It seemed like a good idea at the time.
I first heard the song Birth School Work Death by The Godfathers in 1988 when I was a college student in the US.I thought the title really reflected modern life, especially in Singapore. I also thought, how cool it would be if someone actually performed the song in Singapore?
But the song was not a big hit. It didn't help that the lyrics made references to Michael Caine, heroin and kissing Margaret Thatcher's shoes. I bet most of you have never heard of The Godfathers (apart from The Godfather movies).
But more than 25 years later, it remains one of my favourite song because of the monster guitar riff and catchy shouted chorus.
I thought maybe if I could come up with my own Singapore-specific lyrics for the song, I could...
Actually, I didn't know what I could do. So I carried the idea with me for two and a half decades and did nothing with it.
Then I woke up Monday morning and the lyrics just came to me as I was lying in bed. Excited, I decided to record myself performing those lyrics over the orginal song and even make a music video for it.
I downloaded the free software Audacity to record my vocals with a cheap computer microphone and created the video with Microsoft PowerPoint. Yes, this was how low-budget it was.
It took me about two days and the result is above.
My rapping is quite embarrassing, but some of you may be amused by how bad it is. Kenya West has nothing to worry about. Clearly, I'm no Shigga Shay.
My apologies to The Godfathers.
Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
