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South East A
sia Research, 19, 3, pp 569–000 doi: 10.5367/sear.2011.0058
Red
and
yellow son
gs: a historical
analysis of th
e use of m
usic b
y the
Un
ited F
ront for D
emocracy again
stD
ictatorship
(UD
D) an
d th
e Peop
le’sA
lliance for D
emocracy (PA
D) in
Th
ailand
James M
itchell
Abstract:
Th
e increase in
social protests in
Th
ailand
since 2005 h
asb
een m
arked
by a d
ramatic rise in
the u
se of mu
sic for protest. T
his
article examin
es the u
se of mu
sic by th
e yellow an
d red
shirts, an
dcon
textualizes th
e PA
D an
d U
DD
with
in th
e history of tw
o simi-
larly nam
ed b
ut very d
ifferent gen
res of Th
ai song: ph
leng ch
iwit
[life songs] an
d ph
leng ph
uea ch
iwit [son
gs for life]. Ph
leng ch
iwit
was p
art of a flowerin
g of satirical art forms d
urin
g Field
Marsh
allP
laek P
hib
un
songk
hram
’s second
term as P
rime M
inister (1948–
57) before cen
sorship
forced m
any son
gwriters to ch
ange to th
e new
comm
ercial genre of lu
kthu
ng [T
hai cou
ntry son
g]. Ph
leng ph
uea
chiw
it was th
e preferred
mu
sic of leftist stud
ents in
the p
ro-dem
oc-racy m
ovemen
t of the 1970s. H
owever, th
e rehab
ilitation of ph
leng
phu
ea chiw
it as the official T
hai p
rotest genre h
as disgu
ised th
e roleth
at lukth
un
g played
du
ring th
e armed
struggle of th
e Com
mu
nist
Party of T
hailan
d (C
PT
). Th
e article examin
es the u
se of satiricalson
gs and
lukth
un
g du
ring T
hailan
d’s m
ost recent p
olitical strug-
gle, from 2005 to th
e presen
t. It app
ears that red
-shirt p
rotestors(th
e UD
D) h
ave accessed a w
ide ran
ge of mem
ories, inclu
din
g the
most p
owerfu
l coun
ter-hegem
onic trad
itions, w
hereas th
eir yellow-
shirt op
pon
ents (th
e PAD
) have d
rawn
on a m
uch
narrow
er selectionof h
egemon
ic cultu
ral mem
ories.
Keyw
ords:yellow
and
red sh
irts; lukth
un
g; phlen
g chiw
it; phlen
gph
uea ch
iwit; P
AD
; UD
D
Au
thor details:
The author is a R
esearcher in the Departm
ent of Media,
Music, C
omm
unications and Cultural S
tudies at Macquarie U
niversity,S
ydney, Australia. E
-mail: jam
es.mitchell@
students.mq.edu.au.
Red and yellow
songs571
570South E
ast Asia R
esearch
The increase in social protest in T
hailand since 2005 has been marked
by a dramatic rise in the use of m
usic in a political context. Unlike the
leftist movem
ent of the 1970s, which em
bedded the view of ‘songs
for life’ as the accepted Thai protest genre, the P
eople’s Alliance for
Dem
ocracy (the PAD
– or yellow shirts) and the U
nited Front for
Dem
ocracy against Dictatorship (the U
DD
– or red shirts) have made
use of almost every kind of m
usic found in Thailand. R
emarkably, this
outpouring of rebellious sounds has taken place against a backdrop ofincreasing state censorship, self-censorship by m
edia and recordingcom
panies, and punitive lese-majesty law
s. Why this has been possi-
ble is not straightforward. C
ertainly, advances in the areas of satellitetelevision, hom
e recording equipment and the Internet have m
adecensorship easier to overcom
e, and the competing political m
ovements
have developed sophisticated protest strategies by learning from each
other. This article suggests that part of the answ
er also lies in them
essages and mem
ories comm
unicated both lyrically and musically,
consciously and unconsciously, through the songs and music used by
each group.
Lu
kth
un
g
A central focus of this article is phleng lukthung or T
hai country music.
Lukthung is a fusion genre blending W
estern and Latin dance rhythm
sfrom
the 1940s and 1950s with T
hai melodies. T
raditionally accordedlow
cultural status, 1 largely because of the heavy involvement of Isan
2
people, it began to be acclaimed as a national art form
after a royallysponsored concert series in 1989. In the afterm
ath of the 1997 Asian
economic crisis, lukthung w
as hailed as the most authentic T
hai popu-lar m
usic genre (see Am
porn, 2006). How
ever, at that time a process of
Isan cultural revival and political maturation w
as under way, and con-
tinued attempts to appropriate lukthung as an exam
ple of Central T
haisuprem
acy3 have only served to strengthen this process. L
ukthung was
1S
ee Mitchell (2009, pp 298, 299); and L
ockard (1998, pp 187–191).2
Isan refers to the population of the North-E
astern region of Thailand, m
ost of whom
are of Lao descent. T
he North-E
ast only officially came under the control of S
iamfollow
ing the revolt of the vassal state of Vientiane in 1827, and Isan people have
endured ongoing discrimination and chauvinism
at the hands of the Central T
hai.H
esse-Sw
ain provides an excellent summ
ary of the history of Isan identity (2006,pp 258–260). S
ee also McC
argo and Hongladarom
(2004, pp 219–234) and Lockard
(1998, pp 164–165).3
See M
itchell (2009, pp 307–309).
already identified with Isan culture and during the last decade m
orlam4
[traditional Lao folk m
usic] and lukthung have been conflated acrossgeneric boundaries under the various titles of lukthung prayuk, Isanlukthung and m
orlam sing. 5
For over 40 years, lukthung has been the preferred m
usic of Thai-
land’s poor. Rural peasants and the urban w
orking class have foundcom
mon ground in the stories and m
elodies of this genre. As dem
on-strated by U
bonrat Siriyuvasak in her sem
inal article on the genre,lukthung is em
bedded in a political context through its music, lyrics
and subject matter (1990, pp 61–77). H
owever, the apparent absence of
overt social protest in a working class genre has discouraged the atten-
tion of Western scholars and surprised the few
writers w
ho have delvedinto the popular m
usic of Thailand. C
raig Lockard surveyed the popu-
lar music genres of T
hailand for counter- hegemonic discourses and
concluded that lukthung ‘could probably not serve as a model for m
usi-cians interested in m
ore overt protest music, ow
ing to its frequentlylavish, alm
ost circus-like stage productions (often involving elaboratelyclothed dancing girls), its progressive com
mercialization (and perhaps
increasing co-optation) and the conspicuous consumption of its w
ealthysuperstars’ (L
ockard, 1998, p 191). This article dem
onstrates that Lockard
did not have sufficient information available to him
to show truly the
counter-hegemonic potential of lukthung and that, during the present
conflict, a wide range of hegem
onic and counter-hegemonic (including
even the most com
mercial) elem
ents of lukthung have been used forprotest. In the T
hai context, hegemony refers to the establishm
ent, con-sisting of the m
ilitary, the royal family, the governm
ent and the Buddhist
leadership (in possible descending order of influence); whereas coun-
ter-hegemony is any opposition or alternative to that establishm
ent.
Meth
od
While D
enisoff’s (1966, p 584) categories of magnetic (w
hich promote
group solidarity) and rhetorical (which present a political m
essage) protestsongs rem
ain valuable, it is generally accepted that any definition ofprotest m
usic must include the capacity and cultural significance of the
4A
lthough the gramm
atically correct term for L
ao-Isan folk music is lam
and a prac-titioner is a m
or lam [‘professional singer’], the latter term
has become com
monly
used to describe the genre.5
Sing means ‘fast, racing or dangerous’. M
orlam sing usually refers to fast tem
pom
orlam set to dance-club beats.
Red and yellow
songs573
572South E
ast Asia R
esearch
music itself. A
s this article will confirm
, certain melodies and genres
can be extremely pow
erful cultural and political symbols, and som
eprotest songs gain pow
er through the appropriation of familiar tunes.
Potentially, lukthung lends itself to being considered as part of the larger
discourse on protest music. B
ut that is not the main purpose of this
article. Eyerm
an and Jamison (1998, p 44) propose that ‘protest’ m
usicshould be interpreted through a fram
ework ‘in w
hich tradition and ritualare understood as processes of identity and identification, as…
collec-tive m
eaning and mem
ory’. Music gives rise to am
biguous andopen-ended im
ages and symbols, w
hich can ‘open channels of identifi-cation through w
hich the past can become present’ (E
yerman and Jam
ison,1998, pp 44, 46). W
hat can we therefore learn about the yellow
and redshirts from
their musical preferences? T
hat lukthung has been used si-m
ultaneously by two opposing groups for com
peting political objectivesis intriguing. B
ut how can this be so? T
he answers lie in the historical
configuration of the music and the nature of the political contours that
have emerged since the 1970s.
Structu
re
Part one builds a foundation for this study by introducing the com
pet-ing political m
ovements, sum
marizing the developm
ent of relevant Thai
musical genres and providing an overview
of the performers and gen-
res preferred by each side.P
art two aim
s to contextualize the music of the PA
D and U
DD
byexam
ining some episodes w
ithin the history of two sim
ilarly named but
very different genres of Thai song: phleng chiw
it [life songs] and phlengphuea chiw
it [songs for life]. Phleng chiw
it was part of a flow
ering ofsatirical art form
s during Phibunsongkhram
’s second term as prim
em
inister (1948–57) before censorship forced many songw
riters to changeto the new
comm
ercial genre of lukthung. Phleng phuea chiw
it was the
preferred music of leftist students w
ithin the pro-democracy m
ovement
of the 1970s. How
ever, the rehabilitation of phleng phuea chiwit as the
official Thai protest genre has disguised the role that lukthung played
during the armed struggle of the C
omm
unist Party of T
hailand (CP
T).
Phleng plaeng [altered lyrics] using the tunes of fam
ous lukthung songsw
ere extremely popular am
ong the rank-and-file insurgents, particu-larly those in Isan.
Part three exam
ines some of the satirical songs and phleng plaeng
produced during the recent political struggle. The use of lukthung by
each side is surveyed and the types of collective mem
ory evoked bythis use are discussed. It appears that the red shirts have accessed aw
ide range of mem
ories, including the most pow
erful counter-hegemonic
traditions, whereas the yellow
shirts have drawn on a m
uch narrower
selection of hegemonic cultural m
emories.
Part 1
Description of the protest m
ovements
The P
eople’s Alliance for D
emocracy (PA
D), led by m
edia mogul S
ondhiL
imthongkul, w
as formally established on 8 F
ebruary 2006 in order toprotest against the alleged corruption of P
rime M
inister Thaksin
Shinaw
atra. With a support base draw
n from m
iddle and upper classB
angkokians and southerners, conservative factions of the Thai arm
y,the D
emocrat P
arty, some N
GO
s and labour unions, the PAD
is charac-terized by ultra-nationalist, pro-m
onarchy rhetoric and the wearing of
yellow – the official colour of the T
hai king. After the S
eptember 2006
coup, the PAD
disbanded, only to reform in M
arch 2008 to campaign
against the People’s P
ower P
arty governments of S
amak S
undaravej(January–S
eptember 2008) and S
omchai W
ongsawat (S
eptember–D
e-cem
ber 2008). This period w
as notable for the blockade of Parliam
entH
ouse and the occupation of Bangkok’s airports. W
hen the Som
chaigovernm
ent was dissolved in D
ecember 2008, the PA
D once again w
entinto hiatus. S
ince that time, pink-shirt 6 and m
ulticoloured groups haveheld dem
onstrations that have stressed loyalty to the monarchy and to
the state and have often included PAD
personnel.T
he United F
ront for Dem
ocracy against Dictatorship (U
DD
) was
first formed in 2006 as the D
emocratic A
lliance Against D
ictatorship(D
AA
D) to com
bat the appearance of the PAD
and to oppose the coupand ensuing m
ilitary government. Initially only consisting of support-
ers of Thaksin S
hinawatra, the m
ovement has expanded to include
pro-democracy and som
e leftist groups. After the election in D
ecember
2007 of the People’s P
ower P
arty, the UD
D w
ent into recess until May
2008 when it responded to the PA
D’s seizure of P
arliament H
ouse. Early
UD
D protest m
ethods were am
ateurish compared w
ith those of the PAD
,
6T
he wearing of pink shirts by royalists becam
e popular after King B
humibol left
hospital in Novem
ber 2007 dressed in pink. The inspiration for a pink-shirt group
appears to have come from
morlam
/lukthung singer Jintara Punlap, w
hose song,‘M
ob si chomphu’ [‘P
ink Protest G
roup’], appeared in March 2009.
Red and yellow
songs575
574South E
ast Asia R
esearch
and it was not until 2009 that the red shirts em
erged as a coherent po-litical force w
ith power bases in the N
orth-East and N
orth. In April
2009, the red shirts forced the Fourth E
ast Asia S
umm
it, held in Pattaya,
to be abandoned, and major dem
onstrations were held in B
angkok. After
these demonstrations w
ere dispersed by the military, the U
DD
appearsto have spent the next year quietly planning and m
obilizing for the dra-m
atic protests that took place in Bangkok from
March to M
ay 2010 andw
hich resulted in the deaths of 92 people.
Thailand’s m
usical genresT
raditional music is divided into the court-centred ‘classical’ tradition
and various folk traditions. Central T
hai classical music is perform
edby m
ahori [stringed and percussion instruments] and piphat [percus-
sion and wind instrum
ents] ensembles and also accom
panies the khon[m
asked] and lakhon [non-masked] dance-dram
a forms. T
he term phleng
Thai doem
[‘original Thai song’] refers to the large T
hai classical reper-tory. S
ince the 1970s, classical music has increasingly been adopted by
the Bangkok m
iddle class as a marker of status and identity (see M
oro,2004, pp 206, 207).
The m
ost significant folk genres in terms of influence on lukthung
are the Central T
hai folk traditions of phleng lae, phleng choi, phlengisaeo and lam
tat 7 and the North-E
astern morlam
tradition. Although all
Thai folk genres use pentatonic scales, the equidistant tuning of C
entralT
hai genres contrasts greatly with the natural pentatonic m
inor scale ofN
orth-Eastern genres. L
ikay is a theatrical form that has blended C
en-tral folk traditions w
ith classical elements.
Thai popular m
usic can be traced back to phleng Thai sakon (univer-
sal or Western songs) of the 1930s and 40s. U
nder the leadership ofF
ield Marshall P
hibunsongkhram and L
uang Wichit W
athakan, Thai
melodies and lyrics w
ere combined w
ith Western harm
ony and instru-m
entation. Folk m
elodies were adapted to create ram
wong [‘circle dance’]
– a hybrid genre that rivalled the popularity of Western dance m
usicsuch as the tango or the w
altz. After the S
econd World W
ar, phlengT
hai sakon gradually developed subgenres such as phleng talat [market
songs] or phleng chiwit [life songs], w
hich discussed rural concernsand w
ere sung with rural accents.
7A
ll of these Central T
hai folk traditions employ chanted rhythm
ic dialogue and equi-distant tuning. A
ccording to Ubonrat (2000, p 9), C
entral Thai folk singing w
asinfluenced by suat khaek or M
alay chanting introduced by Malay prisoners during
the reign of King R
ama III (1824–52).
During the 1960s, a form
al division was m
ade between these realis-
tic songs sung in rural accents and incorporating myriad folk styles –
lukthung [literally, ‘children of the field’] and romantic love songs sung
in a Western style – lukkrung [literally, ‘children of the city’]. P
hlengphuea chiw
it [songs for life], which com
bined Am
erican folk with T
hailyrics, m
elodies, singing techniques and instrumentation, provided a
voice for the leftist student protest movem
ent of the 1970s and has sincedeveloped into a com
mercial country rock genre. O
pposed to songs forlife w
ere phleng pluk-jai [patriotic marches], w
hich developed fromW
estern brass band music during the nineteenth century. T
hrough aprocess of cross-pollination w
ith lukthung, Isan folk has developed intothe hybrid genres of m
olam sing, Isan lukthung and kantruem
. 8
Lukkrung soon developed into string (W
estern pop with T
hai lyrics),w
hich then followed sim
ilar paths of development to W
estern popularm
usic. Disco and funk w
ere important influences in the 1970s, w
hilem
ore recently, Britpop/alternative, J-P
op and K-P
op, ska and hip hophave been incorporated in local variants. W
estern jazz has been appre-ciated by the T
hai upper and middle classes since the 1930s and is
particularly associated with K
ing Bhum
ibol (r 1946 to the present).
Music of the PA
DA
nyone who has follow
ed the turmoil in T
hailand over the last six yearsis probably aw
are that music has played an im
portant role in the pro-tests. T
he PAD
’s combination of free-to-air satellite television coverage
and continuous demonstrations centred around a perform
ance stage(rather than the object of protest) has resulted in a blend of protest en-tertainm
ent. Just as the proliferation of cable television networks around
the world has led to a m
assive increase in demand for content, so A
ST
V’s
24-hour format m
eant that musical content w
as essential. Furtherm
ore,the PA
D appears to have had high levels of support from
Bangkok’s
entertainment industry (see C
lewley, 2007, pp 42–43). T
his was clearly
seen when P
ongpat Wachirabunjong accepted the aw
ard for Best S
up-porting A
ctor at the Nataraja A
wards (for T
hai TV
) ceremony on 16
May 2010. T
o a standing ovation, he gave a speech, ‘If you hate Father,
no longer love Father, just get out of here. B
ecause this is Father’s house.
Because this land belongs to F
ather.’9 A
s a result of this support, a constant
8K
antruem is a folk-rock genre, usually sung in K
hmer and practised in the Isan
provinces closest to Cam
bodia – Surin, B
uriram and S
risaket.9
This speech can be view
ed at http://ww
w.youtube.com
/watch?v=
X9T
W5rN
Nw
x4.
Red and yellow
songs577
576South E
ast Asia R
esearch
stream of celebrities has been available to perform
at PAD
protests.C
orrespondingly, well educated m
iddle to upper class viewers w
ith aninterest in the fine arts did not w
ant to watch hours of uninterrupted
speeches. Consequently, variety program
mes such as Jor Y
ellow [Y
el-low
Screen], hosted by the w
ell known actor Sarunyu W
ongkrachang,becam
e key drawcards for the PA
D.
Many of the genres favoured by the PA
D constituency, such as phleng
phlukchai [patriotic marches], T
hai and Western classical, lukkrung, jazz,
electronica and Thai alternative rock, can be described as elite genres
that signify high status and are produced by and for the most affluent
segment of urban society. A
rtists in these genres, who joined the PA
Dcam
paigns between 2005 and 2008, include classical m
usicians Nat
Yondararak and his w
ife Wongduean Indharavud, alternative group
Apartm
ent Khunpa, N
atda Wiyakan [phleng w
an]10 and electronica
project The P
hotosticker Machine. A
nother elite artist to come out in
support of the PAD
was the artistic director of the B
angkok Opera, S
.P.S
omtow
, who fam
ously proclaimed ‘having returned to the country of
my birth after having spent som
e 50 years abroad, I had never felt more
free’ (Som
tow, 2006) just w
eeks before the junta’s Ministry of C
ulturecensored his opera A
yodhya for fear of bad luck (Condie, 2006). A
number
of other genres are not elite culture per se, but are usually followed
only by niche audiences. These include the C
entral Thai folk genres of
lamtat and lae, represented by W
ang Teh L
amtat ensem
ble and the pas-tiche folk group F
armer’s S
on, plus the Teochew
Chinese opera genre
of ngiw.
How
ever, not all the PAD
’s music is so easily classified as elite cul-
ture. Many phleng phuea chiw
it musicians have cam
paigned for thePA
D, including top southern bands H
amm
er and Malihuanna [m
ari-juana], F
olkner and the leader of the prototype songs-for-life groupC
aravan, ‘Nga C
aravan’ Surachai Jantim
athon. Nga C
aravan even wrote
original protest songs for the movem
ent including ‘March P
hantamit
mai klua D
AD
’11 and ‘S
anam L
uang’12 (C
lewley, 2007, p 43). L
anna(N
orthern) folk singer Suntaree V
ejanond (mother of pop star L
annaC
omm
ins), most fam
ous for the 1978 song ‘Ka jao pen sao C
hiangM
ai’ [‘I am a C
hiang Mai G
irl’] first appeared for the PAD
in 2006(K
elley, 2009). Country rock has been featured at m
any protests through
10S
low sw
eet pop similar in nature to the older lukkrung.
11T
ranslates as ‘March PA
D N
ot Afraid of the D
emocratic A
lliance Against D
ictator-ship’.
12S
ite of protests in Bangkok.
artists such as Sek S
aksit and Nasu R
apin Putichat and the S
u Su B
and.O
ther popular music perform
ers include rock artists Sip L
or [10 wheels],
Sukanya M
iguel and Rang R
ockestra, and actress Joy Sirilak P
ongchok(lukthung), referred to on the protest stage as N
ang ek khwanjai phantam
it[‘D
arling heroine of the PAD
’].T
he PAD
claims to be w
aging a ‘holy war…
to protect the three insti-tutions of T
hailand, namely the state, the religion, and the m
onarchy’(P
alphol, 2009), so it is not surprising that royal music and patriotic
songs have featured at demonstrations. S
ongs written by K
ing Bhum
ibol,such as the anti-com
munist anthem
‘Rao su’ [‘W
e Fight’], jazz tune
‘Chata chiw
it’ [‘Destiny of L
ife’] and songs in praise of the King have
been especially popular at yellow- and pink-shirt protests. In S
eptem-
ber 2008, an Australian folk singer, K
elly New
ton, performed her ow
nsong ‘L
ong Live the K
ing of Thailand’ on the protest stage at G
overn-m
ent House to rapturous applause. 13 W
ith such emphasis on royal and
elite culture, the yellow shirts consciously differentiate them
selves fromthe w
orking class. A PA
D video accom
panied by a rock version of anold phleng phlukchai, ‘R
ak kan wai thoet’ [‘P
lease Love E
ach Other’]
draws a clear distinction betw
een pro-Thaksin thugs w
ho smoke, drink
and expose themselves, and peaceful, orderly yellow
shirts who par-
ticipate in Central T
hai folk arts and customs. 14 T
he video ends with a
shot of the phrase muea khon thoi pen yai, khon T
hai yorm dueat rorn
[When scum
become big, T
hai people accept trouble]. This strong
demarcation of boundaries of heritage and status is inevitably reflected
in the PAD
’s attitude to working class m
usic. Certainly, both the PA
D’s
demographic and its assum
ed mantle as the protector of the m
onarchyhave led to an expressed preference for elite culture and tradition.
Music of the U
DD
After the P
eople’s Pow
er Party w
as dissolved and the Dem
ocrats came
to power in D
ecember 2008, a proliferation of U
DD
media content in-
cluded a dramatic increase in the use of m
usic. Over the course of 2008,
the UD
D had learned m
uch from the PA
D regarding organization and
use of media technology. L
aunched soon after the Dem
ocrats begangoverning, D
TV
(democracy television) w
as a repackaging of the ear-lier P
TV
(people’s television) that was clearly intended to em
ulate the
13T
his performance can be view
ed at http://ww
w.youtube.com
/watch?v=
QN
vZk-o0zm
A.
14T
he v
ideo
can b
e do
wn
load
ed at h
ttp://cid
-f2b
83
f81
97
4b
40
6c.o
ffice.live.co
m/
self.aspx/boringdaysfiles/media/R
akKanw
aiterd2.wm
v?ccsf=1.
Red and yellow
songs579
578South E
ast Asia R
esearch
Figure 1.
From Truth Today, 4–7 Septem
ber 2009. The w
ords at the back of the stageread: ‘T
he exquisite voice of Paijit – Paijit Aksonnarong’.
Source:U
sed with perm
ission from 2B
angkok.com.
role played by AS
TV
in coordinating the protests against the Sam
akS
undaravej and Som
chai Wongsaw
at governments. T
he channel fol-low
ed the same ‘infotainm
ent’ format and featured such program
mes
as political talkshow K
hwam
-jing wan ni [‘T
ruth Today’] and K
hui kapA
dison [‘Talk w
ith Adison’]. T
he latter was a m
usic variety show hosted
by Adison P
hiangket, who com
posed songs for the CP
T during the years
of the Isan insurgency before embarking on a political career in w
hichhe rose to be M
P for Khon K
aen and a minister in T
haksin’s govern-m
ent.H
owever, perhaps illustrating the difference in dem
ographic, the keym
edium for m
obilizing support for the UD
D w
as radio, rather than tel-evision. A
large network of com
munity radio stations interspersed political
rhetoric with lukthung and m
orlam, the preferred genres of the U
DD
demographic. T
he mixing of political and com
mercial content in such
radio programm
es effectively appropriated these genres to the UD
Dcause. D
emonstrations featured entertainm
ent spots, karaoke singalongsand, occasionally, specially com
posed political songs. VC
Ds and M
P3s
of red-shirts music w
ere distributed at protest sites and through theInternet. A
fter the Songkran 2009 setback, the U
DD
consolidated sup-port throughout T
hailand via a series of fundraising concerts.A
t the time of w
riting, the most popular red-shirt singers include P
aijitA
ksonnarong (see Figure 1), M
uk Methini and P
hloidi (lukthung), Satian
Noi and E
E-S
ompo (m
orlam), P
hithan Songkam
phon (country rock)and O
rm K
haphasadi (kantruem). 15 O
f these, only Paijit has had a con-
siderable comm
ercial career (singing Chinese-flavoured lukthung and
phleng wan for the N
ithithat company). W
hile it is true that some of the
PAD
artists no longer have active careers, there does not appear to havebeen any industry-led censure of those perform
ers who support the yel-
low shirts. T
he same cannot be said of artists w
ho support the red shirts– no currently contracted lukthung or m
olam star has perform
ed at red-shirt rallies – not even 1970s superstar S
ayan Sanya, w
ho was a m
ember
of Thai R
ak Thai. 16 T
he appearance by Gram
my
17 star Takataen C
honlada
15H
ybrid folk-rock genre, sung in Khm
er dialect, found in Isan provinces close toC
ambodia.
16S
ayan, possibly the most fam
ous living lukthung singer, had his 2007 album banned
by the Public R
elations Departm
ent after he made a speech critical of the junta.
Since then he has kept a very low
profile. Of course, this m
ay also have to do with
his questioning the authenticity of fellow legend Y
odrak Salakjai’s term
inal cancer.T
his writer has also heard that 1970s Isan lukthung star D
ao Bandon appeared for
the red shirts, but he does not have a current recording career.17
The dom
inant Thai entertainm
ent company.
Red and yellow
songs581
580South E
ast Asia R
esearch
Figure 2.
Lukthung star Takataen C
honlada at Thaksin’s 60th birthday, 26 July 2010.
Photo by N
ick Nostitz. U
sed with perm
ission.
at Thaksin’s 60
th birthday party (see Figure 2) held at M
angkorn Luang
Restaurant on 26 July 2009 could perhaps qualify as an endorsem
ent,but lukthung stars are often booked for private celebrations. T
he UD
Dleadership itself boasts a form
idable trio of musicians – P
aijit’s hus-band W
isa Khantap (songs for life), a form
er mem
ber of Caravan,
politician Adison P
hiangket (morlam
/country rock) and 1980s popheart-throb A
risman P
hongruangrong (phleng wan). O
ne of the most
popular red-shirt songs since the events of March–M
ay 2010 has beenform
er comm
unist activist Jin Kam
achon’s Nak-su thuli din [‘W
arri-ors of the D
ust’], which valorizes the fallen protesters. 18 P
erhapsinspired by the PA
D’s successful use of satire (see ‘A
i na liam’ in P
art3), there appears to have been a concerted attem
pt to produce low-
brow satirical phleng plaeng in various popular genres by artists such
as Nakara and L
orlian.
18T
his song can be heard at http://ww
w.youtube.com
/watch?v=
Coo0F
TaX
Hf0&
feature=
related.
Part 2
Phleng chiw
it
In his second term as P
rime M
inister from 1948 to 1957, P
hibunsong-khram
was not in the position of ultim
ate power he had experienced
during his first term. A
mong the problem
s he faced were grow
ing chargesof econom
ic discrimination from
North-E
astern politicians, an uneasyalliance w
ith ambitious elem
ents in the armed forces and how
to main-
tain a democratic facade w
hile still hanging on to power. It is not
surprising, therefore, that a range of satirical art forms developed at this
time. F
or example, the novel P
attaya by Dao H
ang satirized the socialengineering policies of P
hibunsongkhram’s governm
ent (Thiraphap,
1998, p 62), while M
alai Chuphinit protested against P
hibunsongkhram’s
simplified T
hai writing system
by halting his famous novel, O
ur Be-
loved Land [P
haen-din khorng rao, 1951] before its conclusion (Ubonrat,
2000, p 13). Malai, in T
he Field of the G
reat [Thung m
aharat, 1954]and S
enee Saow
aphong, in Wanlaya’s L
ove [Khw
am-rak khorng W
anlaya,1951] and G
hosts [Pisat, 1953] abandoned the conventional aristocratic
hero in favour of ordinary protagonists who fought for the underprivi-
leged (Klausner, 2004). A
t a nationwide likay com
petition organizedby R
adio Thailand in 1955, the m
ost popular group, Hom
huan, were
disqualified because they deviated from the approved script in order to
criticize the political situation at the time (U
bonrat, 2000, p 15).T
he earliest incarnations of lukthung, variously known as phleng chiw
it[life songs] or phleng talat [m
arket songs], were renow
ned for theirbiting social criticism
and popularity among the w
orking class. Song-
writers such as S
aengnapa Bunrasri (the first to use phleng plaeng for
protest), 19 Saneh K
omarachun, C
halo Traitrongson and P
aibun Butkhan
decried the exploitation of farmers and extolled the virtues of the com
-m
on man. W
hen Paibun’s K
lin khlone sap khwai [‘M
uddy Odour and
Stinking B
uffalo’] was first broadcast in 1953, it created a sensation,
selling over 5,000 records in one week (W
at, 2003, p 251). It was banned
by Phibunsongkhram
’s government for draw
ing unhelpful comparisons
between rural and urban conditions. T
he most controversial lines w
ere:‘T
he smell of the buffalo is m
ixed with the sm
ell of the young men and
wom
en of the farmers/It’s not upper class like the people of heaven’,
which referred to the residents of B
angkok (Krungthep, the C
ity of
19A
ccording to Phayong M
ukda, the first composers to w
rite phleng plaeng were
Saengnapa B
unrasri and Nakhon M
onklayon (Siriphon, 2004, p 114).
Red and yellow
songs583
582South E
ast Asia R
esearch
Angels). T
he song implied that peasants received no help from
the cen-tral governm
ent and warned listeners not to ‘look dow
n on farmers as if
they are poor things’ (Wat, 2003, p 254).
Saneh Kom
arachun and ‘Samlor khaen’. O
ne of the likay actors re-sponsible for the protest previously m
entioned was the fam
ous songwriter
Saneh K
omarachun. O
ne of the true renaissance men of T
hailand, Saneh
began acting in jam-uat [slapstick dram
a] and likay before periods ofsinging lead and backing vocals for an orchestra, com
posing for thenavy band, dubbing voices for foreign film
s and acting in radio playsand film
. Later, he popularized the horror film
genre when he produced
and directed the iconic comedy M
ae n
ak p
hra
kha
no
ng
[‘Nak of
Phrakhanong’, 1959]. S
aneh seems to have borne a grudge against
Phibunsongkhram
on at least two counts: he had royal blood through
his mother’s line; and, like m
any other musicians, w
as angered by therestrictions placed on phleng T
hai doem during P
hibunsongkhram’s first
regime.
During his period of singing life songs, his signature perform
ancew
as a medley called S
up
ha
pb
uru
t pa
k Kh
lon
gsa
n [‘Gentlem
an ofK
hlongsan Asylum
’]. Wearing a w
aistcoat and shirt, with burning in-
cense sticks inserted in a coloured bandana and sometim
es holding aportrait of P
hibunsongkhram, he w
ould begin by praising nature with
his popular Navy B
and song Ngam
chai-hat [‘Beautiful B
each’], thenpass through phleng choi, lam
tat and ho before finishing with P
hlengsansoen phra baram
i [‘Praise to H
is Majesty’]. A
t the end, he would
sing Tut dawai chai chayo [‘P
raise the Victory’] and then tell the audi-
ence he was a gentlem
an from the m
ental asylum. W
itnesses say thatthe perform
ance was so m
anic and hilarious that even politicians iden-tified by nam
e would not take offence (see S
iriphon, 2004, p 119; andT
hiraphap, 1998, p 61).A
rguably, Saneh’s m
ost influential song was Sam
lo khaen [‘The R
e-sentful P
edicab Driver’], w
ritten in 1950 to express the frustration ofpedicab drivers w
ho were threatened w
ith expulsion from the streets of
Bangkok (S
iriphon, 2004, p 119). Through its use by these drivers dur-
ing a campaign of protest stretching from
1950 to 1960, Samlo khaen
became linked to em
erging Isan regional identity. In a contemporary
ethnography of the pedicab drivers, Textor recorded that the m
ajorityof drivers cam
e from Isan and that ‘the degree of interest in parliam
en-tary politics [am
ong them] is probably greater than that found am
ongother w
orking people, in Bangkok or elsew
here in Thailand’ (T
extor,1961, p 44).
Other fam
ous songs by Saneh included P
hu-taen khwai (‘B
uffaloR
epresentatives’), which criticized politicians, and ‘P
olice thue krapong’w
hich compared the new
ly adopted police truncheons to kitchen pes-tles. T
he latter spelled the end of his career in life songs because thenotorious head of P
hibunsongkhram’s secret police, P
ao Sriyanon, is-
sued Saneh w
ith an ultimatum
to cease singing or cease living. Saneh
chose life and took on the role of spokesperson during Phibunsong-
khram’s next election cam
paign (Wat, 2009, p 7).
Despite its com
poser’s pragmatic decision, the cultural m
emory of
‘Samlor khaen’ has persisted until the present. T
his author first became
aware of the song through a link from
a red-shirt website and the lyrics
have been posted on red-shirt forums. T
oday’s equivalent of the samlor
drivers is the Isan-dominated pro-T
haksin Taxi D
rivers Protection A
s-sociation [Sam
akhom phithak phon-prayote phu-khap-rot taxi] led by
red-shirt leader Chinaw
at Habunphad. S
imilarly, the involvem
ent ofprofessional m
embers of the B
angkok entertainment industry on the
side of the PAD
evokes the mem
ory of Saneh and other phleng chiw
itcom
posers. Indeed, the atmosphere of P
hibunsongkhram’s second re-
gime bears som
e similarities to T
haksin’s final term. B
oth governments
attempted to w
in support via populist measures; both m
ade use of mass
comm
unications; and, while each w
as criticized for attempting to cen-
sor opposition, both periods were m
arked by an outpouring of satiricalprotest m
usic.
Phleng pheua chiw
it and lukthung during the Isan insurgency,1976–82In 1973, m
assive demonstrations by students led to the overthrow
ofthe m
ilitary regime of T
hanom K
ittikhajorn and Praphat Jarusathien.
One significant elem
ent of the student protests was phleng phuea chiw
it,a song genre clearly influenced by the protest m
usic of performers such
as Bob D
ylan, Joan Baez, Joni M
itchell and Pete S
eeger. Finger-picked
acoustic guitar was the m
ain accompanim
ent for traditional- soundingpentatonic m
inor melodies. A
lthough the influence of Am
erican folkw
as paramount, the perform
ers also drew from
Isan melodies, com
-pletely eschew
ing the Central T
hai folk genres such as lae, lamtat and
isaeo, which figured prom
inently in lukthung. The A
rt for Life [sinlapa
phuea chiwit] ideology of the T
hai comm
unist writer Jit P
humisak can
be observed in the students’ choice of music. Jit differentiated betw
eenart for im
perialism, w
hich imposed vulgar popular culture on the m
asses,and art for the people, w
hich protested injustice and offered solutions
Red and yellow
songs585
584South E
ast Asia R
esearch
for society’s problems. 20 In the early 1970s, lukthung appeared to fit
Jit’s description of art for imperialism
. It had developed from phleng
Thai sakon, a product of P
hibunsongkram’s era of social engineering,
and had recently produced Thailand’s first popular m
usic superstars inS
uraphon Som
batjaroen and Phongsri W
oranut. By 1973, the travelling
bands of artists such as Sayan S
anya and Saksayam
Phetchom
phu fea-tured troupes of dancing girls, am
plified instruments and huge sound
and lighting systems. T
he students of Bangkok’s elite universities clearly
did not see lukthung as a form of m
usic useful for protest (see Lockard,
1998, p 191; and Vater, 2003). 21
Follow
ing the 1973 October revolution, m
any urban Thai students
from the upper and m
iddle classes were com
mitted to political change.
The 6 O
ctober massacre of students at T
hamm
asat University in 1976
forced many student activists and ‘songs for life’ m
usicians to flee toL
aos and the North-E
astern region of Thailand, w
here they found ref-uge w
ith the CP
T. S
ince they were unsuited to the hardship of life in the
forests, the students were organized into team
s and assigned to the Isanvillages under com
munist control. T
heir duties included the creationand dissem
ination of propaganda via pamphlets, radio and tape cas-
sette (see Wat, 2003, pp 396–424). T
his created a situation in theN
orth-East w
hereby the majority of the foot soldiers w
ere Isan peas-ants, but the propaganda units w
ere made up of B
angkok students directedby the C
PT
leadership influenced by China. It is not surprising that a
cultural disjunction developed between these three groups, a disjunc-
tion that has had important im
plications for the present political struggle.
Com
munist lukthung.
Because phleng phuea chiw
it has become insti-
tutionalized as the Thai protest genre, it is often assum
ed that theC
omm
unist Party of T
hailand (CP
T) only used songs for life. H
owever,
publications by Waeng P
halangwan (2002) and W
at Wanlayangkul (2003)
reveal that, despite the CP
T leaders’ preference for C
hinese-style marches
and the student activists’ preference for phleng phuea chiwit, the m
ostpopular genre am
ong the rank-and-file insurgents was lukthung.
The experiences of A
dison Phiangket and W
isa Khantap vividly
illustrate this cultural divide. As an undergraduate A
dison used to playthe khaen [bam
boo mouth organ] onstage w
ith Caravan at T
hamm
asat
20S
ee Myers-M
oro (1986, p 99).21
According to N
ga Surachai from
Caravan: ‘“W
hen I was young I listened to L
ukT
hung”, but I was looking for som
ething else. We w
anted to shout at the govern-m
ent. “Luk T
hung” lyrics did not deal with serious issues.’ (V
ater, 2003)
University (W
at, 2003, p 423), but after the 1976 massacre, he and C
ara-van m
ember W
isa (a Ram
kamhaeng U
niversity student) fled to the forestw
here they were placed w
ith Propaganda U
nit A30. T
heir first attempt
at writing com
munist propaganda had a m
elody pieced together fromthree T
ha
i do
em songs, and their first broadcast com
position was
Ram
wong neung thanw
a [‘1 Decem
ber Circle D
ance’], which w
as ac-com
panied by guitar and piano accordion (Wat, 2003, p 397). T
heyrecall that they w
ere then encouraged to write in C
hinese style, as in thesong Jet singha su bon thang puen [‘7 A
ugust Fight on the R
oad of theG
un’], which used a m
elody written by a m
ember of the C
hinese prole-tariat nam
ed Chot W
ongchon and was accom
panied by khim
22 [adulcim
er] played to sound like a piano (Wat, 2003, p 404).
Adison soon realized that the best w
ay to inspire Isan insurgents was
to use morlam
and lukthung. He had w
ritten lukthung songs with al-
tered lyrics before entering the forest, and decided to compose a phleng
plaeng using Suraphon S
ombatjaroen’s R
ueang khorng faen phleng [‘AT
ale of Music F
ans’]. 23 He changed the fam
ous lyrics of the chorus,F
ang, fang, fang, siang phleng roem dang ik laew
… Suraphon m
a laew[‘L
isten, listen, listen, the loud sound of song has begun again… S
uraphonhas com
e’] to Pang, pang, pang siang puen dang 7 Singha/pluk m
ueanpracha/luk kuen m
a jap puen’ [‘Bang, bang, bang, the loud sound of
guns on 7 August/stir up the people/stand up and take a gun’] (W
at,2003, p 405).
Waeng records that there w
ere many other Isan insurgents w
ho putcom
munist lyrics to w
ell known lukthung songs sung by popular sing-
ers such as Sarika K
ingthorng and Yortrak S
alakjai. The m
ost prolificcom
munist songw
riter was P
hloeng Nalak, a forest guerrilla w
ho wrote
more than 200 songs criticizing the governm
ent with such lines as ‘T
hegovernm
ent’s power com
es from the barrel of a gun’ (W
aeng, 2002, p495). S
ornchai Mekw
ichian’s popular song Khon ngam
luem ngai
[‘Beautiful G
irls Soon F
orget’] was changed to Tuen thoet chao na
Thai [‘A
wake T
hai Farm
ers’] (Waeng, 2002, p 500). Y
utachak Charali,
of 156 Com
pany, used the slow and sad m
elody of Faen ja yu nai
[‘Where A
re You D
arling?’] by Saengsuri R
ungrot for his song Pa chan
[‘Sheer C
liff’], which celebrated the exploits of his com
pany againstthe T
hai soldiers:
22T
he khim w
as introduced to Thailand in the late 1800s by C
hinese imm
igrants livingin the Y
aowarat C
hinatown district of B
angkok.23
Actually, A
dison incorrectly remem
bers the original title as ‘Suraphon m
a laewo’
[Suraphon H
as Com
e], which is a com
pletely different Suraphon song.
Red and yellow
songs587
586South E
ast Asia R
esearch
‘This sheer cliff has a story
It is a story about arresting thieves who cam
e to make trouble
The enem
y came to the cliff like a crazy m
anT
hey wanted to kill people on the cliff
The sound of the gun never disappeared…
pity the people who are
slavesT
he master uses the slaves but never sees the truth
The sheer cliff bit the enem
y and they rolled down like m
onkeys.’(W
aeng, 2002, p 501)
Yutachak sees the T
hai government soldiers as invaders of peaceful
comm
unities and portrays the guerillas as enforcing the law – a com
-plete inversion of the establishm
ent history.Ironically the com
munist lukthung songs w
ere banned, not only bythe governm
ent, but by the senior mem
bers of the CP
T, w
ho decreedthat only C
hinese songs were to be sung (W
aeng, 2002, p 505). The
lukthung songs were thought to be too com
mercial and the cha-cha rhythm
unsuitable for marching (W
aeng, 2002, p 495). Nevertheless, W
aengreports that m
any of the insurgents defied orders not to listen to ‘enemy
radio’ so that they could keep up to date with the latest songs (2002, p
500). Lukthung w
as used both to boost morale and to m
ourn. Writer
Khaen S
arika asserts that the insurgents were m
ore motivated w
henthey listened to lukthung:
‘When the young people at B
an Suankhorp sang “F
rom the R
icefield”in the style of ram
wong or lukthung (w
ith lyrics like “Get him
to cutoff his head/R
eceive the karma that he’s m
ade”) and you heard what
they were singing it m
ade you feel more courageous than the m
arch-ing songs.’ (W
at, 2003, p 459)
Khaen also recalls that his tim
e in the insurgency began with the song
Ram
wong su rop [‘F
ighting ramw
ong’], ‘From
the ricefields we w
illsay goodbye to our parents/ G
o far away to the jungle w
ith hatred in ourhearts’, and ended w
ith the song Yu kap khwam
-phit-wang [‘L
iving With
Disappointm
ent’] by Sayan S
anya, ‘to leave and never go back to yourhom
etown’. H
e remem
bers his friend ‘sitting and humm
ing the famous
song by Phi B
ao (Sayan’s nicknam
e) on the sad day when the fem
alefighters of the artists’ unit N
o 32 surrendered to the authorities’ (Wat,
2003, pp 457–458).T
he tragedy of the 6 October m
assacre at Tham
masat U
niversity in
1976 had seemed to create a clim
ate for full-scale rebellion, but theensuing period w
as in fact an Indian summ
er for the CP
T. T
he wider
Thai population, including Isan, did not w
ant to abandon the King or
the Buddhist socio-cultural order for an alien social structure (M
arks,1994, p 193). E
vents in China, L
aos and Vietnam
combined w
ith localfactors, such as governm
ent amnesties and investm
ent, strangled theinsurgency, w
hich was effectively over by 1982 (M
arks, 1994, p 204).E
nsconced as the official Thai protest genre, phleng phuea chiw
it was
absorbed into the Thai popular m
usic industry, and the use of lukthungplaeng by the insurgents w
as forgotten.O
ver the past 30 years, ideological lines have become increasingly
entangled. Since the end of the insurgency, m
any on the Thai L
eft havebecom
e ardent royalist nationalists (Thongchai, 2008b, p 575), w
hileS
amak S
undaravej, adjudged to be one of those most responsible for
inciting the 1976 Tham
masat m
assacre, joined forces with T
haksin andended up serving as P
rime M
inister. An exam
ination of the key per-sonalities involved in the present conflict reveals that on the side ofthe PA
D, P
ipop Thongchai, T
herdpoum C
haidee, Nga C
aravan andpolitician P
oldet Pinprateep w
ere involved with the C
PT
insurgency,as w
ere UD
D leaders W
eng Tojirakarn, T
hida Thaw
ornset, JaranD
ittapichai, S
uthachai Y
imprasert,
Adison
Phiangket
and W
isaK
hantap.T
his confusion of ideology has been reflected in the strange juxtapo-sition of ultranationalist anthem
s such as Nak phaen-din [‘T
he Scum
ofthe E
arth’] and leftist songs such as ‘The Internationale’ together on the
PAD
stage (Thongchai, 2008a, p 5). H
owever, perhaps even m
ore star-tling than the return of the right-w
ing nationalist anthems of the 1970s
is the PAD
’s preference for phleng phuea chiwit and the overall prefer-
ence of phuea chiwit artists for the PA
D. W
hile covering the PAD
ralliesof 2006, C
lewley (2007, p 43) w
rote, ‘the one songs-for-lifer not seenat all – A
d Carabao – said he w
as too busy to make it, but it is m
orelikely that his being co-opted to m
any Thaksin governm
ent projectshad com
promised his position’. T
he irony here is that these populistgovernm
ent projects are perceived by many w
orking class Thais to be
the fulfilment of w
hat the original generation of phuea chiwit m
usi-cians called (and fought) for. T
o many red shirts, the idea of N
ga Caravan
campaigning to bring dow
n a democratically elected populist govern-
ment is incom
prehensible. Chuw
at Rerksirisuk, editor of the independent
(and anti-PAD
) news w
ebsite Prachatai, referred to songs for life w
henhe drew
a satirical distinction between the yellow
and red shirts:
Red and yellow
songs589
588South E
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esearch
‘There w
ould not be any life music or protest songs from
the intellec-tual bands for you to listen [sic], since there w
ill only be countrym
usic songs and easy understanding sentences from those giving the
speech on the stage.’ (Chuw
at, 2007).
Chuw
at clearly believes there has been a shift in the position and func-tion of phleng phuea chiw
it in Thai society and that the aspirations of
the Thai w
orking class are now represented by lukthung.
Part 3
These tw
o historical episodes provide the context for an understandingof the m
usical choices of the present conflict. The next section exam
-ines som
e of the songs and artists of the PAD
and UD
D in m
ore detail.T
he social satire of phleng chiwit echoes through the satirical songs of
the PAD
and UD
D, and the spirit of songw
riters such as Saneh
Kom
arachun can be seen in the involvement in the conflict of profes-
sional songwriters such as W
ichaya ‘Nong’ V
atanasapt. The role of
lukthung and phleng plaeng during the struggle of the CP
T helps to
explain the use of these genres by the red and yellow shirts and illum
i-nates the m
usical preferences of each side.
Satirical songs of the PAD
and UD
D
‘Ai na liam
’.T
he involvement of m
any professional songwriters in the
PAD
movem
ent has resulted in a regular flow of original, profession-
ally recorded satirical songs. ‘Ai na liam
’ [‘Mr S
quare Face’], w
hichappeared in M
arch 2006, has been arguably the most influential protest
song produced by either side. 24 It was instrum
ental in mobilizing sup-
port against Thaksin’s governm
ent, which w
as so frustrated by the song’srapid distribution through the Internet that it asked the songw
riters toidentify them
selves so they could be arrested (Clew
ley, 2007, p 43).T
he lyrics exhaustively catalogue Thaksin’s faults before lam
pooningin turn everyone associated w
ith him. T
he music is a blend of funk and
rap with a chorus typical of the C
entral Thai folk genre lam
tat. This use
of one of the building blocks of lukthung can be interpreted as an at-tem
pt to widen the appeal of the PA
D’s m
essage beyond Bangkok.
24S
ee the video at http://ww
w.youtube.com
/watch?v=
sLG
TopD
8UH
4. An E
nglish trans-lation of the lyrics can be view
ed at http://ww
w.2bangkok.com
/06/ squarefacesong.shtm
l.
How
ever, the choice of lamtat over m
orlam or kantruem
confirms a
pattern of struggle for cultural supremacy discussed by this author in a
previous article (Mitchell, 2009, pp 306–309). T
he increasingly domi-
nant identification of lukthung with Isan culture by both T
hais andnon-T
hais is perceived in elite circles as a threat to Central T
hai cul-tural hegem
ony. The A
sia Pacific D
atabase on Intangible Heritage for
UN
ES
CO
identifies lamtat as C
entral and morlam
as North-E
astern Thai
culture (UN
ES
CO
, 2007). Thus, for the PA
D, lam
tat is a pure folk genrethat confirm
s Central T
hai hegemony.
The P
hotosticker Machine.
One artist w
ho demonstrates both the close
links between the PA
D and the entertainm
ent industry and the eclecticm
usical preferences of some w
ithin the PAD
constituency is Wichaya
‘Nong’ V
atanasapt, a mem
ber of legendary Thai ska band T-B
one. Wichaya
writes sound tracks for com
mercial T
hai films and is also a freelance
producer, working on a regular basis for the entertainm
ent giant Gram
my.
He describes his solo vehicle, T
he Photosticker M
achine, as lounge roomjazz electronica, usually produced for a lim
ited circle of industry insidersand friends (interview
with the author, 15 January 2009).
In 2005. Wichaya w
rote and recorded a song to support the PAD
’sprotest m
ovement against then P
rime M
inister Thaksin. ‘C
orruption’ isan extrem
ely hard-hitting piece of social comm
entary that could be aboutT
hai society in general, although the song’s subtitle ‘FT
A (F
ucking “TS
”A
gency)’ made it clear w
ho was being targeted. W
ichaya says that therecording of ‘C
orruption’ was a cathartic process that allow
ed him to
express the anger he felt at Thaksin’s betrayal of T
hailand’s three insti-tutions (interview
with the author, 15 January 2009). T
he first verseaddresses the greed of politicians:
‘Day after day you think, think w
hat law can m
ake return on yourm
oneyIf you cannot find it then you w
rite your own law
to fill yourpockets.’
25
The second verse contrasts this greed w
ith the faithfulness of a dog:
‘You’ll never know
the land’s goodness, which you can w
ork untilyou are satisfied and happy
25T
he song’s lyrics are in Thai, apart from
the title. All translations are the author’s
own.
Red and yellow
songs591
590South E
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esearch
Even dogs know
the goodness of the people, poor or rich, neverproud, faithful to their ow
nerIf anybody doesn’t know
, think for yourself, no ethics, get the dogto teach you.’
The com
parison to a dog is an obvious insult, yet this verse also in-vokes both the royal self-sufficiency program
me and the K
ing’s bookabout his favourite dog, T
horng Daeng. 26 T
he final part of the song is arapped curse that calls on ‘sacred spirits anyw
here in the universe’ togive suffering to this thief: ‘S
tay around, pay your karma, in the prison
of the dark place/Forever the fire of hell burning you.’
The song is an im
peccably assembled piece of social criticism
in which
the musical elem
ents have been consciously chosen to reinforce thecom
poser’s message. F
or example, the spoken curse is echoed by w
ah-w
ah guitar stabs, which, the com
poser explains, were supposed to sound
like the Thai w
ord yet mae [‘m
otherfucker’]. How
ever, the eclectic,cosm
opolitan nature of the musical elem
ents serves to narrow the song’s
appeal and thus its influence. The opening L
ed Zeppelin-like riff is then
meshed w
ith reggae rhythm guitar and record scratching. T
he vocalm
elody, sung in a Western style, descends from
the minor 7th through
the notes of the major scale. A
heavy blues guitar solo precedes a rapbreak, rem
iniscent of the Beastie B
oys, with psychedelic falsetto back-
up vocals. Musically, the song is a pastiche of W
estern styles – styles,m
oreover, that would be fam
iliar only to Thais w
ho had received aW
estern education or travelled extensively.
Nakara.
Unlike the PA
D, the red shirts have alm
ost exclusively usedfam
ous songs as their vehicles for satire. These phleng plaeng are gen-
erally poorly recorded and tend to be more hum
orous and lowbrow
thantheir PA
D equivalents. F
or example, N
akara’s ‘Mi na hak’ is an altered
version of ‘Fam
ily mi phaenda’ [‘P
anda Fam
ily’] sung by Nong B
enzJr that questions A
bhisit’s achievements as P
rime M
inister. The origi-
nal song was a surprise independent dance hit featuring a cute T
hai girlsinging about the cute pandas on loan from
China to C
hiangmai Z
oo.N
akara’s version changes the title to ‘Mi na hak’ (‘V
omit B
ear’, butsounds like ‘C
ute Bear’ in Isan dialect) in order to suggest that A
bhisit
26In 1998, K
ing Bhum
ibol adopted a stray dog and in 2002 wrote a book about her,
which stressed how
respectful and well behaved she w
as, despite coming from
alow
ly background.
is just a pretty face and that in reality his achievements have all been
insubstantial publicity stunts.V
erse one describes the competition to find a nam
e for the baby panda:‘A
sk the villagers, they answer straight aw
ay that this panda’s name is
Na H
ak’. The second and third verses are concerned w
ith two cases that
dominated the general interest new
s during May and S
eptember 2009:
Keiko S
ato, an abandoned Thai boy w
ho was looking for his Japanese
father; 27 and Mong, a stateless B
urmese-S
han boy, who w
as eventuallygiven a tem
porary passport so that he could take part in a paper aero-plane com
petition in Japan. 28 The fourth verse criticizes the cost of
security for Abhisit’s visit to the N
orth-Eastern city of U
bon Ratchathani
to deliver a cheque to Yai H
ai, an elderly Isan wom
an who w
as owed
compensation from
the government: ‘G
ave it only to one person, You
don’t care about other people, Then you fly aw
ay in a helicopter, Not
brave if compared to the cute panda’. 29 P
lays on words abound: M
anjop O
xford rue ork lek wa [D
id he graduate from O
xford or as a welder?].
For the m
ost part, the tone is good-humoured and dow
n to earth, but inthe last verse the song descends into pure vitriol: ‘D
on’t you know that
they hate you like shit?/If you are so stupid go take care of buffalos.’ As
with the m
ajority of red-shirts video clips, the production quality islow
, featuring poorly ‘Photoshopped’ pictures of A
bhisit dressed as apanda.
‘Khw
ai Daeng’.
Directly after the m
ilitary crushed the red-shirt pro-tests on 19 M
ay 2010, there was an outpouring of anti-red-shirt invective
on social networking W
eb pages such as Facebook and the video-shar-
ing website YouTube. T
he professionally produced rap song ‘Khw
aiD
aeng’ – translated by the songwriter as ‘R
ed Shit’ – is fairly repre-
sentative of the sentiments expressed during those days. 30 T
he first verseaccuses ordinary red-shirt supporters of being gullible, stupid and greedy:
‘You dum
b water buffaloes, how
much did they pay you per day
You rushed to take it, to adm
it that you are low peasants.’
Class difference is a key concern of the song – the rural red shirts w
hofollow
Thaksin are referred to as bia rap chai [slaves]. T
he second verse
27S
ee, for example, http://search.japantim
es.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090518a6.html.
28S
ee, for example, http://w
ww
.telegraph.co.uk/news/w
orldnews/asia/thailand/6212585/
Stateless-boy-allow
ed-to-leave-Thailand-for-paper-aeroplane-contest.htm
l.29
See http://w
ww
.nationmultim
edia.com/2009/10/13/politics/politics_30114293.php.
30T
his song can be heard at http://ww
w.youtube.com
/watch?v=
rrfb0NyN
ddg.
Red and yellow
songs593
592South E
ast Asia R
esearch
gloats over the death of Seh D
aeng – ‘You w
eren’t able to show off for
long, you took a bullet in the head’ – while the third and fourth verses
are devoted to red-shirt leaders Nattaw
ut Saikua and Jatuporn P
rompan.
The fifth verse is of particular interest to this article because it addresses
Arism
an:
‘Kee [A
risman’s nicknam
e] is another one, you were not brave
enoughF
ather Liam
[Thaksin] gave you a m
illion per day, you said ‘yes…I’m
brave enough’…K
ee you are the vilest scum, you lolly-sucking dog.’
The songw
riter’s knowledge of his subjects is im
pressive – he plays onthe title of one of A
risman’s biggest hits, ‘Jai m
ai dan por’ [‘Not B
raveE
nough’] and alludes to the popular story that Arism
an’s singing voicew
as so sweet because he constantly sucked (H
alls) lozenges.W
hen it comes to T
haksin, however, the songw
riter is overcome by
rage, alternating accusations with chants of ‘S
at Maeo, hia M
aeo’. 31
Thaksin’s alleged crim
es include attacks on the monarchy, a desire to
be President, paym
ents made to phrai [serfs], the bribing of T
hailand’sgovernm
ent assembly, and living in com
fort while his follow
ers arekilled on the streets. In the final section, the singer curses T
haksin (‘may
you have cancer in your testicles’) and urges the red shirts to ‘move to
Montenegro’, one of several countries in w
hich Thaksin found refuge
and of which he holds citizenship.
Lukthung
Although L
ockard (1998, pp 190–191) concludes that lukthung is gen-erally unsuitable for protest, he follow
s Ubonrat in acknow
ledging thatit both affirm
s establishment view
s and challenges the institutions ofsocio-political pow
er. It is ostensibly a simple m
atter to classify thevarious m
usical and cultural elements that m
ake up lukth
un
g ashegem
onic or counter-hegemonic. In term
s of hegemonic elem
ents, thereare m
any lukthung songs that praise the institutions of king, countryand religion or glorify the m
ilitary. Up-tem
po lukthung songs and con-certs are unifying sites of com
munity celebration that affirm
the Thai
tradition of collective sanuk [fun]. The com
mercialism
and extravagantperform
ance style of lukthung qualifies it as bourgeois culture, as was
31M
aeo is Thaksin’s nicknam
e. Sat means anim
al, but could be translated as bastard.H
ia means lizard, but can be translated as a range of insults: for exam
ple, asshole.
shown by the C
PT
leadership’s reaction to the ‘comm
unist lukthung’songs. F
inally, Am
porn (2006) has shown that lukthung has been in-
creasingly viewed as authentic T
hai culture since 1997, and this authorhas w
ritten on the appropriation of lukthung as a symbol of C
entralT
hai superiority (Mitchell, 2009, pp 306–309).
In terms of counter-hegem
onic elements, m
any songs deal with them
esof separation and m
ourning and the social dislocation resulting fromeconom
ic migration. U
bonrat (1990, p 71) shows that lukthung often
presents a more frank discussion of sexual m
atters than the establish-m
ent would like. In com
mercial lukthung, indirect social criticism
iscom
mon and direct satire, though rare, does occur. C
lass difference iscom
municated through the m
usic – the vocal styles of lukthung singersusually m
ake use of rural accents and the vibrato [luk khor] and embel-
lishment [uean] found in folk songs. A
lthough it may seem
to contradictthe final points of the previous paragraph, lukthung is often consideredby m
any Thais as part of Isan identity, due to the high degree of Isan
involvement in the industry.
How
ever, as intimated in the introduction, any assessm
ent of music
according to theories of hegemony versus counter-hegem
ony is prob-lem
atic because
musical
elements
are am
biguous and
can act
simultaneously for and against the dom
inant culture. The situation in
terms of this present conflict is further com
plicated by the changes ingovernm
ent that have taken place during the period in question. For
example, w
hile Thaksin S
hinawatra, S
amak S
undaravej or Som
chaiW
ongsawat w
ere in power, the PA
D could be reasonably designated as
counter-hegemonic, but under G
eneral Sondhi’s regim
e and Abhisit’s
government, the PA
D becam
e part of the hegemony. F
or these reasons,classifying the use of lukthung during this struggle as hegem
onic orcounter-hegem
onic is not overly helpful. How
ever, it is certainly possi-ble to observe w
hich musical elem
ents and cultural mem
ories are tappedinto by each side and then draw
conclusions as to the success of suchuse and som
e of the implications raised by each side’s choices of m
usic.
The red shirts’ use of lukthung.
The current Isan cultural resurgence
32
and the dominance of Isan people in the U
DD
have ensured that lukthungand m
orlam have been the m
ost performed genres on the red-shirt pro-
test stages. Kantruem
, Northern lanna folk m
usic, Central T
hai folk
32S
ee Miller (2005), ‘F
rom country hick to rural hip: a new
identity through music for
Northeast T
hailand’, Asian M
usic, Vol 36, N
o 2; also Kreangsak (2005), ‘C
rackingup the egg em
peror’, The N
ation, Bangkok.
Red and yellow
songs595
594South E
ast Asia R
esearch
music and rock/songs for life are also featured, but far less frequently.
The problem
with regional genres such as m
orlam or kantruem
when
performed for televised protests, or those held in B
angkok, is that thelyrics are inaccessible to a certain proportion of the audience. T
his isone of the strengths of lukthung – the use of C
entral Thai language
mixed w
ith certain words of class and ethnic identification, such as bor
(Isan and Northern T
hai or khamm
ueang dialect for ‘no’) appeals to thelargest possible audience.
Despite the gaudiness of its com
mercial concert presentation, m
usi-cally speaking, lu
kthu
ng is suited to certain counter-hegem
oniccircum
stances. Slow
and melancholy songs function effectively as la-
ments for loved ones lost through death or separation. T
he theme of
longing and separation taps into cultural mem
ories such as the unful-filled political objectives of the C
PT
insurgents, 50 years of seasonalm
igration to Bangkok and alm
ost 200 years of separation from L
aopeople on the northern bank of the M
ekong. Reaching further into the
past, lukthung echoes the subject matter of the ancient S
iamese travel
literature genre nirat [literally: separation, departing from som
ethingthat is dearly desired]. T
he definition of nirat as a poetic expression oflove-separation m
elancholy with a journey in the background aptly de-
scribes the lamentation found in m
any lukthung songs. As T
hongchaiW
inichakul (2000, p 42) observes, until the second half of the nine-teenth century, travel w
as not a desirable activity and pleasure was not
its primary purpose. F
or the Thai w
orking class, this is still the case andso lukthung songs are full of accounts of loss and forced separation.
Whenever these channels to the past are accessed, a deep em
otionalinvestm
ent is created. In an interview w
ith the BB
C, K
wanchai P
raipana,w
ho leads the Rak U
don group (a red-shirt chapter from U
don Thani in
the heart of Isan), described himself as ‘lukthung’ in the literal sense
that he is a ‘child of the field’ (or a country boy). As a D
J and long-time
friend of the legendary singer Sayan S
anya, this description is not acci-dental. K
wanchai states that he used to care only about m
usic, but thatthe degree of political participation m
ade possible by Thaksin’s gov-
ernment inspired him
to become involved w
ith the red-shirt movem
ent(A
sh, 2009). Thus lukthung has becom
e a political statement and a ral-
lying point.
Muk M
ethini.A
case study of the songs of Muk M
ethini demonstrates
that lukthung has been used by the red shirts to lament, praise and cel-
ebrate. Muk, w
ho had a minor singing career before becom
ing the face
of UD
D entertainm
ent, is one of the most polished red-shirt perform
-ers. R
ueang sao muea chao ni [‘S
ad Story F
rom T
his Morning’] is a
lament for N
arongsak Krobthaisong w
ho died during a clash between
PAD
and government supporters in S
eptember 2008. T
he singer adoptsthe persona of the dead m
an’s wife, w
ho learns of his passing on them
orning news:
‘Sad story one m
orningA
lways rem
ember and never forget
Never have the w
ords to say goodbyeT
here’s no young man to com
e back home again.’
Narongsak is not m
entioned by name; rather, his story is that of all Isan
migrants:
‘You said before you left hom
eY
ou said you wouldn’t be gone for long
You w
ent looking for work in the big city.’
In the chorus, which proclaim
s ‘You died for all of T
hailand/Great de-
mocracy/Joined the protest until death’, the singer’s individual loss is
linked to the wider political struggle.
Another com
mon use of lam
ent by the red shirts is to mourn the ab-
sence of Thaksin. K
hon di thi na neung [‘Top-R
ate Person’] is a hym
nof praise to T
haksin that lauds his efforts to help the poor:
‘At the tim
e you were here you took care and had m
ercyF
or those with no place to sleep, the answ
er to their desires lay inB
an Uea A
thorn33
Many projects this T
haksin didG
ot rid of Thailand’s debt, he w
as vilified so had to flee into exile.’
The perceived usurping by T
haksin of the King’s place in society has
been one of the key drivers behind the yellow-shirt m
ovement. C
onsid-ering that lukthung songs of this kind are usually w
ritten to praise theK
ing, Thaksin is here seen to be taking the place of the K
ing in provid-ing care for T
hailand’s most needy. T
he following excerpt from
thechorus m
akes this point explicitly:
33C
heap housing development in K
hon Kaen.
Red and yellow
songs597
596South E
ast Asia R
esearch
Figure 3.
Red shirt hang khrueang (dance revue).
Photo by N
ick Nostitz. U
sed with perm
ission.
‘Since the day you left the villagers have been w
aiting intenselyF
or you to come back to heal the poor.’
Many up-tem
po comm
ercial lukthung songs, which are otherw
ise cel-ebratory, assum
e a background of separation forced by economic
migration. A
t red-shirt rallies, Muk often sings Sao U
don jam-dai [‘T
heG
irl from U
don Rem
embers’], a slightly altered version of Sao U
donjai dam
[‘The H
ard-Hearted G
irl from U
don’], which, ironically, w
asoriginally sung by S
otsai Rum
potorng, who is now
a junior minister in
the Abhisit D
emocrat governm
ent. Sao Udon jam
-dai has the simple
premise of an Isan girl declaring that she w
ill definitely return to hercountry boyfriend after she finishes w
orking in Bangkok. S
eparation isan established part of everyday life for Isan fam
ilies, and the theme of
waiting and enduring through prolonged absence can be easily applied
to the political climate of D
ecember 2008 to June 2011, during w
hichm
any red shirts felt disenfranchised and abandoned by Thailand’s elite.
As w
ith blues, lukthung is able to fulfil the seemingly contradictory
functions of lament and celebration. In R
am
wo
ng
pra
cha
thip
ad
ai
[‘Dem
ocracy ramw
ong’], Muk adopts the role of entertainer by address-
ing the protesters as an audience: ‘you are the players I will be the
singer’. She seeks to include speakers of all dialects by calling C
han jaho la na (C
entral), Chan ja ho la noe (N
orthern), Chan ja ho la w
a(S
outhern), Ao chan ja ho la w
oei (Isan) [I will sing ‘ho’]. T
hroughoutthis upbeat lukthung song, M
uk is accompanied by the custom
ary danc-ing revue costum
ed in red. It is significant that the comm
ercial elements
of lukthung (such as elaborate costumes and dancing girls) identified
by Lockard (see section on lukthung at the beginning of the paper) as
discouraging to overt protest musicians have actually been em
bracedby red-shirt perform
ers (see Figure 3).
Num
na khao, sao na kluea.T
he collective meaning and m
emory em
-bodied in lukthung are aptly dem
onstrated by a red-shirts version ofN
um na khao, sao na kluea [‘T
he Rice F
arm B
oy and the Salt F
armG
irl’]. This fam
ous duet was perhaps the m
ost popular song of 1982and earned its w
riter, Soraphet P
hinyo, a Phaen siang thorng kham
[lit-erally, ‘gold record’], 34 a highly prized honour from
the royal family. In
1989, Num
na khao was listed in the top 50 lukthung songs of all tim
eby the O
ffice of National C
ulture. Its enduring popularity among karaoke
singers has inspired any number of phleng plaeng, such as an am
usingversion in w
hich the male and fem
ale singers declare their love for al-cohol of all kinds. 35 M
usical elements of the song have becom
e ingrainedin the public consciousness. T
he introduction’s rhythm and cha-cha-
cha cadence are so well know
n that Thais inevitably begin the opening
lyrics at exactly the right spot – no easy task with a syncopated anacrusis.
A key factor in the original’s appeal is the ubiquitous nature of the
characters – the peasant boy and girl are hard-working urban m
igrantsdraw
n together by their humble origins. T
he girl is identified as ‘Yupin’,
a traditional peasant name that can also be used to refer to any w
oman
whose nam
e is unknown. A
second factor is that lukthung provides thecom
fort of tradition to those who are m
ost confronted by the alienationof cosm
opolitan life (see Am
porn, 2006, pp 40–41). Although tem
ptedby their independence, the characters choose to conform
to societalexpectations by seeking parental blessings on their relationship andreturning to live in the girl’s hom
e town. F
inally, the song itself is aw
ell known sym
bol of the inequality of modern T
hailand. In 1990, song-
34U
nlike gold or platinum records in the W
estern pop industry, it does not signify salesof a certain am
ount.35
The first lines of this version are – M
: ‘My village drinks alcohol, alcohol before
food every time’; F
: ‘I like to drink beer, I drink beer before looking for food’.
Red and yellow
songs599
598South E
ast Asia R
esearch
writer C
holathi Thanthorng com
plained that Soraphet w
as paid only60,000 baht by his com
pany for a song that had made over 44 m
illionbaht (U
bonrat, 1990, p 65). Soraphet has inform
ed this writer that he is
unable to re-record his most fam
ous song because he does not own the
copyright (interview w
ith the author, 23 January 2010). Each of these
channels of identification resonates with the red-shirt constituency on
deeply emotional levels.
Num
suea khao sao suea daeng [‘The B
oy in the White S
hirt and theG
irl in the Red S
hirt’]36 draw
s on these collective meanings and m
emo-
ries while adding new
layers of meaning in a political context. F
irst, itappears to be sung by the original fem
ale singer, Norngnut D
uangchiwan,
who now
lives in Norw
ay. 37 The ubiquitous peasant girl of the original
is individualized in the lyrics as the Isan celebrity Norngnut and ac-
knowledged as politically stronger and m
ore aware than the m
aleprotagonist. H
er acceptance of him as a partner depends on his accept-
ance of and active participation in her politics. The subtext is clear –
those who w
ere formerly subservient now
have a political agenda. Sec-
ond, some elem
ents of the song are informed by new
realities. The
villagers in the original are identified by the kind of labour they pro-vide, w
hereas in the red-shirt version they are identified according topolitical persuasion. A
t the time of the original song, D
ao Khanong w
asa new
, vibrant market place; but it is now
run-down and out of favour.
The characters of the red-shirt version go to D
ao Khanong to attend a
protest, rather than for social or comm
ercial reasons.T
his is a translation of Num
na khao, sao na kluea:
M:
My village farm
s rice, plants rice at all times
F:
I harvest salt, sell salt to buy food to eatM
:M
y village is in Kalasin
F:
As for m
e, Yuphin, I live in S
amut S
akon
M:
I have come to m
eet a beautiful girl and visit Dao K
hanongF
:I count it as good luck that w
hen I met you, you greeted m
efirst
M:
I really want to go to live at S
amut S
akonF
:F
rom w
hat you say I’m afraid that is not true
36F
ound on an undated VC
D purchased at a red-shirts dem
onstration in Khon K
aen on31 January 2010.
37T
his demonstrates the involvem
ent of the Thai diaspora in the present political struggle.
Correspondingly, 70s pop star N
ata Wiyakan returned from
living in Canada to ap-
pear on the PAD
’s performance stage.
M:
I, the rice farmer, love a young girl
F:
I am a salt field girl
M:
The rice field boy w
ill never forsake you
M:
If I will go w
hat will your father say?
F:
I’ll be very happy if you truly go ask for my hand
M:
The rice field boy guarantees I w
ill not forsake youF
:If you love m
e truly don’t leave the salt field girl.
And this is a translation of N
um suea khao sao suea daeng:
M:
My village is w
hite-shirt. I’ve met a strong w
oman
F:
I am a red-shirt w
oman of the strongest kind
M:
My house likes to w
atch Nattaw
utF
:A
s for me, N
orngnut, I follow everyone
M:
I came to m
eet my red-shirt sister and have visited D
aoK
hanongF
:S
o that is my good luck to m
eet you before you turn into ayellow
shirtM
:I am
interested in the red shirts – you must help to teach m
eF
:F
rom w
hat you say I’m afraid you are not truly red
M:
I want to go to the protest. C
an you come as m
y friend?F
:S
o you must w
ait till the end of the month
M:
If you’re my friend don’t leave m
e
M:
If I change to become a red shirt, are you going to tease m
e?F
:I w
ill be very happy if you become truly red
M:
This w
hite-shirt man guarantees that I w
ill not go back on my
word
F:
If you love me truly don’t leave the red shirt girl.
The use of lukthung by the PA
DL
ogically, there would be significant advantage for the yellow
and pinkshirts in em
ploying lukthung and morlam
to spread their message. M
orlamw
as used beneficially by the United S
tates Information S
ervice (US
IS)
during the Vietnam
War and by the T
hai government during the com
-m
unist insurgency (see Miller, 1985, pp 56–57). H
owever, until the recent
campaign by the red shirts, the PA
D ignored m
orlam and tended to
send the wrong m
essages when attem
pting to use lukthung. In concen-trating on hegem
onic and satirical elements, the PA
D has m
issed an
Red and yellow
songs601
600South E
ast Asia R
esearch
opportunity to engage with the w
orking class on a visceral level. For
example, Joy S
irilak became a popular lukthung star after her appear-
ance in the soap opera Sao noi café [The Y
oung Girl in the C
afé, 2000].Y
et when she appeared for the PA
D in July 2008, rather than any of her
hits, she sang only Khon T
hai rak chat lae satsana [‘Thais L
ove theN
ation and Religion’], honouring the three institutions. 38 It is signifi-
cant that most of the use of m
orlam and lukthung by the PA
D has occurred
since the beginning of the 2010 Songkran protests in the context of
YouT
ube videos satirizing the red-shirts demographic. T
he mocking
Khw
ai, khwai, khw
ai (daeng)39 is fast lukthung; S
uraphon Som
batjaroen’sK
hamen lai khw
ai 40 [‘The C
ambodian B
uffalo Herder’] accom
paniessim
ple animation of T
haksin riding the other red-shirt leaders; andF
olkner’s Mob W
eng [‘Weng’s m
ob’, alluding to Dr W
eng Tojirakarn]
41
is a cross between lukthung and m
orlam. 42
Likew
ise, attempts by the pink shirts and the D
emocrat governm
entto capitalize on the popularity and ubiquity of lukthung have usuallycom
e across as forced and heavy-handed. On 27 D
ecember 2009, the
long-running television concert lukthung show, W
ethi Thai [T
hai Stage],
diverted from its usual program
ming to broadcast a pink-shirt rally fea-
turing Prim
e Minister A
bhisit. When long-term
fans of the show arrived
at the alternative venue, they discovered that about a thousand pink-shirted supporters had already arrived by bus, along w
ith a sizeablesecurity presence. T
he stage featured a huge backdrop of the King w
itha halo effect looking over farm
ers planting rice. An introductory film
interspersed footage of the King w
ith footage of Abhisit and his gov-
ernment. B
efore the Prim
e Minister m
ade his appearance, Gram
my artist
Mon K
haen sang morlam
accompanied by 10 dancers all holding khaen,
the musical sym
bol of Isan. Abhisit and other dignitaries then sang C
homthung [‘A
dmiring the R
ural Scenery’] (see F
igure 4), originally sungby lukthung legend P
hloen Phrom
daen, before being presented with
garlands and roses by a procession of poor people. Despite being carefully
38T
his performance can be view
ed at http://ww
w.boringdays.net/joy-pad-beloved/.
39T
his video can be viewed at http://w
ww
.youtube.com/w
atch?v=oL
agRkoS
W1I&
feature=related.
40T
his video can be viewed at http://w
ww
.youtube.com/w
atch?v=84T
yfpvwL
p8&feature=
related.41
In 1976, Weng w
as a student leader who joined the arm
ed struggle of the CP
T and
later took part in the 1992 democracy m
ovement. H
e has become one of the key
leaders of the UD
D.
42T
his video can be viewed at http://w
ww
.youtube.com/w
atch?v=yc_K
kCD
bLX
Y&
feature=related.
Figure 4.
Abhisit singing next to fam
ous likay and lukthung singer Chaiya M
itchai.B
ehind them is Finance M
inister Korn C
hatikavanij.P
hoto by Peter G
arrity.
designed to appeal to the lukthung demographic, the overall effect w
asunderm
ined by the Prim
e Minister’s obvious discom
fort and lapses inm
emory during the song.
It has already been established that the PAD
has been far less likelyto m
ake use of phleng plaeng than the UD
D, yet an exception to this
rule shows w
hat the unifying force of lukthung might achieve. A
t aPA
D rally in M
ay 2008, Nga C
aravan sang a phleng plaeng of Fon
duean hok [‘Rains in June’], com
posed by Phaibun B
utkan in 1968 forR
ungphet Laem
sing. 43 The choice of song hints at com
promise – P
haibunbeing honoured by both the establishm
ent, as Central T
hailand’s great-est songw
riter, and the Collective of T
hai Revolutionary S
ongs Project
[Khrongkan banthuek lae phoei-phrae praw
attisat ngan phleng pathiwat],
as the father of left- wing protest (W
at, 2003, pp 251–253). The original
evokes the spirit of rural Thailand w
ith the sound of frogs calling in the
43T
his performance can be view
ed at http://ww
w.boringdays.net/w
et-firewood/.
Red and yellow
songs603
602South E
ast Asia R
esearch
rice fields during the rainy season. Nga’s version m
aintains the wistful,
lilting singing style and some of the lyrics of the original, w
hich suitedthe inclem
ent weather in w
hich the protest took place. The restrained
altered lyrics attacked corruption and the bullying of the press without
resorting to the extreme invective characteristic of recent PA
D songs.
Overall, it cam
e across as a well perform
ed and credible piece of propa-ganda that could have appealed to the w
orking class.
Con
clusion
An exceptionally poignant m
oment occurred at the red-shirts concert in
Khao Y
ai on 15 Novem
ber 2009 when A
dison Phiangket broke dow
nw
hile singing about his younger brother, killed during the CP
T insur-
gency (Nostitz, 2009; see F
igure 5). The sym
bolism of this m
oment
shows w
hy the red shirts have succeeded in becoming a nationw
idem
ovement. A
s Adison and W
isa discovered 30 years earlier, real changein the T
hai social order could not be brought about by weapons or ide-
ology. The cultural disjunction that developed betw
een the CP
Tleadership, B
angkok students and Isan farmers show
ed Adison that a
comm
on purpose was best prom
oted through a musical genre that rep-
resents all Thais. A
significant factor in the cultural unity of the redshirts has been that their favoured genre, lukthung, allow
s for regionaland ethnic differences w
hile maintaining a high degree of T
hainess. Incontrast, the yellow
shirts have confined their appeal by explicitly pre-ferring elite and W
esternized genres that exclude Thailand’s w
orkingclass. W
hile it is surprising that the PAD
have not made greater use of
lukthung, perhaps this is a reflection of the degree to which lukthung
and morlam
have become conflated in the eyes of the T
hai public.T
his article shows that, although the PA
D has used a m
uch wider
variety of music than the U
DD
and has produced music of better qual-
ity, its choices have acted to exclude the majority of T
hais. Perhaps this
issue of agency is what truly connects the three periods exam
ined here.D
uring the era of phleng chiwit, talented, highly educated songw
ritersprotested on behalf of the m
uted lower classes, but the state w
as even-tually able to stifle their criticism
by force. During the struggle of the
CP
T, the rank-and-file insurgents had songs w
ritten for them by B
ang-kok students in genres prescribed by the C
PT
leadership, but were also
able to produce phleng plaeng in their preferred genre of lukthung. After
the insurgency, however, phleng phuea chiw
it was celebrated as the
official Thai protest genre, w
hile lukthung plaeng were silenced. D
uring
Figure 5.
Adison Phiangket m
ourns his younger brother.P
hoto by Nick N
ostitz. Used w
ith permission.
the present conflict, both sides have made use of lukthung, but, by chan-
nelling a wide variety of cultural m
emories and m
usical elements w
ithinthe genre, the red shirts have successfully appealed to the w
orking class.P
erhaps this indicates that, for the first time in T
hai history, working
class Thais are m
aking their own political choices.
It appears that lukthung has gained traction among the red shirts because
of the social configuration of their movem
ent. Attem
pts to use lukthungby the yellow
shirts have not been successful because lukthung doesnot have the sam
e emotional resonance w
ithin their demographic. T
hisdiscussion can contribute to the larger discussion of protest m
usic throughthe w
ay it has highlighted deeply felt issues of identity and emotional
investment associated w
ith a musical genre and how
these can be har-nessed to political ends. T
here is scope for further investigation,particularly into the role played by m
usic during the dormant periods of
each group. It will be tem
pting to apply Eyerm
an and Jamison’s obser-
vation that ‘Music, and song…
can maintain a m
ovement even w
hen itno longer has a visible presence in the form
of organizations, leaders,and dem
onstrations’ to the red shirts post of May 2010. L
ukthung may
Red and yellow
songs605
604South E
ast Asia R
esearch
indeed ‘be a vital force in preparing the emergence of a new
movem
ent’(E
yerman and Jam
ison, 1998, p 43).
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