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The day is 10 August.  The fireworks from NDP have barely died down, when the 2009 Organizing Committee steps down, and a new Committee takes over to start planning for NDP 2010.

Immediately, discussions turn to the controversy surrounding the NDP 2009 theme song.  The song that was criticized for being unmemorable, too rock and roll, difficult to sing to, and having nothing to do with NDP or Singapore at all.

The new chairman of the committee declares, “The NDP theme song must appeal to the masses, therefore we must take in everyone’s comments and suggestions.  We must ensure that the song must be crafted to reach out to every single Singaporean.  It must appeal to everyone and be beyond reproach.”

With that objective in mind, the committee began to brainstorm on what needs to be included in the 2010 song.  “It must contain the word Singapore.”   “It must represent our four major races, yet not exclude any minority groups.”  “It must cover an extensive age group demographic, and must include the elderly, sickly and disabled.”  “It must showcase all our National Landmarks and progress in Nation Building.” “It must display our achievements in Arts, Commerce, and Sports.”

With all those points and more noted down, the committee then decided to hire BOTH Dick Lee and Clement Chow to compose the theme song.  After all, both men had previously composed iconic theme songs.  Their partnership would surely result in a winner.

Fast forward 6 months ahead, and the 2010 Theme Song is announced with much aplomb and fanfare.  The resulting epic song composed by the formidable Lee-Chow partnership is a powerful, inspirational, and most importantly catchy and easy to sing along to, aptly titled “Count on Me Singapore, My Home”.

But to the horror of the committee, the song is not the all encompassing crowd pleaser that they expected it to be.  Whereas a large number of people think the song is great, a significant number of people are extremely critical towards it.

“Yet another attempt to pull at the heartstrings through mushy lyrics and smiley faces.”

“The song sounds as if we are back in the 80’s.”

Other criticisms are more personal and unjustified.

“I just don’t like anything by Dick Lee.”

“Clement Chow sucks.”

The Committee is taken aback and disheartened.  Unfortunately the song had already been released, and there is no way of taking it back.  But time passes, though the criticisms continue growing, the committee gradually gets accustomed to them.  Finally, they come to realize what all the other committees before them had come to realize.

That it is an impossible task to produce a song that every single person from our 4 million will like and have nothing bad to say.

And although the above scenario is fictional and untrue, and entirely based on my imagination, Dave (Electrico’s lead singer) did reveal in an interview that the song took him just two weeks to compose, but much, much longer to get approved.

In my personal opinion, Electrico did very well to produce a song that expressed their National Pride, whilst maintaining their artistic vision and integrity at the same time.  Years from now, I am certain “What Do You See?” will be remembered as the song that broke new ground and altered perception of what an NDP Theme Song has to sound like.

Behind The Scenes for NDP Music Video Shoot (1)

Behind The Scenes for NDP Music Video Shoot (2)

31 year old Bertrand Lee is one of Singapore’s talented young filmmakers. His graduation short film Trishaw, made at the age of 23, won the Kodak Asia-Pacific Competition. In 2005, he made the headlines when he had his leg amputated after an accident in Mumbai, India.

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