Boom Tarat Tarat to die for
HOW much would you pay for the manuscript of, say, a Lito Camo song? Really? Even if it’s “Spaghetti Song” sung by Joey de Leon? No? Even if it’s “Otso-Otso” popularized by Bayani Agbayani, or “Boom Tarat Tarat” recorded by Willie Revillame? You sure? Ok, me neither.
I’m just asking, because I read in the news yesterday that Don McLean’s “American Pie” manuscript is going to be sold at auction in April. And I’m wondering why we don’t have auctions like that featuring the manuscripts of this country’s greatest songs.
For sure, lots of music fans out there are willing to pay millions of pesos for the original handwritten lyrics to songs that define our generation, lines such as “Apir tayo sumakit ang ulo ko sumakit ang beywang ko/ Sexbomb, sexbomb, sexbomb” and “Boom tarat tarat/ Boom tarat tarat/ Tara-rat tara-rat/ Boom boom boom.”
It’s about owning an important piece of history that we’re talking here. The original handwritten lyrics is where everything started. Before the studio recording, before the radio airplay, before the gigs, before the videoke, before there were screaming fans, there was only the songwriter and a little piece of paper. It’s like owning a huge chunk of evidence of the dinosaurs’ existence.
It’s like telling your kids, “See that frame on the wall. I bought it at an auction? It says tayoy mag otso-otso, otso-otso, otso-otso, otso-otso na.” Of course your kids won’t recognize the song. So you say, “It actually comes with a dance.” Then you do the dance. Then your kids say, “Eewww, gross!”
It’s because of the kids, too, that Don McLean decided to part with the 16 pages of typed and handwritten notes that he’d been keeping for more than 40 years. He said he’s turning 70 and he has two children and a wife, “and none of them seem to have the mercantile instinct.”
The manuscript is expected to fetch $1.5 million, eclipsing John Lennon’s “A Day in the Life,” which sold at $1.2 million in 2010, and coming in second to Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone,” which sold at $2 million last year.
For those who are not familiar with the 1971 song “American Pie,” it’s the one that starts with “A long, long time ago I can still remember how that music used to make me smile” and ends with “This’ll be the day that I die,” and made the world wonder what’s in it that attracted Madonna to blaspheme it with her own version.
Going back closer to home, and let’s say I have money to waste, what manuscript lyrics would I want to see hanging on my wall?
1) “Ang Himig Natin” (Juan de la Cruz Band). I heard Pepe Smith wrote the lyrics while inside the CR backstage waiting for their set. The line “Ang himig natin ay ‘yong awitin/ Upang tayoy magsamasama/ Sa langit ng pag-asa” simply started Pinoy Rock.
2) “Alapaap” (Eraserheads). Maybe something in Ely Buendia’s handwriting will tell me what he was taking when he wrote “Masdan mong aking mata, di mo ba nakikita/ Akoy lumilipad at nasa alapaap na” because I want some of that.
3) Any song by Max Surban and Yoyoy Villame. The Bisaya songwriter is not yet born who will beat the lines “Unang pagtan-aw kog sine ako naignorante/ Kay unsingalan ba kadto mangitngit man bisag udto” and “Pong chuwala Chi chi ri kong koila Butse kik ek-ek-ek.”
4) “Matud Nila” and “Usahay.” The “laslas” and “duslak” feeling is obviously not this generation’s invention.
5) “Spaghetti Song,” “Otso-Otso,” and “Boom Tarat Tarat.” This’ll be the day that I die.