Indolish Songs, How Are You?

Why do you love me? is one of Koes Plus’ Indolish songs. This legendary group band has also an English album entitled Another Song for You.

Indolish songs? What are they? They are English songs composed by Indonesian musicians. This term, of course, cannot be found in any dictionaries. Some group bands have composed a lot of Indolish songs. Panbers composed Indonesia My Lovely Country, Farewell, and ….. (anybody knows?). The Mercy’s, Edane, Power Metal, Dewa and some others have some Indolish songs as well. Lately, Slank has just released an English album (anybody wants to post about this album?)

Some other songs are bilingual, let’s say Katon’s Someday, Melly’s Butterfly, and many more. We don’t call these songs Indolish.

In this global era, it’s important for Indonesian musicians and bands to go international. Composing (and releasing) Indolish songs, in my opinion, is one of the ways. However, some Indolish songs don’t have ‘good’ lyrics. It’s a good chance for Indonesian English poets to collaborate with musicians to write Indolish songs. The film Music and Lyric (anybody wants to post about this film?) shown on TV lately may inspire Indonesian musicians and poets to collaborate. English poems posted in Kompasiana are pretty good, here is one Crazy about You posted by Andi Gunawan.

Indolish songs, how are you? (By David Solafide)

This article is also put on Kompasiana