Shut up and smile

One of the more surreal aspects of living in Thailand is hearing American music in different venues. A lot of restaurants and clubs have live music and while they primarily sing Thai songs, every once in a while they'll throw in a golden oldie from the states. I've heard a LOT of the Carpenters - ugh I can't remember the name of the song right now, then there's the standard dance mix I hear on Ko Samet or in some of the other clubs.... Sean Kingston: Beautiful
Girls, T-Pain & Flo-rida: Low, and Kardinal Offishal & Akon: Dangerous.... oh there's a couple others I hear a lot but I'm all out of google-fu for the evening.

The one song though, that I hear constantly is "When You Say Nothing at All." (written by Paul Overstreet & Don Schlitz - I have no idea which version I'm listening to here) I'm sure this song is meant to be a sweet and sincere expression of love and affection, but I just can't stand it. I lump it in with "I knew I loved you before I met you." and "Girl, you'll be a woman soon" as one of the all time worst sentiments conveyed in a love song. "You say it best, when you say nothing at all." seems all the more appropriate when sung to people who don't actually understand the lyrics. And it just typifies what little I've seen of the Farang man / Thai woman relationship. More often than not, couples in this dynamic speak very little of each other's languages and must therefore communicate through the language of 'love' (aka - sex & money). I hear this song, and all I can think of is who needs actual communication or intelligent discourse... all you need to remember for a relationship to work is "shut up and smile baby, shut up and smile." Gah!

Hmmm.... I thought I had more to say about that in this post. But it turns out I just wanted you all to know how much I hate that song. That's all.


TAG: Code Watermelon



edited to add that I went out tonight and sure enough the 'shut up and smile' song came on again this time with a woman singing it... good lord! I got excited though when "I will survive" came on and started to sing along, but was quickly informed that in Thailand this is a classic katoey (transexual) song. Lovely.