Geneaologies of a Song

This is the original 1981 Latvian version of One Million Roses called 'Dāvāja Māriņa' or Mara's Gift composed by Raimond Pauls with lyrics by dissident Latvian poet Leons Briedis. In this clip it is performed by Aija Kukule and the young Līga Kreicberga.



The lyrics in this version are about the relationship between a mother and daughter. According to Gunta Bisenieks it is 'more or less about the goddess Mara and her daughter and the pain the mother suffers throughout each generation when she is bestowed good fortune in giving birth to a daughter but has no means to raise her. The pain is all about the miserable life they are enduring and having to watch her child suffer'.

It is reinterpreted in 1983 by Raimond Pauls again for the Soviet Russian singer Alla Pugecheva though this time the lyrics are by the celebrated Russian poet Andre Voznesensky. In this version the subject of the lyrics becomes the early 20th century painter Niko Pirosmani and his doomed love for a French actress. It is here that the central symbol of the one million roses makes it's appearance as the roses that Pirosmani vainly heaps upon his lover.




Somehow the celebrated Japanese enka singer Kato Tokiko hears this song, perhaps on one of her tours through the Soviet Union and covers it in 1987 in Japanese where it becomes a major hit throughout Asia. This time, the lyrics remain the same as the Russian version.



And here is the Korean version by Sim Soo-Bong from 1997. Here, the title remains the same but Sim completely reinterprets the lyrics into an injunction to bestow love upon an alien that has come to our planet and longs to return to it's home. Certain lines in the song seem to suggest that Sim perhaps may have been referencing Antoine du St. Exupery's 'the Little Prince' in the idea of a traveling being from another planet and the repeated motif of roses.

Sim Soo-Bong, the assasination of a Korean president and me

Sim Soo-Bong was a female singer from South Korea who was popular in the late 1970's. Her style was called 'trot' which is a sort of synthesized Korean parallel to Japanese 'enka', both of which adapted Western Jazz with traditional ballads. One of Sim Soo-Bong great songs is "Baek Man Soong Eee, Jang Mi', (백만송이 장미) which translates as 'One Million Roses', which I was given by a Korean friend a while ago. Most trot has the same 'fox trot' beat and is quite weird and boring, but this song is really evocative and uses its synths really nicely.

 

One Million Roses by Sim Soo-Bong

While I was in Korea a few months ago I heard it again as the ringtone on an old woman's phone and I mentioned this to a Korean friend and they told me how Sim Soo-Bong was actually a witness to the assassination of South Korea's dictator Park Chung-Hee. She was one of two girls brought in to entertain the president at a private party at which he was shot and killed by the leader of the Korean National Intelligence service in an attempted coup d'etat in 1979. 

 

I knew all about this because a few months earlier I had seen Im Sang-Soo's hilarious political/comedy/thriller 'the President's Last Bang' which recreated, to much controversy, the 48 hours before and after the assassination of the president. Suddenly I was able to link that beautiful Sim Soo-Bong song with the girl in the film performing for Korea's notorious dictator and it all made sense. 

(Incidentally, Sim Soo-Bong in reality had to perform behind a screen because she was considered too unattractive for the president so this still from the film is factually inaccurate)

The other controversy about the film was that it depicted Sim Soo-Bong performing Japanese 'enka' song's by Misora Hibari to the president, which is a near blasphemous slight on the reputation of Park Chung-Hee who, despite his dictator status is still revered by some South Korean's as the father of the South Korean republic. At the same time, there has been major controversy over claims that Misora Hibari, Japan's great cultural treasure and most loved icon is actually of Korean descent.  

Anyway, this little narrative came full circle when I was looking for video's of  'Baek Man Sung Eee, Sang Mi' to include in this post and the only result that came up was of South Korean 'indie' musician Chang Ki-Ha performing it as a duet with Sim Soo-Bong herself. When I was in Korea last year, I had this ridiculous moustache and all these Korean people thought I looked like, or literally mistook me for Chang Ki-Ha. So, here it is, my Korean doppelganger performing a cover of a really awesome song by a singer with a really interesting history.