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A blessed Sunday everyone!
We continue with our Original Pilipino Music (OPM) this Sunday amid another surge in COVID-19 cases this week with numbers going into five-digits as we ironically downgrade into lower level in quarantine controls in the metropolis.
So as not to burden you with more worries, we have chosen something light and easy, refreshingly old from 1976 as our featured music courtesy of Mr. Bong Penera called “Samba Song” with English vocals by Ms. Norma Ramirez.
More than 20 years before the country was hooked with bossa nova in the early 2000, we have all been so delighted with many great Pinoy jazz artists in the mid-70’s to 80’s, thanks to WK-FM which is now back in the internet through the efforts of the original good guys of Brother Wayne and company.
We find Penera’s Samba Song related with this Sunday’s gospel which concludes Jesus Christ’s bread of life discourse wherein the people led by his own disciples left him to return to their old ways of life when they found his teachings so difficult to accept.
Life is like a dance, a samba of Brazil or any dance. You always need a partner to truly feel its music. We need somebody in life, someone we believe in, someone we love to join us in our dance, in our journey in life especially when things are not clear at all or when we are saddled with many problems and trials.
Kung gusto kong kumanta At gusto ko ring sumayaw Ako'y sumisipol saka malalaman ako pala'y payasong walang kasayaw Bakit tayo ganito Mga puso nati'y mailap Lumapit ka giliw at tayo'y magsamba Kahit minsan man lamang.
One thing I like with OPM during the 70’s is its use of Taglish or Tagalog-English that had maintained a sense of elegance, whether the English lyrics were inserted as mere lines or as stanzas like in Penera’s Samba Song.
The first two stanzas were in Tagalog sang by Penera as an exposition of his feelings, of his longing for a partner, for his beloved to come and dance with him and live with him. Then comes the response by Ramirez expressing her same feelings in English.
And this is the time for that dance I don't feel alone because I know that you'll stay with me to samba through life with me.
And there you have it! A great samba tune and meaning of life, of being together, of believing and loving like in the gospel when Simon Peter answered Jesus, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God” (Jn.6:68-69)
Let us try “to feel at home” in Peter’s company during this pandemic to be led to a similar faith insight and commitment in Jesus no matter how difficult it may be.
Faith is like love: we believe and love not because we are sure of ourselves but because we are sure of the one we believe and love. That is why we commit our lives to our beloved. It is not primarily because of us at the center but of the other. Like Jesus. Or a loved one.
https://lordmychef.com/2021/08/21/lord-to-whom-shall-we-go-faith-in-jesus-in-time-of-pandemic/
Have a blessed week ahead, drive those blues away with our great Original Pilipino Music!
*We have no intentions of infringing on the copyrights of this music except to share its beauty and listening pleasure.
