Story of a song
The origins of Tanah Pusaka, one of Malaysia’s most patriotic songs, has finally been set right.
THE Federal House in KL, originally built for a post office but converted to Radio Malaya’s headquarters, was a flurry of activity in 1960, since the nation achieved independence a few years prior. But Ahmad Merican ( now Tan Sri) and ( the late) Wan Ahmad Kamal, his young assistant, were under the cosh to contribute a patriotic song.
The two- man music unit of Radio Malaya, upon the behest of Tunku Abdul Rahman, the country’s first Prime Minister, was succeeding in meeting his demands of assembling a collection of nationalist tunes. While some of the team’s most celebrated musicians, the likes of Jimmy Boyle, Alfonso Soliano and Tony Fonseka, had made their contributions, Ahmad and Wan, as Radio Malaya administrators, felt that they, too, could contribute a tune.
And in one sitting, Ahmad churned out the music and melody for one of the most enduring patriotic pieces Malaysia has come to know – Tanah Pusaka. And according to him, across a few days, Wan wrote the original words and ( the late) Tan Sri Dol Ramli, then Head of the Malay Services Division ( and later, the first Malaysian director- general of Radio Malaya), “polished” the lyrics to the unforgettable tune.
“Sitting in our little office on the sixth floor, there were four of us. Wan sat next to me, Alfonso in front and ( music copyist) Fong next to him. As I kept playing my guitar and getting some Malay melodies on it, Alfonso ( who transcribed the music, given his position as bandleader of Orkes Radio Malaya then) encouraged me to see it through,” Ahmad related in a recent interview.
The setting for the birth of one of the most endearing Malaysian songs hardly seems special, but Tanah Pusaka has transcended space and time, and found a foothold in the hearts of Malaysians in these testing times.
The song, first documented in a Radio Malaya songbook from 1961 and recorded internationally by Indonesian- born Dutch singer, Sandra Reemer in 1962, has also gained traction with the numerous renditions of it – everyone from the late Datuk Sudirman Hj Arshad in the 1980s, to vocal troupe Super ReD more recently, have taken a stab at it.
But for reasons lost in the mists of time, and the dearth of proper documentation during those early years, the credit for the song seems to have been inconsistent since its composition.
However, the families involved have come to the general consensus, that while Dol didn’t write the words to it, he certainly had a hand in fine- tuning it, given his expertise in language, love for music and knack for writing lyrics. In fact, he was the man behind the very memorable Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa.
“I don’t recall my dad specifically mentioning writing the lyrics to Tanah Pusaka, but I did hear in a talk show on the radio after his demise that he had a hand in the lyrics of the song,” revealed Dol’s son, Dzulkifli.
His brother Aziz, concurred: “I recall a short conversation I had with dad many years ago, when I told him I like Tanah Pusaka. And if I’m not wrong, he credited the song to Ahmad Merican, although he could have changed some of the lyrics to better reflect the patriotic sentiments prevailing at that time.”
Wan’s widow, glorious singing siren Asiah Tuah from the 1960s, recalls how when she married him in 1961, he told her about having written the lyrics for Tanah Pusaka. “He had talked about it a few times, and was disheartened his name was sometimes omitted,” she explained.
Wan, also a musician and prolific lyricist in his lifetime, wrote the lyrics to Tanah Pusaka when he was in his early 20s.
Given the reputations of the people involved and their many contributions to the Malaysian music and entertainment industries, it hardly seems any one of them was desperate for credit, though, for historical purposes, the record needs to be set straight.
Ahmad, on his part, has steadfastly stayed to his version of events, which isn’t surprising since he shared an office space with his friends and colleagues.
“Composing Tanah Pusaka was all in a day’s work for us at that time. After I composed the music, with Alfonso transcribing the music and Wan writing the words, Dol made improvements to the lyrics. Honestly, it was just another song to the many that were produced for national transmission by Radio Malaya,” he concluded.
This Merdeka Day, along with our national anthem Negaraku, there probably isn’t another song that could be better celebrated in the name of nationalism and unity.