More than Mr Mari Kita: The Life and Legacy of Zubir Said

Julian
For me, the most touching thing was, how his father at the age of 101, [on] 3 December 1959 – the premiere of what we know today as the official version of “Majulah Singapura” – Pak Zubir’s father, Datuk Said, travelled to Singapore and went to the Padang to look for his son. I mean, they had been estranged from 1928 to 1959 – 31 years. And after he heard “Majulah Singapura”, he broke down and told his son, “You were right, I was wrong.” And Pak Zubir said that day was special to him, not because it was the peak of his career, but because his father finally forgave him. After knowing that story, when you hear “Majulah Singapura”, and especially because Pak Zubir said “Majulah Singapura” is a prayer, you hear it in a totally different light. So that’s why when I did it in the show, I said, there’s no way I can do a version of “Majulah Singapura” and sing it.

Jimmy
You are listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia+, we tell stories about Singapore’s past. Some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating.

Zubir Said was a composer and musician who gave Singapore its national anthem “Majulah Singapura”. Because of this, Pak Zubir is sometimes known as Mr. Mari Kita.

However, calling him Mr. Mari Kita would be selling him short. Pak Zubir was a prolific composer who penned something like 1,500 songs in his lifetime, including this song that many Singaporeans probably know.

[“Semoga Bahagia playing”]

Julian Wong, a composer, arranger, music director and performer, wrote Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita, a play about Zubir Said’s life and music. Directed by Ivan Heng, the founding artistic director of Wild Rice, this play first ran in 2022 and again in 2024, both times to sold-out crowds and critical acclaim.

Julian is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and was given the Young Artist Award by the NAC [National Arts Council] in 2023 for his contribution to Singapore music. In addition to all this, he also teaches music and singing at ITE. Selamat petang, Julian. Selamat datang ka podcast BiblioAsia+. Apa kabar?

Julian
Kabar baik, terima kasih, Jimmy. Thank you for having me here.

Jimmy
Thank you for also switching to English because I think I’ve just about exhausted my Malay. This is after 12 years of studying Malay in school. So, I apologise to everyone for that. Julian, congratulations on the terrific run of Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita. I watched it twice. I watched it once with my wife and I was so blown away I said my daughter has to watch this.

Julian
Oh, so you came back a second time with your daughter?

Jimmy
Came back a second time with my daughter and both times I ended up tearing up and she was looking at me like, “Hmm, what’s wrong with you?” You know? So, really blown away, right? Great music. Great performance. You, as well as the cast, and I also learnt a lot. But I really want to know, how did this all come about?

Julian
2019 was going to be the Singapore Bicentennial year. So, Beatrice Chia-Richmond, she reached out to me because there was a request from the Bicentennial office and they wanted to do a free concert, a half hour concert to spotlight the works of Zubir Said.

Beatrice was directing this Light to Night festival. And she reached out to me and she said, “I have no idea if you might be interested in this, but I just have a feeling this might be up your alley. So have a think about it and let me know whether you want to take this on.”

Jimmy
Was she the one who proposed the idea of doing something with Zubir Said?

Julian
Yes. So, I said yes because I knew that Zubir Said was Iskandar’s teacher and, at that time, Iskandar had passed away four or five years [prior], and I thought it was a fantastic opportunity to pay tribute to him, to remember him.

But I didn’t know much about Zubir Said, I only knew three songs – “Majulah Singapura”, “Semoga Bahagia” and “Sayang Disayang”.

So, I started doing the research. And then I became so fascinated with this man and I had so much material that she said, “No, no, no, you have to cut it down. We only have half an hour and this is a free concert.” So, I did my best. And then my friend Ivan, the founding artistic director of Wild Rice, came to watch my performance at the National Gallery.

And after the show, he said, “We’re in the throes of building our new theatre in Funan. And when that is done, would you work with me to flesh this piece out into a full-length piece and then we can incorporate all the other things you have done research about, work with a dramaturg, really make it a production that is special to Singapore?”

So, very thankful for both Beatrice and Ivan.

Jimmy
So, you mean you’d already done all the research prior to your 30-minute concert? Or most of your research prior to that?

Julian
Yeah, I would say 70 percent.

Jimmy
Wow.

Julian
Yeah. But you see, the research for that 30-minute concert was mostly through reading Dr. Rohana Zubir’s biography of her father.

By that time, I had also found the first edition of Lagu Lagu Kita, for which Pak Zubir had written the foreword. I think that was 1981. A collection of songs written for primary school children. I also found in the library Zubir Said: His Songs, which was a collection of transcriptions. In the show, I talk about how in 1982, five years before he passed away, the Culture Ministry said, “Okay, for those of you who know his songs [and] have sung them before, please come to the ministry and sing it to us. We will record and transcribe for you.”

Jimmy
That was such an amazing story when I heard it. How many songs came out of that?

Julian
It was a thin volume, maybe about 30 songs.

Jimmy
Still, so just 30 songs that no one had heard of before.

Julian
Yes. Pak Zubir himself didn’t keep his music and he said people didn’t think it was valuable, so he even sold his scores to the karang guni, you know?

Jimmy
Oh, that’s so painful.

Julian
It was very painful to read. So, this book, Zubir Said: His Songs, I had gone through every single song. And it was such a great effort, but because it was, I guess, people sending in tape recordings of themselves or coming into the space and singing and then transcribing. So, they didn’t always make musical sense.

Jimmy
Okay. It’s like when I sing.

Julian
So, part of the process was to go through each transcription and see which ones made the most musical coherence, you know, and there were some that I couldn’t use because I just felt it was a bit too dodgy. And then where there were rare recordings, then I could cross reference to see, was this transcription correct or not?

So I had done that research when I started working on it with Ivan, and I was very lucky also to have Alfian Sa’at as the dramaturg, who, because of his access to the language and the history and the culture, he was able to, you know, ask me to consider things in a more nuanced way, give me a little bit more insight.

And then He Shuming, my multimedia designer, he mined the archives for some of the Cathay and Shaw Brothers films. At that time, because the Esplanade library was still around, so I bought that, which we then scanned and used as a projection during the show. So, there was an investment, but that process was very fascinating.

That was when the stories about “Majulah Singapura” and him being asked to write the anthem for Malaysia also. That’s how I got to know so much more through that research.

Jimmy
Okay. And I think Wild Rice had two runs, right? Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita.

Julian
It’s a very storied history.

Jimmy
Okay. Now I want to hear about it. I want to hear about it.

Julian
Okay. In 2021, we had our photoshoot, and we were slated to open in August for two and a half weeks. And then because of the different safety management measures...

Jimmy
During COVID, right?

Julian
Yeah. It was five in a group, two in a group, and then no performances. So, we went from two and a half weeks to two weeks, to one week, to no show in 2021. But we managed to do it as a fundraiser for Wild Rice.

Jimmy
Okay. In 2021.

Julian
Yes. Over three nights. And just from those three nights alone. So, like, Mr. Jeremy Monteiro came and then he bought out a night for his friends and colleagues.

Jimmy
He bought out a night?

Julian
Yeah. I remember I was just so grateful for the kindness.

Jimmy
Right. But it was tremendous. So, what happened after that?

Julian
And then, word started to build about the production when we came back in 2022. People were really waiting to watch it. But then I had COVID. After it opened, and it was very significant because Dr. Rohana Zubir, who was well at that time, flew to Singapore for our gala opening.

And so, we opened that day. The next day I did two shows on Saturday, and then I tested positive for COVID. So, then we had to cancel the next whole week.

Jimmy
Did Dr. Rohana manage to watch it though?

Julian
Yes, she did.

Jimmy
Okay.

Julian
Yeah. So, we had to cancel one whole week and come back for a few more shows only. So, when we finally got to do it again this year, we crossed all our fingers and toes. And thankfully we did a full month without any incident. So very grateful for that.

Jimmy
I’m pretty sure you guys were sold out because it was such an amazing performance.

Julian
Thank you so much. In the last week, we had to open standing room tickets.

Jimmy
Wow.

Julian
And I thought, who’s going to come and stand and watch me talk and sing for one and a half hours. But yeah, there were people.

Jimmy
I want to thank you for putting it all together because when I watched it, I was really moved by what you’d uncovered, and the music was wonderful.

Julian
That is all credit to Pak Zubir.

Jimmy
Sure, of course. And I want to say that your version of “Semoga Bahagia”, the Children’s Day song, I remember as a kid it was more like a marching tune, you know, and your version was actually quite nice.

Julian
You know, there’s a thing about Pak Zubir's music as I studied it. It is so chromatic. It is very difficult to harmonise. But when you get it, you can see what he had in mind. In the years that we’ve learned it or the versions that we’ve known, it has never been...

Jimmy
We’ve butchered it.

Julian
Butchered is a strong word. So musically to me, this might be a technicality. There are signposts in his melody that very obviously tell me, okay, he wants to go to the dominant here, or this has to be harmonised with a certain chord because of the note he’s chosen.

But those intricacies, I don’t hear very often. So, I stripped everything bare and started from scratch. I mean, yes, it is also my aesthetic, my taste, but I tried very hard to always keep in mind what he would have wanted to convey. I think he said, do not change a note, don’t make it flowery because every note has a meaning. So, I tried to be very respectful of that.

Jimmy
Well, I have to say, I’d never heard a more beautiful version of “Semoga Bahagia” before, and mainly because, maybe other people didn’t butcher it, but I certainly did.

Julian
But the lyrics, right?

Jimmy
The lyrics, yes.

Julian
I mean, growing up, I never knew the significance of what the song was saying. I sang it too, and I just knew it as sama-sama.

Jimmy
Okay.

Julian
And then when you take a step back and you realise this is actually a manifesto for life.

Jimmy
Yeah. The other thing I wanted to say is that, and obviously a lot of the music was in Malay, right?

Julian
All!

Jimmy
All, all the music was in Malay. And it was beautifully done with you and, of course, the very talented cast that you have.

I was listening to it and thinking, wow, I wish I could understand it more. I wish I didn’t have to squint at the subtitles to understand what was going on. But even when I didn’t have to, when I closed my eyes, I could just be swept away by the music.

Julian
Yeah, there were audience members who told me after a while they stopped looking at the subtitles. They felt that they didn’t need it after all. Because the music itself carried so much emotion and meaning.

Jimmy
Hmm. You know, in that whole research process, what were some of the harder things that you had to uncover or that they had to do?

Julian
Musically, the painstaking process of finding the transcriptions was number one. And sometimes they were not neatly compiled, like in the two books that I found. Sometimes they were little photographs that Dr. Rohana took and put it in her book.

Jimmy
Oh!

Julian
So I’m like, that’s his handwriting. Okay. Then I bring it to the library and I magnify it. Okay. This is a song about his granddaughter. Let’s try it out. And then, because most of the transcriptions do not have an accompaniment and all the recordings are lost, you don’t know how it actually sounded like in the day. So, the difficult part is to then harmonise everything and create all the accompaniment on my own. In some ways, it’s quite freeing because you have no reference.

Jimmy
Right.

Julian
But on the other hand, it’s also being very mindful of respecting the composer’s work.

Jimmy
What's the most interesting thing you learned about Pak Zubir from your research?

Julian
I think the most interesting thing to me, and I didn't know this until I researched about him, was that he was not Singaporean. That he was actually an outsider.

Jimmy
From Sumatra, right?

Julian
From Bukit Tinggi. Yes. And that he had come here to Singapore as a way of rebelling against his father. His father was the village chief, the penghulu, and who didn’t allow him to pursue music because music was haram. And so, when he was 21 years old, Pak Zubir fell very ill and had to be in the hospital for one and a half months.

I say hospital, but it was really a shed lah, a shed that was far away from his hometown. And his father couldn’t be with him in the hospital. So, the father took him to the hospital and gave the doctor the white cloth, the shroud, his shroud, and said, “If my son dies, please bury him in this. If my son lives, please tell him to come home.”

So, after one and a half months, miraculously Pak Zubir recovered and then he thought life was too short to stay in Bukit Tinggi. So, he walked and took a horse cart to Pekanbaru and then took a ferry to Singapore because a friend of his told him, “You want to be a musician? Singapore might be a better place.”

And he took that shroud and used it as a towel. Yeah. Just the shirt on his back and that shroud. It’s just an amazing story.

Jimmy
It was an amazing story.

Julian
And when he came here, he worked as a violinist first with the Bangsawan Theatre Companies. And then he learned how to read Western music notation – became the arranger, the conductor, music director.

And then when his father found him, he wrote to him and said please come back home. I think it was the general’s daughter wants to marry you, a Dutch officer’s daughter wants to marry you. You can come back and lead a good life. Just marry her. And he wrote back to his father saying “but marrying a non-Muslim is haram”. Used his father’s words against him.

Jimmy
Oh, wow. Okay.

Julian
And then he made such a name for himself. And of course, went through a terrible time in the war, but, you know, brought up his family here. And for me, the most touching thing was, how his father at the age of 101—

Jimmy
Tell us that story.

Julian
3 December 1959 – the premiere of what we know today as the official version of “Majulah Singapura” – Pak Zubir’s father, Datuk Said, travelled to Singapore and went to the Padang to look for his son. I mean, they had been estranged from 1928 to 1959 – 31 years. And after he heard “Majulah Singapura”, he broke down and told his son, “You were right. I was wrong.” And Pak Zubir said that day was special to him, not because it was the peak of his career, but because his father finally forgave him.

After knowing that story, when you hear “Majulah Singapura”, and especially because Pak Zubir said “Majulah Singapura” is a prayer, you hear it in a totally different light. So that’s why when I did it in the show, there was no way I could do a version of “Majulah Singapura” and sing it.

Jimmy
No, it’s just weird, right? It would be weird to do it in the theatre.

Julian
So what would be the best way? And I thought, he said it is a prayer. So, let’s do it quietly in a very personal way. Yeah.

Jimmy
Yeah, so I’m glad nobody stood up to sing. But it was lovely just to be able to sit down and have the strains of “Majulah Singapura” wash over you.

Julian
You know, I’m, till today, I am so surprised by the reaction of the audience because truth be told, when we first got the publicity audition in 2021 we didn’t know if anybody would come.

It was the title, Mr. Mari Kita, Zubir Said, and then who’s this guy Julian Wong? And then it was COVID, right? So, we really weren’t selling tickets. It’s just as well that the run got cancelled, you know? So, when we opened, we didn’t know what the reaction would be. And certainly did not expect it to be this warm. This reception has been so warm.

Jimmy
I had a wonderful evening. Credit also to the cast members on the show. The musicians, of course. But tell me a little bit about the singers. Three of them are your former students, right?

Julian
That's right, yeah. Malcolm, Hani and Hannah. And Hannah did the very first one with me at the National Gallery as well. So, the singers were all old students of mine from ITE, and they have all gone on to different fields. Hannah is a graphic designer, Malcolm is hoping to go to music school and Hani is now pursuing her career in theatre. So, it’s very nice that they gave me face and said, “Okay lah, we do this with you”.

Jimmy
No, but it all worked, right? Because they have such wonderful voices. And it worked with what you did. And I was really, you know – I can’t say too many times – I was really blown away.

Julian
Thank you. I think what Ivan saw in the show was the act of passing down knowledge, which is the first line of [“Semoga Bahagia”]: Sama-same maju ke hadapan Pandai cari pelajaran. And because I talk about my teacher and the show is about his teacher and I share the stage with my students, he’s always told me that was very powerful to him. And I never thought of it that way.

Jimmy
I want to talk about a little bit about “Majulah Singapura”. Because he was commissioned to do that, right? But was it very much in his own, like, normal style?

Julian
I think he took pains to make it very simple so that people would be able to sing along. I read an article about how he chose the words of the anthem so that it is not about a king, it is not about a monarch, it is about the people of Rakyat Singapura and the values that he imbued the anthem with.

And he was very specific about the number of syllables in a line, I think. His original version in 1958 was much longer. It was written to commemorate the opening of the renovated Victoria Theatre and was much more complex musically. I sing a little bit of it in the show. There’s an extended verse before you go into marilah kita bersatu.

So, in 1959, the legislative assembly thought: this would be a good song as our national symbol, our national anthem. But we need to make it simpler. So they went back to Pak Zubir, who then adjusted it to the version that we know today.

Jimmy
And I understand also that it’s since been taken down like a key.

Julian
Yeah, I believe when I was in primary school, we sang it in G and then there was a year where they brought it down to F. It’s still very high for a lot of kids.

Jimmy
Well, I’m not sure if they’re actually singing it. It’s like mouthing it. You think it's still very high at E?

Julian
Yeah. If you’re a girl, you would have to be a soprano to reach those notes. You see? So, I’ve always felt that it should be taken even lower.

Jimmy
Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Julian
Maybe to D major.

Jimmy
What did you think of that more melancholic version that was done by… what’s his name?

Julian
Datuk Ramli. Very interesting take on it. But I think over the years there have been so many versions of “Majulah Singapura” and “Semoga Bahagia”.

They’ve always shined a spotlight on an arranger, or an artist or a band, you know, but I never felt that they were giving Pak Zubir’s music and lyrics its due and the weight that it deserved.

That’s why even in my arranging of “Majulah Singapura” and “Semoga Bahagia”, I never changed a note or a word or even put in an embellishment, because it was something he said expressly – do not embellish.

Jimmy
So you mean the version that we heard of “Semoga Bahagia” is as he would have?

Julian
The melody is note for note.

Jimmy
Wow. And because it was, it’s so melancholic. It’s so quiet.

Julian
Note for note. But, of course, the orchestration of it, what the musicians play is my invention.

Jimmy
And certainly the very quiet version of “Majulah Singapura” is also, you know, when you strip it out, it’s very beautiful. It’s not pompous.

Julian
Yeah, it’s interesting because, like I said, Pak Zubir said he wrote “Majulah Singapura” as a prayer, a prayer for the progress of the nation and unity of its people. But I suppose, every anthem has to fall into that box of being a march and for the military band to play and conjure feelings of patriotism, right?

So, I took that away and then I thought, okay, if he says a prayer, how do we make this sound like a prayer? And Ivan was also… I think that was the only song where he said, let’s completely turn the house lights down so that for every audience member, it’s a personal moment for them. They don’t need to worry. They won’t see the reaction of the person next to them or opposite them in the theatre. So yeah, he really understood it too.

Jimmy
That’s wonderful. You know, Zubir was the teacher of your teacher, you know, Iskandar Ismail. So, what did you hear about Pak Zubir from Iskandar Ismail?

Julian
So Mr. Iskandar was a blazing talent and he could play anything and everything by ear.

Jimmy
Wow.

Julian
And this talent was there in his whole family, actually, since he was a kid. Iskandar’s mother was the late Nona Asiah, who was Pak Zubir’s muse, and he wrote so many songs for her. And Nona Asiah was also the playback singer in a lot of his movies, the Cathay films and the Shaw Brothers films.

Jimmy
Nona Asiah sent Iskandar, her eldest son, to Pak Zubir for lessons because she wanted him to learn the piano, learn music properly, rather than just by ear.

Julian
Yes. So, Iskandar told me he hated it because he had all this talent, right? He was ready to go, he could play anything, but Pak Zubir was such a strict disciplinarian.

It’s like the cane-the-knuckles, pull-the-ear type, must practice and play scales. And Pak Zubir knew when Iskandar was faking it and improvising and playing by ear. And he would insist that Iskandar read note for note and play note for note the score. So, I think he took some of the classical piano exams under Pak Zubir.

But after that, Iskandar told me how much he realised it was necessary.

Jimmy
Why? Why was it necessary?

Julian
Fundamental training for him to acquire that discipline to read music that would then enable him to do all the work he did in his career and not just play by ear.

Jimmy
Yeah, yeah, of course, obviously he’s talented, but obviously you have to be able to read music at some point and to reproduce those notes.

Julian
In fact, I think either in Dr. Rohana’s biography or in Iskandar’s biography, there is a Christmas card, I think, that Iskandar sent to Pak Zubir when Iskandar was at Berkelee College of Music thanking him for being his first music teacher and instilling that discipline.

Jimmy
Actually, you had in your play a lovely story about how Iskandar helped you apply for Berklee?

Julian
Yeah. He insisted that I went to his alma mater, and at the time I was working with him. But I was, I always, I’m, I’m not good enough. And, you know, I have no money to go anyway. And then he says, just apply, just apply. And I remember we were working on a project at that time and he gave me some time off. He said, go down the road and mail your application at the post office and then come back.

He made sure I got it done. And then when I was in Boston, he continued to give me work. I didn’t understand why he felt it was so urgent and so necessary for me to go to Berkelee until towards the end of my studies, I realised he had known he was at the end of his life.

Jimmy
How old was he by then?

Julian
He was 56, I think.

Jimmy
Oh, he’s very young.

Julian
So end of 2010, he insisted I send in my application. He had already been diagnosed with cancer. But he went for treatment and beat it into remission. And then by 2012, I think it came back with a vengeance. I remember thinking, why has he stopped replying my emails? And then in 2013, when I came back, I got a call from his wife and she said, “Could you come to the house?”

Jimmy
You were back in Singapore already?

Julian
Yeah. I returned end of 2013, and that was when I saw that Iskandar had already been bedridden. And so, I came back in December 2013, we had 11 more months together, and then he passed 2014 November, so it’s been exactly 10 years.

Jimmy
Wow.

Julian
Yeah, so that’s why it’s been very special to do this most recent run of Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita.

Jimmy
It’s amazing to hear this. And I think also, you talk about passing it on, and that’s really what you’re doing as well in your day job when you’re not winning awards.

Julian
I try. I try my best.

Jimmy
I have four children who have gone to ITE [Institute of Technical Education], so I’m very grateful that ITE exists. But I never knew that ITE had a course on music, because certainly my children did not attend it.

Julian
So, there is a higher NITEC course called Performance Production, and these students are training to be stage managers and technicians and lighting operators and sound designers.

I’m with the Centre for Music and the Arts, and we run five groups that any student from the three ITEs can participate in. So, I take care of the two choirs – the show choir and the acapella group. And then we have the concert band, the modern dance group, the theatrical ensemble as well.

And for me, it’s not about, grooming musicians or artists but letting them enjoy the arts and sing. I think the arts can enrich them in a way, you know, they take away lessons from their arts experience that they bring into their lives.

Jimmy
Really? Like what?

Julian
Like being on time, discipline, working with a team, learning how to negotiate and plan their time well. Yeah.

Jimmy
Yeah. Okay. That's very important. And plus musicians are not necessarily well known for being on time.

Julian
It depends on what type of musicians. I think if you are an orchestral musician, I mean, timing is number one. It is written in your contract.

Jimmy
Oh, really? Okay. Thank God I’m not an orchestral musician. I also wanted to ask you, what are your plans now? The NAC’s given you the Young Artist Award, right? So how did that change your life?

Julian
Not very much.

Jimmy
Nobody came running after you asking for your autograph?

Julian
No, I mean, I spend most of my time in ITE with teenagers and they are very unimpressed.

Jimmy
Okay.

Julian
So it has never come up.

Jimmy
All right. “Eh cher, you win award ah, cher.”

Julian
No, they don’t even, I don’t know if they are even aware.

No, but you know the work that I do outside, and with the blessing of my superiors, the work that I do outside really feeds me, and I find the award has given me some funding to prepare for the next projects that I’m very interested to do.

Jimmy
I think Singapore is very fortunate that you are doing all these things. And I look forward to all the future exciting things that you’re working on. I think I asked you before we started the show, you know, are we ever going to see Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita again?

Julian
I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but I think me and Ivan, we are waiting for the right time, the right occasion, the right cause to bring it back.

Jimmy
SG60. Maybe, maybe not.

Julian
I’m a patriotic person. I love Singapore, but there’s something about the National Day celebrations that don’t quite sit well with me. And I think one of the things that fuelled me to create Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita is that it showed me that it’s okay. There’s another way. There are other ways to love your country.

So, when people see it and they tell me it resonates so much with them and they felt so Singaporean, I’m very, very happy to hear that.

Jimmy
Okay. So, at this point in the interview, we normally just sort of turn to more so-called light-hearted topics. What is your favourite song from the musical? Oh, actually, can we actually call it a musical? Because it’s not really a musical, is it?

Julian
Yeah.

Jimmy
How would you describe it? I would struggle.

Julian
It’s like a... we all struggle with giving it a label. Is it documentary musical, documentary concert, musical review?

Jimmy
Right.

Julian
In the end, is it theatre or is it music? Is it both? In the end, I think it’s just its own thing.

Jimmy
Okay. What’s your favourite song from its own thing?

Julian
Okay. So, this run, I had a new song. It’s called “Sepasang Bayang-Bayang” (A Pair of Shadows). And how I came to discover this song is very... it was like providence. It just fell into my lap from the sky. So, after the run in 2022, I went over to my friend’s place for Christmas. Karen and Swee Chong.

And Swee Chong is an avid vinyl record collector, full of vinyl records. And then he said, “Hey Julian, someone was selling off all his old vinyl records for S$2. I just took the whole lot and I saw some of them had Zubir Said’s name on the record sleeve.” So, I was looking at his collection and I realised it was the soundtrack to a lost film in 1950, called Pelangi (Rainbow). And the singer was Iskandar’s mother.

Jimmy
Oh wow.

Julian
Acting opposite her was Iskandar’s father, Kassim Ismail.

Jimmy
Wow.

Julian
I had heard of Pelangi before, but it was one of those [films] categorised as lost. And there were many parts because the vinyl record is one song per side. I think there were four songs or six songs. So, there were three [records]. I told my friend, can you just play this one for me? This one sounds like the love duet. And it has haunted me ever since because it is a song about lovers who cannot be together and very, very touching. I told Ivan, “We have to do it to do this for this front.” 

Jimmy
Is that on the album?

Julian
Yes. So, we recorded it as a single this year, and we’ve put it up.

Jimmy
Okay, fantastic. I'll go back and relisten to it. Can you give us – all your fans, fanboys and fangirls – an idea of what you’re working on now?

Julian
I’m working on a few things, but I’m not at liberty to say what they are. But most recent one, I’m working with the Esplanade on the Kalaa Utsavam Indian Festival of Arts.

I’m working with a Carnatic music and jazz fusion band called RaghaJazz.

Jimmy
Oh, cool.

Julian
They’re celebrating their 15-year anniversary, all local musicians. So, I’m helping them as an artistic advisor consultant to put the concert together.

Jimmy
What is your background in Carnatic music?

Julian
I learned on the job – in 2015 I was the music director for the opening of the Singapore International Festival of Arts. And it was Madam Goh Lay Kua’s dance epic piece. And she had asked me to be the music director. As part of that process, I had to go to Bhaskar’s Arts Academy to learn Carnatic music because the first act of that dance piece was Bharatanatyam. So now working with Ragha, I get to build on that. It is a baffling, fascinating art form, and I feel I’ve only skimmed the surface.

Jimmy
It must be very exciting though.

Julian
Yes, yes. Very exciting. Very mathematical too, but very emotional.

Jimmy
Okay. Okay. That sounds very exciting. Who is your favourite musician?

Julian
I think for his legacy and also the personal impact he’s had on me, I would have to say the late Mr. Iskandar Ismail. Because I remember when I was 10, watching him conduct for the first time in the orchestra pit.

Jimmy
You were watching him on TV?

Julian
No, I was in the children’s ensemble of a musical called Chang & Eng at the old Victoria Theatre, and he was the conductor and we had struck a rapport. He said, “Yeah, come to the orchestra pit when you’re not on stage and yeah, you can observe.” And he gave me piano lessons at the side.

And when he conducted and I heard the orchestra play, I just had goosebumps. And I remember thinking, this man wrote and orchestrated every note on his own. It was unheard of to me. He was always my inspiration. And then growing up, I saw him work with so many different types of musicians and in different genres, right?

The classical Indian, the classical orchestras, the pop stars, the musical theatre, the Malay orchestras, like, I don’t know any other musician who is that diverse and all-embracing. So, he’s always been an inspiration.

Jimmy
You’re approaching that. But this is the most important question that everybody really wants to know. Are you a Taylor Swift fan?

Julian
I don’t actually know much of her music except for –

Jimmy
Heresy! Get out of here! Get out of here!

Julian
Are you? Are you a Swiftie?

Jimmy
I attended her concert.

Julian
But my students love Taylor Swift, so I know her latest hits based on what they tell me. I think one of the things that made me so determined to do work like Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita, like this year especially, is there was a period of time early this year where the national conversation was: how do we bring all these foreign superstars in?

And my friend took a picture of a minister’s dialogue. How do we make Singapore more attractive to foreign superstars or something like that? I’m like, actually, we have our own music and our own art too. If you go to America, the number one artist is American. You go to Taiwan, the number one artist is Taiwanese. And I think in Singapore, it’s high time we support and celebrate our artists and our heritage so much more.

Jimmy
Wow, I couldn’t agree more. Julian, saya ingin mengucapkan terima kasih sekali lagi kerana sudi datang ke podcast kami. Saya harap apa yang Julian telah kongsikan hari ini memberi Mafaat kepada semua pendengar. Terima kasih, Daun Keladi. Kalau diizin, kita jumpa lagi.

Julian
Sama sama dan terima kasih banyak.

Jimmy
And for all those, including myself, who don’t know what that meant, I was just thanking Julian for coming on this show. And I hope that what Julian shared today will be useful to listeners. It’s really been a pleasure and a privilege to have you on the show.

Julian
Thank you for reaching out to me.

Jimmy
I want to thank everyone for listening to this episode of BiblioAsia+. BiblioAsia can be found online at biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg. And I want to leave you with this haunting version of “Semoga Bahagia”, written and sung by Julian, accompanied by the cast of Don’t Call Him Mr. Mari Kita. And thank you very much.

Julian
Thank you.

[“Semoga Bahagia” playing]

Rohana Zubir, Zubir Said: The Composer of Majulah Singapura (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012).

Cheryl Sim, “Zubir Said,” Singapore Infopedia, published 3 September 2014.

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Doppler Soundlab. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. This version of “Semoga Bahagia” was composed by Zubir Said, produced by Julian Wong and performed by Wild Rice. Special thanks to Julian for coming on the show.

The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.