Farren hates the new NDP Song

Farren talks about the NDP Song

Editor's Note: All Swearing has been Bleeped. Excuse the patriotism. All comments towards the song is based solely on my opinion on them. If you feel pissed at my comments. I apologize

 To those unaware of what 'NDP' is, allow me to explain it in the most brief way possible. You see in Singapore, we celebrate our so called nation's birthday which we call 'National Day' on the 9th of August. And to celebrate this birthday, we have what we call National Day Parade (NDP). To put it simply, it's basically a 4-hour long version of the NFL Half-Time Show but the army, air force and navy are included.

Now every NDP, a sort of theme song is written for the NDP. This tradition of writing a NDP song has been going on since 1984 with the release of 'Stand Up for Singapore' and then 'Count on Me Singapore' in 1986 followed by 'We Are Singapore' and 'One People, One Nation, One Singapore.' in 1987 and 1990 respectively. Then NDP songs peaked in 1998 with the release of 'Home' (which I feel is so overrated) But since '98, most NDP songs have taken on a different role. A role that I hate.

If you listen to the older songs, you get a spirit and a form of togetherness. With lyrics such as:

"We're going to show the world what Singapore can be. We can achieve, we can achieve!"

Putting patriotism aside, when hearing this, you feel a sense of teamwork and that "Yes! We can achieve". I love the old NDP songs. It gives a feeling that the newer songs just don't have. A friend of mine put it this way

"The Old Songs give a sense of Togetherness, The Newer Songs give a sense of Working Together"

An example of using this spirit are songs that have chants such as 'Our Singapore' in 2015 and 'One Singapore' in 2013.

Now let's talk about The Road Ahead, the 2021 NDP Song. In my opinion, this is not a good song. The link to the song is here. Go have a listen and record down what you feel whilst listening to the song closely. You done? Ok. Now your feelings may be different towards what I feel and I respect that but here are some reasons why I dislike it.

Let's begin with the beginning (duh), one of the reasons why I don't really like the song starts here. The actual reason itself. Exactly what does:

"One Man on an Island, One Drop in the Sea. All it takes to set a wave in motion. Is a single word an action? A hope that we can be. The change that we've been longing to see." 

 Now I kind of understand the meaning in the first two lines. All you need is a Man and a Drop of Water to set a wave in motion. But the rest sounds a bit 'all over the place'. Older songs are much more 'to the point' if you will. For example, "We have a Vision for tomorrow, just believe, just believe." It's easy to understand. We have a vision for the future. Believe in it! 

Now next comes the patriotic part. It goes 

"For Our Home, Our Land, Our Family. It's all within our reach"

As condescending as I may seem, I like the sounding of this line. Whatever the meaning of it, it's easy to understand. But that we immediately go to the chorus

"See this Island, every grain of sand. Hear this anthem, it's the voices of our friends. Come whatever, on the Road Ahead, we did it before and we'll do it again." 

Now. What does 'See this Island, every grain of sand' mean? Singapore isn't made of sand, it's beautiful! I assume the line about the anthem is referring to the everyday life of a student singing the anthem in school. But what is the 'it' in the last line? I assume it's COVID-19 but it is a pandemic! Something we have never experienced other than SARS? 

Before I continue, just want to give a quick shout-out to the animation team for the music video. What an amazing way to captivate an audience! And a very smart decision, thumbs up.

But now we return to our second verse which goes 

"When the darkness turn to hours and the day's last light is gone, look around us always and remember. There were times we were uncertain, but we just kept walking on. It's always darkest just before the dawn."

Now. Let's ignore the front from "When the darkness... always and remember". Because  this line is my favourite line in the song. Especially with the animations. It shows quite clearly that we have built and come a long way and to always look around and always remember. But the back part is so cliché. This line about "There were times we were uncertain but we just kept walking on" has been used so many times in different songs just in a different way. In 'We Are Singapore Remake' in 2018, the song begins with "How many times have you heard them say, the future is uncertain and everything must change". It's just using back the same ******* line!!! Anyways. We follow with a repeat of the chorus and then comes another real downer, the bridge. It goes

"Our home, the home we share. Where the garden always grows towards the light. Though the road ahead is daunting, I know we're gonna be alright."

I know I'm being the biggest **** of all time but exactly what does "Where the garden always grows toward the light" mean? It's either a pointless line or an educational reference. Leaves absorb sunlight for photosynthesis and making food but I don't understand why this should be included. And if the first line is included towards the reference of this line, we further twist the idea of this song. Doesn't the grass grow to the light everywhere? Not just you know, Singapore? Once again, my opinion.

And then a repeat of the chorus before we get a triple-decker bus carrying otters and animated version of the singers. The End.

I understand that many love this song. We love it so much, a dance and mascot was created to tie in with it. I think The Road Ahead is overrated. Whether or not history will be kind to it is history’s job. Now I know by this point I sound a bit like a Grandpa ranting about the “Good Old Days” and that is exactly what I feel about myself. In a way, I hate myself for hating this song. And I know songs don’t need to have meaning but in a very useless way, an NDP Song is like and National Anthem but for that year only. I am still amazed by the amount of likes that music video has.

So here’s my simple proposal. Singapore is 56 years old in 2021. We need a National Day Song that acts as a transition between the songs of the 2000s and 2010s, to a song of the future. In my opinion, ‘Home’ was that transition in 1998 and ‘Song for Singapore’ was that song in 2010. Now we need a song to take us into a new era of NDP songs for millennials (born after 1990s). The most frustrating part is we actually tried to make that transition back in 2019 with ‘Our Singapore’. For the first time, we had a rap in a NDP song! But we need that to continue, not some song ranting about gardens and people on islands. 

I am not musically talented and I shouldn’t even have a say in this but I hope that this simple proposal can change the way the country see NDP songs. We can go from Creating the Singapore Spirit to Utilising this Spirit before finally Recreate this Spirit. 

Happy Reading and Happy National Day!