365 DAYS PROJECT

2003   FEBRUARY 19   #050

Cambodian Funk Yodeler - Unknown Title

Found in a cheap record store bin back around 1993. For all we know it's a story of a true cross-cultural love, Cambodian boy meets Swiss girl in ski resort. Legitimate music.

- Stephen Downs

TT-4:17 / 5.88MB / 192kbps 44.1khz
from Cassette

Stephen writes back on March 15th:
I just found out from a Cambodian woman that the singing on "Cambodian Funk Yodeler" is actually Laotian!

John Davison writes:
I'm sitting here with my friend Tohny, a U.S. citizen who speaks Thai, Khmer, and English. He's telling me a little bit about this song. The singer is singing in Thai, but with a distinctly Khmer/Lao accent. (This is not at all uncommon. Tohny claims that there is a disproportionate number of ethnic Khmer personalities on the Thai pop music scene. There's a huge cultural overlap among the Thai, Khmer, and Lao.) The song is essentially an ode to the Kuntai Isan (northern Thailand), north of Surin. ...they love to eat "bla" (fish)... Another sentiment expressed in the lyrics is that "It doesn't matter what part of the country they live in...they're still Thai..." It's _not_ a love story. It's mainly a song describing how nice the people of the Isan are. "All of them belong to one country, and they love each other..." Tohny does recognize the singer -- he's an "old guy...famous from the 1960s..." He has this singer on an LP at home, but he doesn't remember the man's name. If he finds out who it is, he'll let me know.