I take pride in my music collection. Ever since I was a kid (I was in elementary school), I already knew how to download files from the internet, including music from free music websites (don’t be like me, guys. Get your music legally). It helped me get the music I love and as time went by, my collection grew bigger and bigger. I don’t know the exact number but my music collection has reached about 30 to 40 gigabytes which, for me, is pretty crazy. New musicians emerge and new songs are released, and I am pretty sure my collection is still growing, even though I haven’t been in a download frenzy for quite a long time.
Genre-wise, my collection varies greatly. It ranges from classical and jazz to indie pop and vaporwave. Korean pop tunes are juxtaposed with shidaiqu from the 1920s, and disco house tunes are played alongside Dolly Parton and The Mamas and The Papas in a shuffle list. One of the precious gems in my collection is a playlist of Dutch-Indies music comprising a number of artists, including The Blue Diamonds and Wieteke van Dort. Speaking of Dutch-Indies music, one cannot simply forget Wieteke van Dort, a Dutch singer-actress who rose to fame in the 1960s when she began her career in the entertainment industry as a comedian. It was in the late 1970s, however, that her popularity peaked when she hosted a program entitled The Late Late Lien Show, through which she introduced her character, Tante Lien.
Van Dort has released a number of albums but the one that I have (and I feel is the most memorable) is 25 Jaar als Tante Lien, a compilation album commemorating the show’s 25th anniversary. The album is home to the songs van Dort performed in her show, and some are the ones Indonesians (including me as an Indonesian millennial) are familiar with. Popular opuses include Geef Mij Maar Nasi Goreng (Give Me My Nasi Goreng), Terang Boelan (“Moonlit” or “Full Moon”), Jalan Kenangan (Road of Memories), and the melancholic Hallo Bandoeng (Hello, Bandung)—which is argued by some to be the inspiration behind the patriotic song Halo, Halo Bandung, albeit having a significantly different meaning or plot.
Van Dort, Tante Lien, and her 25 Jaar als Tante Lien allow me to catch a glimpse of how people lived back then, especially in the colonial era. The Late Late Lien Show itself had quite a unique concept; the show was designed like a koempoelan or gathering attended by Dutch people who had settled in Indonesia, as well as popular Indonesian artists in that era. In every episode, Tante Lien and her guests would reminisce about their good olden days in Indonesia (or, precisely, the Dutch East Indies). Tante Lien would also perform some songs with the show’s home band, The Sate Babi Boys (I remember laughing pretty hard when I saw one of the episodes for the first time on YouTube and Tante Lien introduced the band at the beginning of the episode because of the name. Sate babi means pork satay in Indonesian). In one episode, Tante Lien reminisced about the time when the development of technology gave birth to wonderful innovations, and one of the creations that change the lives of many is the telephone. It was also during this episode that Tante Lien performed Hallo Bandoeng. Arranged as a musical piece for vocal and piano, the song tells a story of an old woman who talks to her son (who lives in Indonesia) through telephone—the technology that amazes and connects her to someone she loves so dearly who lives thousands of miles away. The woman lives long enough to hear the voice of her grandson before falling to the floor and seemingly passing away.
Hallo Bandoeng is not the only sad, emotional, or otherwise “quirky” song in the album. Afscheid van Indie is a farewell song from Van Dort to people who surrounded her during her days in the Dutch East Indies such as her nannies and gardeners. Arm Den Haag is a song “mocking” Den Haag. Klappermelk met Suiker is a fun, upbeat song with a Hawaiian vibe, telling a story about a girl who wants nothing but coconut milk with sugar. And there is one particular song that might sound relaxing but is actually pretty scary and quite gory—Sarina.
Sarina is the 22nd track in the album (at least that’s what my iTunes shows me). Some sources mention Ismail Marzuki as the composer/writer of the song. The song opens with a short intro featuring a melody of Hawaiian guitar, sort of giving me a calm, SpongeBob music, and this is a “trap” for me. As someone who does not speak Dutch, I understand almost nothing, except some lines written in Indonesian so I didn’t see the horror coming (and I didn’t expect it at all). The plot focuses on Sarina, a village girl who works as a farmer. She works in the field and meets Kromo, another farmer. They both fall in love and have sex in an area enclosed by alang-alang (speargrass). Unbeknownst to the lovebirds, a tiger lurks and eventually devours them, enjoying them for “dinner”, leaving behind the “small bones”. The trees growing around the area are in sorrow the next morning as beneath them, lie the bones of the lovers.
Recently, I saw the news about an old woman who was devoured by a large python. The woman worked as a farmer and went missing. Her family reported the situation and when the locals searched the forest for her, they found a python whose body showed an unusual shape, as if the serpent had just swallowed something big. The locals killed the snake and cut open its body, only to find the body of the poor old woman inside. This, of course, was reported as serious news. Sarina, on the other hand, depicted the tragedy in a rather romantic way, transforming the horror into a soothing waltz. It is beautiful and scary at the same time. It is a haunting song that shows how love can lead to a tragic untimely demise, in contrast with the song’s innocent arrangement.
Junseo's Thoughts 