Backstage

If you are new to Carabao go check out the music. If you are a long-time fan of Carabao, Thai music, and Thai language you may come backstage to learn more about these topics:

HOW THAI SONGS ARE PUT TOGETHER

Add Carabao Explains How to Compose a Song

The Rhyming Scheme of a “กลอน”-Style Thai Poem or Song: A Fun Illustration

Use of metaphors. Bamboo, butterflies, crows and seagulls, buffalo, rainbows, hidden stars, the full moon, and an overpass: Symbols used and reused in Carabao and other Thai songs

Tips for Singing in Thai

The movie “ทองปาน” (“Tong Bpan”) (1977) may provide some context for the Carabao songs about poverty in Thailand.

IMPORTANT CARABAO STATEMENTS and INTERVIEWS TRANSLATED

Translation of Add Carabao post offering moral support to Move Forward Party after ban by Constitutional Court

Keo Carabao speaks about Add Carabao after releasing the song เพื่อนเพื่อชีวิต “Peuan Peua Chewit” (“Friends For Life”)

Add Carabao’s songwriting and the Buddhist concept of “yonisomanasikara” (proper attention)

Add announces Carabao will disband with a last concert April 1, 2024

40th Anniversary interview with Lek, Add, and Thierry

Add Carabao clarifies his religious position

Lek Carabao posts about his feelings for the song “Tuk.”

Add Carabao Answers the Criticism ‘[You] Work for Money!’)”

Add Carabao talks about Prem Tinsulanonda and the amnesty for Thai communists

Add Carabao talks about marijuana between songs at a concert at SR Residennce Hotel, Petchabun, in June 2019

Old Add Carabao interview from around 2004, translated

AWESOME COVER OF CARABAO SONG IN ENGLISH: USES TRANSLATION AT THIS SITE 

Awesome English-language cover of “วณิพก” “Wanipok” by Michael P. Albert

INTRODUCTION TO OTHER THAI ARTISTS THROUGH CARABAO

Hammer OR แฮมเมอร์

Asanee & Wasan อัสนี-วสันต์

Phongthaep Kradonchamnan พงษ์เทพ กระโดนชำนาญ

Hugo (Lek) Chakrabongse Levy

ปาน ธนพร Parn Thanaporn

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SONGS

A series of 10 songs across the first 10 Carabao studio albums, the “Tuk Kwai Tuey” songs, tell the story of a farmer, Manohk, who is forced off his land after the death of his beloved buffalo Tuk. MUST HEAR.

10 other Carabao songs with sequels

A set of a similar songs across the first 4 albums: About the rice harvest and carts

Songs written to celebrate the band’s multiple-of-5 anniversaries with the fans.

Add Carabao’s birthday songs (he reflects on his life and getting older)

Three Add Carabao songs based on the Hindu legend of Arjuna consider issues of War and Peace

Add and Lek Carabao write songs that apologize for the Song “Ganja.” PLUS my own theory about the origins of the song “Ganja.”

Was “ทะเลใจ” (“Telay Jai” or “Ocean Heart”) Inspired by “Heart of Gold”?

Dangerous waters and the ship of state: A metaphor across 3 songs

Translation of คนกับควาย Kon Gap Kwai (Person With Buffalo) an early Song for Life (1975) important for the genre, and influencing Carabao in particular.

OTHERS TRANSLATING CARABAO

Announcement: All Songs through “Made In Thailand” ALBUM Fixed by GREAT Translator

Nigel Hawkins also did some Singable English Translations of Carabao Songs.

Tom Vamvanij offers his own translation of “ทะเลใจ” “Telay Jai” with advice for translating this and other songs.

ANAYLSIS OF  ADD CARABAO’S MUSIC AS A WHOLE

Aed Carabao: Made in Thailand” by Heni Lemieux (OFFSITE at Din Deng, in their Understanding Thailand series.) Draws on material from this site, but it wasn’t me!

Humanism in the Add Carabao songs

Add Carabao can do a huge range of musical styles

Some Carabao Songs that “Feel Like” Some English-language Song

MISCELLANEOUS CARABAO STUFF

Rest in Peace ดุก คาราบาว Duk Carabao (ลือชัย งามสม Luechai Ngaamsom)

Good G’s poem for Pao Carabao, who passed away July 14, 2017.

Carabao played with Santana twice. Hear the back story and see the video.

Carabao once performed an amazing English version of “Made in Thailand” in the US

Lyrics Translations for the Band