As a family, this is our first cold Christmas in a long time (and for our son, his first winter Christmas ever). For the last five Christmases, we were in Singapore. The period was spent largely around the pool, and on Christmas day we went island hopping on a boat trip. We lived in a condo and rarely closed the balcony doors due to the constant warm temperature.
For the entirety of the Christmas period last year, we were haunted by an unknown piano melody played by one of our neighbours. By haunted, I mean in the sense that it tormented us, day in, day out, for weeks. Not that it was annoying or poorly played – in fact, it was a beautiful piece and played with competency – but in spite of our best efforts, we just couldn’t work out what it was. Shazam didn’t work, and we refused to go ask the neighbour because that would be cheating. We racked our brains and dug through Spotify, YouTube, and our own record collection. It was nowhere to be found.
The piece itself was simple and built up slowly around a repeating melody. It had a somewhat traditional, oriental sound – perhaps reflecting the scale used. It’s difficult to describe how magical it sounded as it gently bobbed its way into our apartment along the tropical night air. It shaped our Christmas with its gentle, haunting chimes. In the end, we didn’t identify what the music was – not while there anyway.
Earlier in the month, I was stopped in my tracks while driving through the snowy mountains as the song started playing on the radio. Instantly, it took us back to that warm, humid Christmas evening near the equator. The song, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, is the theme of a movie of the same name (released in 1983) and was written by the Japanese composer, Ryuichi Sakamoto. Click here to hear it played in full by the composer. Happy holidays and merry Christmas to you and your loved ones.
