Malaysia
Written: 1983
Writers: David Jenneson, Alan Hovden
Status: Unrecorded and unpublished
Genre and Style: Historical Pop Ballad
Comments: Dave: Malaysia is one of those rare songs that focuses on a tiny slice of history and tells it from the point of view of an anonymous witness living it as it happens. In this case it is a traveler caught in a hotel room in Singapore when the Japanese air force attacked on December 7, 1941, the same day they attacked Pearl Harbor. It is similar in approach to Mark Knoffler’s brilliant song, I’m Done With Bonaparte, about Napoleon’s winter retreat from Moscow from the point of view of a freezing, unknown and suffering soldier. Nevertheless Malaysia predates the Knoffler song by at least twenty years. The verse has vivid imagery and the huge chorus has a grief for a gone world disintegrating in front of the traveler’s eyes. When it was first written in 1983 I played it for people in their 70’s. Some were almost moved to tears that such a relatively young writer could have such empathy for what they experienced during the World War II.
Comments: Al: This song scares me… it’s so emotional and huge… but it’s not a love song. I guess it’s an anthem of sorts. Is it politically incorrect now? I guess we took a time machine back and got wrapped up in all the emotions of the day. It was a time for creating myths and larger than life sentiments to try and grasp the scale of what was happening to the world then.
Malaysia
Vocals - Al Hovden
December 7
Across the heavens
Rising sun across the pearly harbor
Diving faces over smoking water
Wake up to war
The giant was sleeping
Room 11
The era ending
Headlines spread out on the bed this morning
Wireless crackles with the warning
Through Singapore
The shadow is creeping
Malaysia
Malaysia
We lost you today
But all the young men
Are ready to go to
Malaysia
Malaysia
You’re so far away
But all the young men
Are ready to go to war
Grab my suitcase
Run to someplace
Crowded shelter under yellow awning
Puffs of black above the jungle morning
From far away shores
The waves will be reaching
Malaysia
Malaysia
We lost you today
But all the young men
Are ready to go to
Malaysia
Malaysia
You’re so far away
But all the young men
Are ready to go to war
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.