Constantly by Cliff Richard or How I Learned English or Why I Love My Aunt and Auntie Annie or The Day My Dad Came Through for Me
I grew up in Malaysia and spoke Malay, an island language related to Hawaiian. Malaysia was a British colony and became independent in 1957. Everyone born before 1957, I was born in 56, went to British schools. We were on the equator, ninety degrees all day, every day, and we read poems about daffodils and snow. No one explained what they were, we read as if we were in England.
My mom and dad had maybe five years of school between them. School was not warm and fuzzy, it was foreign, unknowable, suspect. So, on my terrifying first day of school, they sent my aunt to accompany me.
The classroom had French doors that opened to a veranda where my aunt stood facing the class where I could see her. My eyes were glued to her begging her not to budge, not even to go to the lady’s room, and she didn’t. She went when I went.
At the end of that first day the teacher instructed parents to draw something on the left-hand side of every page in our exercise book. Between my aunt and I, we were sure it was kittens. My father was not so sure, but I was beside myself and my aunt was only a little calmer. So, my father sat down and drew a kitten on page after page in the book, in the only style he knew, real life.
The next morning, we showed the kittens to the teacher. Turned out, we were to draw margins! In those days margins did not come pre-drawn.
I was in dire straits.
A neighbor, Auntie Annie, whose grandfather was English came to the rescue. Not only did she speak English, but she also taught her grandchildren after school. I joined them and thanks to her I caught up. I started reading, writing, and speaking English, or rather Manglish, Malaysian English.
Television began entering homes in the 1960’s. Malaysia was a young nation with one TV station. Entertainment programs came from America. There were a few British programs but mostly they were American. When I moved to America, I learned that my friends and I saw the same TV programs as children ten thousand miles apart. I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Bonanza, Get Smart, and The Twilight Zone! I remember an episode of The Beverly Hill Billys where Jethro falls in love with a certain young lady who kept a radio in her bra. Granny did not approve, the romance ended at the end of that episode. I was seven, giddy with pride that I got “it” – the music coming from her heart in the form of a transistor radio nestled in her breast, romance, forbidden love, American humor. I was proud of my English and “worldly views and knowledge.”
And there was the R double A, F; the Royal Australian Air Force radio station. They played the same hit song fifteen times a day. Heaven sent! My aunt, with pencil and paper ready, copied and recopied lyrics, or what she thought were lyrics. When we were happy with the words, she copied them in our song book, and we sang nonsense.
You’re a devil in the sky. Oh yes you are, devil in the sky.
My aunt was a teenager in love with her cousin. We were a conservative family, we did not get to meet boys, other than our cousins during family gatherings, and even then, it was “you can look, I can look, but cannot touch.”
She was lovesick, and Neil Sedaka spoke to her.
You are the answer to my lonely prayer, you are an angel from above
I was so lonely till you came to me, with the answers of your love
I was six when I sang this.
My aunt put me in a singing contest. At the time her favorite song was Constantly by Cliff Richard. Neither of us knew what constantly meant, and it was a bitch of a song to sing:
All day, I’m walking in a dream, I think about you constantly
Just like, an ever-flowing stream, your memory haunts me constantly
(The hard part:) Just as sure as each star, keeps burning in the sky
Your love will stay a flame in me
A flame that burns so bright
not only through the night
but constantly…
I got a consolation prize: a box of prunes.
You’re a devil in the sky. Oh yes you are, devil in the sky.
Elvis Presley: You’re A Devil in Disguise, https://youtu.be/-sjWaGnonns
“I can look, you can look, but mustn’t touch.”
Cliff Richard: Outsider, https://youtu.be/nMWOQY5mBhA
Neil Sedaka: You Mean Everything To Me, https://youtu.be/kLyp67lHyashhttps://youtu.be/kLyp67lHyasttps:/CCliff/youtu.be/kLyp67lHyas
Cliff Richard: Constantly, https://youtu.be/9ONxxAuBK20
