I’m getting ready to sing a song in Cantonese tonight. This started out being what we call in the biz, a gimmick. “The white guy is about to sing a song in Cantonese. Oh he’s doing that song? Wow!”

In Chinese the song is called “海闊天空” and it’s by the band Beyond. The title in pinyin is “Hoi foot tin hung.” The translated title is “The Boundless Sea and Sky.” Here’s my previous description of the song: dated and non-interesting lyrically (from most translations I’ve read). It’s from 1993, though it sounds even older than that to me.

Wake me up before you ngoh ngoh?

Here’s my current description of the song: moving and iconic. I still don’t understand what I’m singing, but as I’ve researched the band and I’ve talked with several of my Cantonese friends about the fact that I’m singing this song, I find a deeper attachment to it that goes past simply seeing it as an outdated rock ballad. People love this song. People love this band. It’s crazy. And so, what I love about music that I do understand, I love about this song. It connects with you emotionally.

I was singing the song in the office today as a joke and when I stopped I overheard at least 2 people in the next room finish the line. Imagine being at work and only singing “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song…” Now you know what I mean.

According to Wikipedia, Beyond was beginning to see some big success in Asia in 1993 when lead singer Wong Ka Kui fell from a broken stage and sustained massive head injuries. He lapsed into a coma and died a week later. This was about when they released the song that I’m singing tonight. So yes, there’s some of that deceased rock star mystique attached to it, but I’ve learned that the lyrics in Cantonese are pretty poetic anyway and content-wise, they strike a chord with the people here.

So I’m singing this song, with a band, in front of several hundred Cantonese speaking people. I predict either a revolt with vegetables or a lighter and cell phone “Free Bird” moment. We’ll try to get a good recording for you.

In the meantime, here’s a karaoke version of the song (with pinyin captions) so you too can try to sing along with Beyond.

This should be interesting.