Multiple-of-5 Anniversaries of the band Carabao are celebrated with special songs and events. On these occasions, it’s time to get “meta” and reflect on the whole Carabao musical project, its goals and accomplishments, consider the future, and have the band take a bow and thank the fans. This site has translations for the following anniversary songs of Carabao:

The 0-th Anniversary, 1981: มนต์เพลงคาราบาว Mon Pleang Carabao (The Spell of Carabao Songs) ✰✰✰ This is the spooky Carabao “mission statement,” which the band stuck to so closely, it works perfectly for any anniversary, and is indeed used for that purpose.

The 15th Anniversary: สามช่าคาราบาว Sam-Cha Carabao ✰✰✰ (on the comeback double album หากหัวใจยังรักควาย Hak Hua Jai Yang Rak Kwai “If Your Heart Still Loves Buffaloes”)

The 20th Anniversary: เพลงไม่มีวันตาย Playng Mai Mee Wan Dtai (Songs Don’t Die) ✰✰

25th Anniversary: ลูกลุงขี้เมา Luuk Lung Kee Mow (Child of the Drunken Uncle) ✰✰✰ For the 25th Anniversary, Add wrote a breathtaking part 2 to one of the best-loved songs Carabao songs from the first album. “Child of the Drunken Uncle,” is even better than ลุงขี้เมา Lung Kee Mao (“The Drunken Uncle)”,  which is the title song of the first album. Similarly, ลูกลุงขี้เมา “Child of the Drunken Uncle” is the title song of an amazing 25th Anniversary double album.

30th Anniversary: กำลังใจคาราบาว Gamlang Jai Carabao (Carabao Strength of Spirit/Moral Support) ✰✰✰. It’s the title song of a special anniversary album. Also check out this valentine to the fans (including English-speakers) on that same album: เพลงแบบไหน Pleang Baap Nai (What Kind of Song [Do You Want to Hear]?); English title is “Harmony of Hearts.” ✰✰✰

There was an official 35th Anniversary song written by Lek Carabao and it didn’t grab me, so I don’t have it translated. It was played at the big 35th Anniversary concert in Thailand.

40th Anniversary: 40 ปี ฅนคาราบาว See Sip Bpee Kon Carabao (40 Years of Carabao People) [Ye Olde Carabao Band: 40 Years] ✰✰✰
And on the same album: มาร์ช 40 ปี คาราบาว March See Sip Bee (40th Year Carabao March). ✰✰

Congratulations to Carabao on 40 years composing and performing inspiring music. 36 years after the song “Made in Thailand” literally stopped me in my tracks and changed the course of my life, I am still under The Spell of Carabao Songs.

Ann Norman

 

Add Carabao has a new compilation album of his most poetic songs in ultra-HD, with an English language title, “Poem,” and ITS AVAILABLE IN THE US ON AMAZON MUSIC! (And the fact that there is an English-language title means you don’t have to type in Thai to find it.) For the record, the Thai-language title of the album is “กวี” which means “Poet.”

The music is good enough to stand on its own, even if you don’t understand Thai, but if you want to be blown away, see how the lyrics translate into English. Because these songs have lyrics that more than double the impact of the music, often including a punchline that will take your breath away.

If I were to pick 15 songs that best demonstrate Add Carabao’s poetic abilities, I would have something very close this album. And they aren’t all famous songs. Don’t be fooled by “Talay Jai” (Ocean Heart) as the inevitable opening song (Add Carabao’s favorite). For instance, this album includes an inexplicably overlooked song that has long been my personal favorite: “Kwam Jing” (Truth), which totally works as an atheist hymn. “All the faith eclipses the thinking and dreaming one should have.” And, “It’s in the study of genuine truth/reality that the world spreads out for a person.”

In Mai Pai someone on a rainy moonlit night is composing a song on a bamboo flute: “I tease a song from the fingers that flutter/ from the rain’s pitter-patter/ from the heart that cares . . . about you.” And in the next moment, through the power of music, we are contemplating the oneness of the human race and of the universe in general.

Rang Koy (The Vulture Waits) is similarly powerful. The first verse sets up a wild scene in a jungle where a vulture waits (to eat those who die along the path). There are streams flowing out of sight and cliffs that defy the sky. The second verse explodes by asking, Who understands the life of music? (Where does music come from?). We should let it go (sing out) like streams flowing out of sight. Like cliffs that defy the sky! And, as in all these songs, the music almost tells the story by itself — in this case by including the chirping of birds and other jungle sounds.

Luk Lung Kee Mao (Son of the Drunken Uncle) is a long vivid story with a poetic punchline that I will not give away. (In audio of the debut performance of this song, I thought I heard a collective gasp from the audience.) I had long argued that “Son of the Drunken Uncle,” written for the band’s 25th anniversary was even better than “The Drunken Uncle” (a fan favorite from the very first Carabao album).

Lok Hang Kwam Rak (World of Love) is a song that makes you want to light candles and all hold hands (or that was one friend’s response to it). Rak Tong Su (Love Must Struggle) is Thailand’s “I Will Survive” [a breakup] song. Ngem Jai (An Opening in the Heart) s another wholesome campfire song that encourages people to open their hearts, just a crack, to each other and let the truth out.

There are many lighthearted, playful, and humorous songs as well: Phi Suea Nak Su (Fighter Butterfly) is an infectiously upbeat song about a butterfly continuing to fly even with injured wings. Bor Yere Joye (No Big Deal), uses a dismissive phrase in Chinese that Add’s mother used to say, to cheer up the downhearted. And Tawan Tok Din,  (The Sun Sets) goes on and on in a a silly 50s doo-op style, complete with falsetto voice, about the fact that people can’t survive a drowning. I did a direct translation then went online to ask “What the heck?” A friend suggested this was yet another song about impermanence.  And believe it or not, the song suddenly made sense to me.

There are several more songs that for the moment I will categorize as “interesting” as I still need to think it over and/or translate them: “Sai Tan Tee Huan Kuen,” (The River That Flows Back), invites Thai expats to return home, offering sympathy for their plight. It came out in 2006. Is it being intentionally recycled for the current moment? “Pukawatketa” is a song involving the characters Arjuna and Krishna from an Indian myth. I have already translated an Add Carabao song titled “The Arrow of Arjuna” and its amazing, so we shall see. “Lung Fang” sounds like many other Carabao songs about idylic/not so idylic farm life, but that is just a guess based on the sound of a rooster crowing. [EDIT: The song is now translated] In Che’2018, Add Carabao takes a second run at memorializing Che Guevera, after regretting the result of an earlier attempt. Although this album’s version of “Che 2018” is in Thai, he also did a version in Spanish.

Below are the 15 songs as they are spelled on Amazon Music with hyperlinks to their translations here at Carabao in English. Four of the 15 songs already have rhyming translations, which I will link to. Three [EDIT: Two] have not yet been translated.

Ta Lay Jai
Mai Pai
Rok Tong Su
Che’2018 (Thai Version)
Ngam Jai
Sai Taan Tee Huan Kuen
Luk Lung Kee Mao
Tawan Tok Din
Rang Koy
Phi Suea Nak Su
Lung Fang
Bor Yere Joye
Lok Hang Kwam Rak
Kwam Jing
Pukawatketa

I got an interview with Add Carabao once to pitch the idea of doing an album in English using singable translations of his Thai-language songs (such as my own translations) plus some of his existing English language songs. At one point during this out-of-body experience, I was shouting “People need to know that you’re A POET! You’re a POET!”

An English-language album finally did materialize and it’s terrible. New songs were written directly in English FOR Add Carabao by a Thai composer who is A) NOT Add Carabao, and B) not completely comfortable with English. You can read about it HERE. Meanwhile, my fantasy album demonstrating Add Carabao is a POET! He’s a POET! has arrived. It’s just that the songs are still in Thai. And maybe that’s OK.

Note: This is a translation of a Facebook post from Lek Carabao on the Lek Carabao Solo Facebook page, on January 11, 2022 [I still need to check this translation]. He talks about his feelings for the song ‘Tuk” and the whole “Tuk Kwai Tuey” Series of 10 songs, and the fact that he is writing a medley of the songs to perform for the band’s 40th anniversary. Note that I made similar points to his in a review of those songs (the same link as above) that I wrote several years ago: that the story is intentionally a legend, that it has alot of power, that one of the interesting aspects of the set of songs is technological change, both in farming (which is a key theme of the story) and in the actual physical recording of the songs over a period of 10 years.

“ความรู้สึกที่มีต่อบทเพลง ถึก”
“The feelings I have for the song ‘Tuk’”

เมื่อคืนออกจากห้องนอนมาช่วงตีสอง เข้านอนเร็วไปหน่อยมั้ง หายง่วงก็ไม่ฝืนนอนครับ ออกมาทำเพลงต่อดีกว่า ทำเพลง “ถึกควายทุยภาค 1” แบบเต็มเพลงค้างไว้น่ะครับ
Last night I came out of my bedroom at 2 am. Maybe I’d go lie down real fast but once I’m no longer tired I can’t force myself to lie down. It’d be better to come out and work on the song “Tuk Kwai Tuey 1,” like spend the night working on the whole song.

ดังที่เรียนแล้วว่า เราจะมีเมดเลย์ถึกควายทุยทั้งสิบภาคไว้แสดงบนเวทีครบรอบ 40ปีคาราบาวอย่างแน่นอน ซึ่งก็ได้ทำเดโมเสร็จเรียบร้อยไปแล้ว เหลือเพียงให้สมาชิกวงใส่รายละเอียดเพิ่มเติมใกล้แสดงเมื่อไหร่ก็นำมาใช้ซ้อมได้เลย
Like I already told you, we are definitely going to have a medley of all 10 Tuk Kwai Tuey songs to perform for the 40th anniversary of Carabao. And the demo is already finished. All that is left is for the band members to put in the additional details near the performance, whenever that is, and be able to bring that to rehearsal.

โดยส่วนตัวผม รู้สึกว่าถึกควายทุยนั้นเป็นดั่งตำนานของวง แม้จะเป็นเรื่องราวที่พี่แอ๊ดสมมุติตัวละครและเรื่องราวขึ้นมา แต่โดยเนื้อหาของทุกภาคนั้นล้วนมีเสน่ห์ และเป็นดั่งอุทาหรณ์สอนใจ ยิ่งเมื่อนำมารวมกันครบทุกภาคยิ่งเห็นถึงภาพรวมที่น่าทึ่ง
And as for me, I feel that Tuk Kwai Tuey is a legend of our band. Even if P’Add came up with the story and fictional character. But the whole content of this part of Tuk has a certain special something (เสน่ห์). It’s an interesting didactic example, all the more when put together with all the other Tuk songs so you can see the overall picture, which is impressive.

อาจเป็นเพราะช่วงเวลาก็มีส่วนไม่น้อย เพราะภาคหนึ่งถึงสิบนั้นห่างกันถึงสิบปีดังที่เคยเรียนให้ท่านทราบไปบ้างแล้ว ซึ่งเวลานั้นมีผลต่อประสบการณ์ และประสบการณ์ก็มีผลต่อการสร้างงานไม่น้อยเลย
Maybe it’s because the length of time over which there were contributions is not short. Because Part 1 is 10 years distant from Part 10, as I already explained. And there were a lot of experiences over that period of time, and those experiences affected the composition to a significant degree.

มิเพียงประสบการณ์ในการพบเจอบทเรียนชีวิต เทคโนโลยี่ในช่วงสิบปีก็มีความแตกต่างไม่น้อยเลย ถึกภาคแรกและภาคสิบจึงถูกสร้างจากเครื่องไม้เครื่องมือที่ต่างกันราวหน้ามือกับหลังมือ นี่จึงเป็นการเดินทางที่น่าสนใจในแทบทุกด้าน
It was just the experience in confronting the lessons of life. The technology over a 10 period also was quite different. Tuk part 1 and Tuk part 10 were therefore created from machinery that was as different as the front and back of a hand [as different as night and day?]. So the path we traveled was interesting from every side.

จะมีสักกี่บทเพลงที่เหมือนถึกควายทุย “สิบเพลง สิบภาค แต่เรื่องราวเดียวกันที่ฉาบไว้ด้วยประสบการณ์แห่งการเดินทางผ่านกาลเวลาอย่างแท้จริง”
How many songs are there anywhere like the Tuk Kwai Tuey set of songs? “10 songs, 10 parts, but one story that is plastered with the real experience of traveling through a length of time.”

ในมุมของผมนั้น รู้จักถึกภาคแรกจากการได้ฟังจากคาสเซ็ทเทปม้วนที่ทำให้พี่แอ๊ดตกงานนั่นแหละ อิ อิ ซึ่งเนื้อหาของมันมีอิทธิพลต่ออารมณ์นักดนตรีเต้นกินรำกินอย่างผมในยามนั้นมากมาย
From my perspective, I know Tuk part 1 from listening to a cassette tape that caused P’Add to lose his job (he he . . .)* And the contents were so impactful on the emotions of musicians like myself who performed for a living in that time.

นั่นเป็นอีกหนึ่งเหตุผลที่ทำให้ผมเลือกที่จะถอดชุดอวกาศทิ้ง และมาใส่อะไรก็ได้ที่มันใช่ตัวเราจริงๆ และทำในสิ่งที่เรารักและเห็นว่าถูกต้อง
This was one more reason that made me take out the empty[?] cassettes and toss them, put in whatever I really use and to do the things I love and believe are correct.

ด้วยความรักที่มีต่อบทเพลงถึกควายทุย ผมจึงตั้งใจว่าจะทำมันทั้งสิบภาคเป็นเดโมแบบเต็มเพลงไว้ แล้วจะชวนพี่แอ๊ดและสมาชิกวงมาร่วมกันบันทึกเสียงในแบบถึกควายทุยณ.พศ.นี้กันครับ
With the love that I have for the Tuk Kwai Tuey songs, I aim to turn the whole 10 songs into a medley. And I will invite P’Add and band members to come together to record a Tuk Kwai Tuey with a current sound this year.

*** เพิ่มเติม สำหรับท่านที่สงสัยในรูปแบบของถึกในแบบที่ผมกำลังจะทำ ลองเข้าไปดูถึกควายทุยภาค 7 ที่ผมลงไว้ใน youtube ได้ครับ แต่เมื่อเสร็จสมบูรณ์จะเป็นพี่แอ๊ดร้องครับ
*** Also for those of you curious about the style of the “Tuk” that I am doing right now, go look at “Tuk Kwai Tuey Part 7” that I already put out there on YouTube. Although, when it’s done, I assume it will be P’Add singing.

Note from translator: *[Prior to Lek joining Carabao, at Dicken’s Pub, Lek asked Add to play “ลุงขี้เมา” “Lung Kee Mao”) or the Drunken Uncle, which was a song on the first album. This caused Add to get fired. Tuk Kwai Tuey 1, was also a song on the first album. Lek heard that album on a cassette that Add gave him.]

So I keep piecing together connections between Add Carabao and other important Thai artists. Often the connection is that Add Carabao, or rather Yuenyong Opakul, helped them at the very beginning of their careers (writing songs for them (the band Hammer)), producing their first album (the band Zu Zu, with lead singer Tom Dundee), guest singing on their first studio album (the band Asanee & Wasan, with Asanee). In each case, the famous or soon-to-be famous artists, undoubtedly influenced Carabao in return, so understanding the connections helps one understand Carabao music.

Of course we know that Add Carabao idolized Nga Caravan and the band Caravan (pronounced Carawan). See for instance the Carabao tribute song to Caravan on their 20th anniversary. He even chose “Carabao” as the band’s name, in part because it is similar to Caravan. But did you know that a former Caravan band member toured with the band Carabao in their earliest days?

The singer Phongthaep Kradonchamnan, nicknamed “Moo” meaning pig, started out in the band Caravan. After a horrific massacre of students at Thammasat University in 1976 many left-leaning students and young people, including Caravan band members, escaped to the jungle to join the Thai communists. There was an amnesty for the communists in 1980. Phongthaep came out of the jungle and Add invited him to come tour with Carabao, which he did. But Phonthaep was never an actual Carabao band member according to Thai Wikipedia.

He was definitely touring with Carabao during the Made in Thailand tour, as you can see in the historical concert footage of the famous first Velodrome concert in 1985 (the one the police shut down early because of a rowdy crowd, at which point, Add soothed the crowd with a song sung acapella and urged them to leave peacefully). In that concert Phongthaep was very bouncy and animated and had a different style than Carabao, perhaps more influenced by traditional northeastern Thai styles, like mor lam, which is often compared to western rap. (Phonthaep is from the northeast). Phongthaep also guest starred in the first Carabao movie, เสียงเพลงแห่งเสรีภาพ (Music of Freedom), about the origins of the band (very much fictionalized) that came out in 1985.

When Phongthaep left to work as a solo artist, Add, along with other Carabao band members, played back-up on his first album “ห้วยแถลง” “Huay Talaeng,” released in 1986. The title of the album is the name of a district in Nakhon Rachasima Province, where Phongthaep is from. A YouTube of that full album is at the top of this page. Interestingly, the 7th song on that album หยดน้ำ “Water Drop” has borrowed the tune of the Christmas carol “Deck the Halls”

According to Thai and English Wikipedia, Phongthaep Kradonchamnan’s lyrics are very poetic and he sings about the downtrodden, thus earning the him name “กวีศรีชาวไร่ or “The Farmer’s Poet.” Interestingly this name was given to him by Asanee Polachan, who famously wrote “Kit Tueng Baan” (“Missing Home)” the song that evolved into Carabao’s “Duan Pen” or “Full Moon”). To learn more, check out the Carabao song,”Polachan’s Song ‘Full Moon’” (yes, it’s a song about a song.)

Below is Phongthaep Kradonchaman’s 25th Anniversary concert (the 25th Anniversary of “The Farmer’s Poet”), which should be a better, more accessible introduction to his music than his first album.

And finally, for those who speak Thai, here is a fairly recent TV show in which he is interviewed.

For more of his music, just search using his name in Thai: พงษ์เทพ กระโดนชำนาญ

A bonus of learning about Add Carabao (Yuenyong Opakul) is learning about many other great Thai musicians who have collaborated with him. Such is the case with Asanee Chotikul and the second band he formed with his brother Wasan, named Asanee & Wasan.

The band is important enough to have their own Wikipedia page both in Thai AND in English. You can learn more there. They are from Loei Province, which is in Isaan, and where I happened to live for the brief period I lived in Thailand. But for my purposes, this biography is almost irrelevant because the coolest thing about Asanee (and Wasan)’s music is not that it is specific to a region, but that it sounds so strangely familiar to any Westerner of my Boomer era. It’s like discovering famous classic rock song from the 80s that you somehow never heard before. For proof, here are some songs from their band’s 30th Anniversary concert at Impact Arena in Thailand, September 24-25, 2016.

Even more remarkable, Asanee, but not Wasan, was also part of a progressive rock band called บัตเตอร์ฟลาย Butterfly which was REALLY GOOD. And the lead singer sings in English with no accent.

Here is the album Butterfly Vol. 3 Action, from 1986

What does all this have to do with Yuenyong Opakul, aka Add Carabao? Not much, but in 1986 he did sing on three songs on the very first Asanee & Wasan studio album บ้าหอบฟาง Ba Hop Fang (To Carry Alot of Stuff), an album that is really really good and maybe one of their best.

The three songs Add Carabao is included on are:

ไม่เป็นไร Mai Bpen Rai (Never Mind)
วันนี้ วันดี วันที่เป็นไท Wan Nee Wan Dee Wan Tee Bpen Tai (Today is a Good Day, A Day That We Are Free/Thai)
น้ำเอย น้ำใจ Nam Oie Nam Jai (Kindness . . Oh, Kindness)

Later, Add Carabao helped write a song for the 4th Asanee & Wasan studio album ฟักทอง (Pumpkin) (1989). That song is หัวใจสะออน Hua Jai Sa-on (The Heart that Loves to Love), lyrics and melody by ยืนยง โอภากุ Yuenyong Opakul and อัสนี โชติกุล Asanee Chotikul. It is one of the more famous Asanee & Wasan songs and includes an Isaan word in the title (which made it hard for me to translate).

Add Carabao has collaborated with Asanee Chotikul as a cowriter on at least two big “We are the World”– style songs that gather a large group of famous musicians together to sing for a cause, most notably ชีวิตสัมพันธ์ Cheewit Sampat (Related Life) (1987), an environmental song, but also คนขายฝัน Kon Kaai Fun (Sellers of Dreams) for the Thailand Intellectual Property Festival (2002).

Another Add Carabao – Asanee Chotikul collaboration that follows the pattern of bringing together very famous artists to do something special is พลจันทร์เดือนเพ็ญ Polachan Duan Pen (Polachan’s [Song] “Full Moon”) (1989). I find the song stunning, with layers of meaning, but I get the impression it is not well known.

Interestingly both ชีวิตสัมพันธ์ Cheewit Sampat (Related Life) and พลจันทร์เดือนเพ็ญ Polachan Duan Pen (Polachan’s [Song] “Full Moon”) work their magic by riffing off the song  เดือนเพ็ญ Duan Pen.

Knowing that Yuenyong Opakul was close to Asanee Chotikul at least from the first Asanee-Wasan album alows me to theorize some connections between some Yuenyong Opakul songs and Asanee-Wasan songs. It especially helps explain the song “Yuenyong” on the Yuenyong Opakul solo album โน พลอมแพลม No Problem from 1990 (see the notes under the translation of the song).

First posted to Facebook October 11, 2020

[Background, during the covid-19 epidemic, when everyone was mostly locked down, Add Carabao and his friends put together a set of English-language songs. A long-time goal of mine was to convince Add Carabao (Yuenyong Opakul) to do English-language songs, but my proposed way of doing it would be to have a translator turn his existing Thai songs, or new ones, into rhyming English, thus freeing him to write anything he wants in his usual way, and leaving the translation portion (the easy part) to someone else. I’m not 100% sure that would be the best approach but I’m 90% sure it is. He did actually use my approach on one song, and that song worked well and is published. For this new set of songs (which perhaps constitutes an album, I’m not sure), he teamed up with ทิวา สาระจูฑะ Teewa Sarachuta, who previously wrote a set of songs for him to sing in his solo album ซึม เศร้า เหงา แฮงค์ Soaked Sad Lonely Hungover (2005). That earlier project was a huge success in my opinion, as it gave Add the opportunity to sing some very emotional and sentimental songs about love and longing–standard love songs–which aren’t his usual thing. Teewa Sarachuta’s best songs written for Add Carabao are เวลาที่เหลือ Wayla Tee Leua (The Time Remaining) and ไม่อยากให้เพลงนี้จบลง Mai Yaak Hai Playng Nee Jop Long (I Don’t Want This Song to End), which was stunning in performance. Some of Teewa’s songs branched out tentatively into English for a few verses, which I didn’t mind. But the English wasn’t perfect. Entrusting Teewa Surachata to write a whole set of English-language songs for an Add Carabao album, turned out to be a bad idea. Not only is the English distractingly bad, the songs are lacking the “secret sauce” that makes an Add Carabao song, an Add Carabao song. In the end, I don’t think these songs were even intended for Farang. I think they are aimed at other Thais, who (understandably) enjoy branching out into English sometimes. I understand because I like playing around with the Thai language, even though I am terrible at it. Below is my frustrated post as of October 11, 2020]

So I’m just going to put it out there: Add Carabao’s new English language songs are pathetic. “My Song” has some charm to it, but also has mistakes that could have been fixed for $50 by running it past an English-language editor. There is like one song out of like 7 that we have seen so far with no English language mistakes, but it is only OK. 1) An Add Carabao song should be written by Yuenyong Opakul and not Teewa Sarachuta, who is good, but has already proved he doesn’t know English well enough to write for an English-language audience. 2) All the songs are safe and boring, not like the Thai songs that made Add Carabao famous. It’s as if they (the writers) didn’t have enough confidence in English to be edgy or even interesting. 3) Add Carabao has a gazillion dollars and tons of friends who would have helped him for free. Why oh why, is there no English-language editing of these songs? Below is the one song I really like, but it will be liked by me and like 10 other Farang who understand the Thai parts of the song.

Add Carabao has said many times that he got his start writing for the Thai band แฮมเมอร์ Hammer, another Songs for Life band, which I believe got their name from the song “If I Had a Hammer.”

English-language Wikipedia under the entry “Aed Carabao” says*, “Aed produced the first album of the group Hammer in 1979. With this album, Hammer became known. In 1980, Aed composed the song ‘Teuk Kwaai Tui’ (‘Wild Buffalo’) for Hammer to record for their album Bpak Dtai Baan Rao (‘Our Southern Home’). That album vaulted Hammer to fame. Later, Aed worked with Hammer to come out with an album named Khanchanmueang with a folk-look thung musical style.”

Although the members of Hammer were born in Thailand, they are of Afghan descent. One of their most popular songs is ปักษ์ใต้บ้านเรา (“Our Southern Home”) and they are Muslim, so many people assume they are from the South of Thailand where most Muslim Thais live, but they are not. (I suppose this is similar to how Americans might assume John Denver is from Denver because of his name or because of “Rocky Mountain High”, or from West Virginia because of “Country Roads.”)

From Thai Wikipedia entry on แฮมเมอร์ (Hammer)

แฮมเมอร์ เป็นวงดนตรีของ 4 พี่น้องตระกูล ประธาน ซึ่งเป็นชาวไทยมุสลิมเชื้อสายปาทาน และมีแม่เป็นชาวจังหวัดนครนายก แต่ไปใช้ชีวิตอยู่ที่ภาคใต้ ซึ่งทำให้ผู้คนมักเข้าใจผิดว่าเป็นชาวปักษ์ใต้ โดยมี อารี ประธาน เป็นนักร้องนำ มีผลงานออกมาตั้งแต่ปี พ.ศ. 2522 จนปัจจุบัน มีเพลงที่ได้รับความนิยมและรู้จักมากมาย เช่น บินหลา, ปักษ์ใต้บ้านเรา, แม่, ฉันเป็นต้นไม้ เป็นต้น โดยชื่อ แฮมเมอร์ หมายถึงค้อนที่ทุบทำลายความอยุติธรรมต่าง ๆ และสร้างความเป็นธรรมในสังคมตลอดจนมีส่วนในการสร้างสรรวัฒนธรรมและอารยธรรมของมนุษยชาติ

Quick Translation: “Hammer is a band of 4 siblings in the family Pratan, who are Muslim Thais of Afghan descent. And their mother is from Nakhon Nayok Province. Which causes people to mistakenly think that they are people of Southern Thailand. And Aaree Pratan is the lead singer, with songs released from 1979 to the present that are popular and many people know them, for example ‘Fly Away,’ ‘Our Southern Home,’ ‘Mother,’ and ‘I Am a Tree.’ They began with the name Hammer, which means a hammer which pounds and smashes all kinds of injustice and creates justice in society including participating in creating a civilization of humanity.”

I don’t know for sure which songs Add wrote for Hammer, other than to note that the last song on the first Hammer album is ถึกควายทุย (Tuk Kwai Tuey) (1978) which is also on the first Carabao album (1981). To me, the song ผีเสื้อ (Butterfly), also on the first Hammer album, sounds like a proto version of a later Carabao song ผีเสื้อนักสู้ (Fighter Butterfly) (2007). The Hammer song แม่ (Mother) 1982 sounds like it may be a proto version of the Add Carabao song วันวานไม่มีเขา วันนี้ไม่มีเรา (If It Weren’t for Her, Today I’d Not Be Here) (2012).

Here are two YouTubes with popular Hammer songs. Their music is great:

Additionally, I think Add may be referring to Hammer’s popular song ปักษ์ใต้บ้านเรา (Our Southern Home) in his song อยากได้อะไรทำไมไม่บอก Yaak Dai Arai Tamai Mai Bok (If You Want Something, Why Don’t You Tell [Us]?). Why else would Add refer to the region as ปักษ์ใต้บ้านเรา “Our Southern Home” given that he is not from the South?

*Full disclosure, I expanded the Aed Carabao entry in English-language Wikipedia long ago by translating the entry in Thai, so that may be my translation.

At minute 41:01 of OVERDRIVE LiVE ICONIC SERIES EP4, posted on YouTube August 31, 2020:

In this interview, Yuenyong Opakul (aka Add Carabao) explains his position regarding religion. There is an apparent tension between the non-magical and very compelling Buddhist insights that come across in his songs and the fact that he is often seen supporting the actually-existing style of Buddhism in Thailand involving holy objects and magical blessings. The question of Add’s religious position is interesting to me because one of my very favorite Add Carabao songs is “ความจริง” “Truth,” which from my American and atheist perspective sounds like a perfect atheist/humanist anthem. According to Thai atheists, it is possible to be both atheist and religious because Buddhism is a religion that does not imply a belief in God and because Buddhism can be construed as just a practice or a method for discovering truth rather than an already fixed set of beliefs one must subscribe to. So what kind of religious person is Add? Is he deeply religious without being superstitious (the impression given off by his songs)? But if that were true, what do we make of his wearing and selling specially blessed aumlets to raise money for temples or Buddhist projects?

(It may or may not be relevant that Eed Opakul, Add’s idential twin brother, who is also Buddhist, has a song explicitly condemning superstitious beliefs: “ควายธนู” “Magic Buffalo”.”)

ADD: อีกเรื่องหนึ่งที่ผมจะยกตัวอย่าง ยกตัวอย่างนะครับ มันมีหลายเรื่อง เรื่องพระพุทธศาสนา ผมเป็นคนพุทธ แต่ไม่รู้รู้จักศาสนาพุทธเลย ก็เลยปักใจจะใช้เวลาให้มากที่สุดเพื่อศึกษาทำความเข้าใจพระพุทธศาสนา ก็จนทำสำเร็จ ก็ศึกษาแล้วก็อ่านค้นคว้า นั่นแหละ

With regard to another matter, I’ll give an example. There are many, many subject areas. The matter of religion. I’m a Buddhist. But I didn’t [really] know Buddhism at all. And so I was determined to spend a lot of time to study and try to understand Buddhism and do it until I succeeded. And so I studied and read digging into it. Just that.

INTERVIEWER: ปฎิบัติด้วยไหมครับ

Do you practice?

ADD: ปฎิบัติด้วยครับ เค้าเดินจงกรมกัน meditational walking เค้านั่งสมาธิกัน ผมก็ทำ แต่ผมปฎิบัติถึง วิ่งจงกรม

Yes. I do meditational walking. I sit for meditation. I also do that. But my practice extends to meditational running.*

[Interviewer laughs]

ADD: เคยได้ยินไหม วิ่งจงกรม

Have you heard of it before? Meditational running?

INTERVIEWER: ไม่เคยครับ ๆ วิ่งจงกรมคืออะไร

No, never. What is meditational running?

ADD: เดี๋ยววันหลังจะสอนให้

Later I’ll teach you.

INTERVIEWER: คืออกไปวิ่งหรือ

It’s going out running?

ADD: วิ่งจงกรม คือวิ่งสมาธิ วิ่งไปเนี่ยแหละ แต่วิ่งไปแล้วเราทำสมาธิอยู่

Meditational running is running meditating. It’s just running, but while running, you are meditating.

INTERVIEWER: อ๋อ เราอยู่ในสมาธิ

Oh, we are in meditation?

ADD: แล้วเราจะมองเห็นตัวเราวิ่ง วิ่งไป

And we will watch and see ourselves running, running along.

INTERVIEWER: คือเราก็จะรู้ตัวเองว่าเรา

It’s that we will know ourselves that we …

ADD: เราจะต้องเป็นคนรู้ตัวเรา

We will have to be the ones knowing ourselves

INTERVIEWER: เออ ใช่

Uh, right

ADD: ต้องดูตัวเรา พระพุทธศาสนา จุดสูงสุดของการทำสมาธิ ก็คือ มองให้เห็นตัวเอง เพราะอริยสัจ อริยสัจทั้งหลายเนี่ย มันเป็นอริยสัจที่เกิดจากจิต มันไม่ได้เกิดข้างนอก มันเกิดข้างใน เพราะฉะนั้น ถ้าเราจะเข้าใจมันเราจะต้องมองให้เห็นตัวเรา คือมองให็เห็นใจตัวเรา

One must see oneself. In Buddhism the starting point of meditation is to watch in order to see yourself. The 4 Noble Truths**, all of them, come from the mind. They don’t come from the outside; they come from the inside. Because of that, if we are going to understand them, we must look and see ourselves. It’s looking and seeing your own heart.

INTERVIEWER: อ๋อ เราก็ต้องรู้ตัวเองของเราตลอด ถูกไหมคับ วิ่งจงกรม

Oh we always need to understand our own selves, isn’t that right? Meditational running …

ADD: ทุกวันนี้อะ พุทธเนี่ย มันเป็นพุทธที่เติบโตมา… พุทธในประเทศไทยเนี่ย มันเป็นพุทธที่เติมโตมาจากผี เพราะฉะนั้นมันก็เลยปนระหว่างพุทธกับผี แต่เอาละ ผมก็อะลุ่มอล่วย คือผมรู้จักพุทธแท้ละ แต่ผมยังทิ้งพุทธผีไม่ได้ เพราะว่าพี่น้องผมมันอยู่แต่พุทธผี ดังนั้น จึงจะเห็นว่าผมก็ไปสร้างภาพช่วยวัดโน้น สร้างภาพช่วยวัดนี้ แต่ผมเข้าใจว่าพุทธแท้คืออะไร พุทธผีคืออะไร ถ้าให้ผมเลือกที่จะอยู่ข้างใดข้างหนึ่ง ผมเลือกพุทธแท้ ถ้าให้ผมเลือกที่จะอยู่ข้างใดข้างหนึ่ง ผมเลือกพุทธแท้ แต่ถ้าจะให้อยู่สองข้าง ผมต้องอยู่ทั้งสองข้าง เพราะผมเป็นคนของสังคม

These days Buddhism, it’s a Buddhism that develops from . . . .Buddhism in Thailand, it’s a Buddhism that develops from spirits [that is, from animism], and because of that it’s a mix between Buddhism and spirits. But alright; I’m able to accommodate for that. It’s that I understand true Buddhism, but I still can’t toss aside spirit-Buddhism, because my brothers and sisters [other Thais] are in spirit-Buddhism. It’s like that. And so you see I go out giving off an image of helping this temple and that. But I know what true Buddhism is and what spirit-Buddhism is. If you have me choose one side, I choose true Buddhism. But if you let me be on two sides, I must be on both sides. Because I am a person of [my] society.

INTERVIEWER: แล้วเป็นคนของส่วนรวม

So you are person [who is a member] of the community at large.

ADD: ผมไม่ใช่พระอรหันต์ ผมยังช่วยเหลือสังคมได้อีกหลายทาง ผมก็ออกเป็นพุทธผี แต่ว่าก็พยายามอย่าดึงพวกผีให้มาเป็นพุทธให้มากที่สุดเท่าที่มีโอกาส มันเหมือนเราพยายาม มันเหมือนจะปรากฎในเสียงเพลงของผม

I’m not an “arahant” [a being who has attained enlightenment]. I can still aid society in many other ways. And so I appear to be a spirit-Buddhist. But as much as possible, I try really hard to convince the followers of spirit stuff to be Buddhists. It’s like how I try . . . I feel it appears in my songs

INTERVIEWER: งั้นเพลงยุคหลัง ๆ ที่ แอ๊ดก็จะเริ่มมีเรื่องปรัชญาพุทธ

Like songs in recent periods, in which you Add, started running into trouble over Buddhist philosophy?

ADD: ครับ แต่ว่า ของพวกนี้มันกว้างไปกว้างไม่ได้ เพราะมันอยู่ในแวดวงจำกัด เพราะคนส่วนใหญ่เค้าจะเป็นผี ส่วนน้อยเป็นพุทธ อย่าง จตุคามรามเทพ อย่างพระเจ้าตาก อย่างไอ้ไข่ เป็นผีหมด สมมติว่าครูนี่ก็เป็นผี แต่ที่ท่านนั่นเป็นพระ ก็ยังไปบังคับให้ท่านเป็นผีอีก ให้มึงเขกโป๊กๆ knocking knuckles ให้อะไร มาบังคับท่าน อันนี้ไม่ใช่พุทธ

Yes. But with regard to those things, I can’t go too wide because it’s in a restricted environment. Because the majority of people are spirit-[type.] The minority are [un-hyphenated] Buddhist. Like Jatukham Rammathep,*** like Prajao Dtak,**** like Ai Kai***** They are all spirits or ghosts. If you assume this [or that] teacher is “spirit”, although he is [just] a monk, you’ve forced him to be yet another “spirit.” Have him knock “bonk bonk.” Do whatever. You’ve forced him [into it.] This isn’t Buddhism.******

*This is completely true. He posts about it on Facebook.
**According to this PBS article on Thai Buddhism, “The Four Noble Truths comprise the essence of Buddha’s teachings, though they leave much left unexplained. They are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering.”
*** Wikipedia says, “Jatukham Rammathep is the name of a popular amulet sold by some Buddhist temples in Thailand. The amulet is named for two princes of the Srivijaya kingdom of southern Thailand, and is believed to provide protection and good fortune to the bearer.”
****King Taksin, the ghost?
***** This is a particular little boy ghost that one temple worships, and Add just did a song for that temple. It is here on YouTube: “พรไอ้ไข่.” I did not bother to translate it.
****** The song “หลวงพ่อคูณ” “Luang Por Koon” would be relevant here. It is about a particular famous monk thought to have especially strong magical powers, yet the monk’s message is that the answer lies within the person:

“ขอพร กันไม่ ขาดสาย
They all ask for blessings continually
หลวงพ่อบอก ไอ้นาย รุ่นกู ให้-มึง . . .
Luang Por tells these young guys, . . .

… ก็แล้วแต่ พวกมึง
… It’s [really] up to you guys
จะนึกถึง ชั่ว-ดี
to be thinking about good and evil
ชั่ว-ดี อยู่ใน กะโหลก
Good and evil is inside the skull
มาเขก โป๊ก โป๊ก จำไว้ ให้ดี
I come knock, bonk! bonk! Be sure to remember and not forget!”