dagTunes: 산울림 "나어떡해"

This is one of my favorite Korean songs; possibly, thee fave. And that's incredible because the three brothers in 산울림 played some very cheesey almost-power-pop over the years.

산울림 (San-ul-lim) means 'mountain echo'. The official English title for 나어떡해 (Na-eo-ddeok-hae) is "What Shall I do?" Alhtough, 나어떡해 is a Korean expression that means "What am I going to do now?" "What shall I do?" sounds a bit 19th Century Victorian English to me and carries none of the folksy quality that the pop song embodies.

한글moment: The song's title provides a good illustration of the daily difficulties I experience learning the Korean language. A student might think he sees "떡", which means 'rice cake', which would take him down a path towards "rice cake does", which makes no sense at all. And then the student would ask a Korean. And then bang his head on his desk.

나어떡해 has the right amounts of pop and melancholy mixed together with great, muted drumming. I've been looking for the lyrics and never have found them. If you know them or can find them, in English, or can translate, I'd love to know more about it than I already do.



I'm putting this up because another version of the song by a popular band, Sandpebbles, receives a lot of attention on You Tube. The original is, as many Koreans will correctly argue, the better version.

Read about 산울림 in English:

Wikipedia

dagTunes: 펄 시스터즈 (The Pearl Sisters)

I'm a little obsessed with traditional Korea pop. One of my favorite vocal groups is The Pearl Sisters, featuring sisters Bae In Soon and Bae In Sook. I can't find much about them in English. From what I can tell, their mother originally encouraged them to sing as "The Kim Sisters". Lee Nanyong was an actress and singer during the Korean War and it sounds like she got her daughters involved in 노래 (norae, song) contests held on the military bases. The girls like performing and soon were recording. They became popular with the backing of Korea's godfather of rock'n'roll, Shin Jung Hyeon, the subject of my next post.

Anyway, if you know more about the sisters, leave a comment.

Contemporary K-Pop is such weak, fashion-oriented, easily-consumed and forgettable junk that researching the 50s, 60s, and 70s Korean Pop, Folk, and Rock scenes has been a real joy. Korea has a wealth of musical treasures. You just have to dig a little to find them.

I can't wait to hit the used record stores in 남대문시장 (Namdaemun Market) and attempt to find some of the music I've grown to love.

Much of the late-sixties to mid-seventies pop & rock music is garage and folk influenced. There is plenty of progressive and hard rock around but the best is the psychedelic tinged folk and folk pop and songs like The Pearls Sisters' garage pop.

"Shadows of the Two" and "I'll Wait" (During the first song there's a little pause in the audio that lasts about 3-4secs.)



The next one is called "커피 한잔" and is probably the best song about "a cup of coffee" I've ever heard:



I like "I Can Not" quite a bit. It's a nice garage pop number: