The True King

It’s His Majesty the King’s 80th birthday – Long live the King!

On December 5th at 7.19 pm an ocean of candles lightens up Thailand for the King of Hearts.

Wear yellow or any of the now fancy royal colors to join Thailand’s unique Father’s Day. We though have a special surprise for you: A kind of birthday song for His Majesty.

absolutelyBangkok.com has a guest contributor for this auspicious occasion: Kelly Newton-Wordsworth from Australia. She wrote a touching song for HM the King Bhumibol Adulyadej. A hymn of a foreigner to the father of the Thai nation.

Kelly is a singer, composer, environmentalist and so much more.

You may know Kelly’s song “One World”. It opened one of the Live Earth concerts in Los Angeles in July this year.

Kelly is a pal of Al Gore – and an admirer of HM the King Rama IX. For good reasons.

She wrote “Long Live the King of Thailand” – a song she’s playing at the mega concert outside the palace on December 5th. “This year they are expecting around 500,000 people,” says Kelly. “Exciting!”

Curtain up now! Here is Kelly:

“Long Live the King” is a song for the King of Thailand, from my heart, and really to say what I as a foreigner see of him through “my eyes”.

There are so many things that I admire about him, but the turning point for me was simply the way that I was so moved emotionally the first time I ever saw the DVD of him on Thai Airways. I had uncontrollable tears pouring down my face as I watched this. I was very surprised myself to have this response! I don’t normally have uncontrollable tears watching documentaries!

When I first came to stay in Bangkok, I kept asking people how they felt about the King. Some people would cry as they spoke about him.

This absolutely amazed me. Growing up in the West, I have never seen people feel this way about their leaders. This love is so genuine from the people. It has touched me and changed me forever.

It seems in the world that it is almost unheard of that the people of any nation feel that they are truly loved and cared for by their leaders. Certainly in the Western world, we mostly have politicians who seem to be only interested in themselves and their own positions of power.

I think deep down all people would love to have leaders that they can truly look up to, and be inspired by, but also feel that they are loved and appreciated by those leaders.

I believe that true leadership is supposed to be a “reciprocal” thing, whereby the leaders gain personally in terms of power and influence, but in return they give the people who have lifted them to those positions a feeling that they are important, loved, appreciated and listened to by those leaders.

When I saw the King of Thailand in this DVD, I was probably also crying from a feeling of grief of “not” having grown up with such a wonderful leader of my country.

To me the King of Thailand is what I would imagine a true King would be, or should be. As far as I am concerned, there is no one like him in the world.

There is no leader on the earth, that I have known of (physically as opposed to spiritually) in my lifetime so far, to come close to him, and he is a great human being who genuinely cares for the people of Thailand, and the future of the planet!

If he wasn’t “real” I would not have been moved to tears, just seeing the way that he looked at the people and cared so deeply for them and for the land, which I also love. I have been loving the land myself for almost 20 years since I moved to our farm. That love of the land was something I didn’t know before when I just lived in the city.

I think that is also a key of this feeling that I have for the King.

The life that I have lived myself for the last nearly 20 years, since I married and went to live on our farm has given to me the love that I have for the soil, nature, forests, flowers, growing vegetables for our family to eat straight out of the garden, caring for the future generations of unborn children whom I want to see have the opportunity to experience the “realness” of an ancient forest, and eating their own home grown vegetables!

When I first saw the DVD of the King, I feel that these things that I have come to know because of being a farmer for so long, and really caring about growing food in a clean organic way with no chemicals or artificial fertilizers, brought me to feel what I feel for the King and the appreciation that I have for what he has achieved in his life.

He is a visionary. He has been thinking “outside the box” as my husband and I have for 20 years. Many people think inside the “box” and therefore don’t necessarily appreciate or have any understanding of what people like the King see and understand.

I love him, also for his music. I can listen to his compositions all day. He is a brilliant composer and musician, and his depth of feeling in the lyrics of his songs touches me to the core of my soul.

I am also an artist, and a musician, so this is another way in which he has touched my heart.

He is a man with such love in his heart, that must be why I was so moved the first time I saw him, and learned just a “taste” of who he is. The more I learn the more I want to know him. When I sat recently in the Thailand Cultural Center and listened to the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra play some of his compositions, I was totally transfixed, as if I was in a dream!

This was one of the greatest musical experiences of my life, which I will remember forever. He is a genius.

So it is with honor and respect that I have written this song for His Majesty:

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I would love to one day soon be able to play his song for him – live!

I say and sing “Long live the King of Thailand”!

More Kelly on her website




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November 29, 2007 | Filed Under Culture & Arts, History, Society 

Comments

One Response to “The True King”

  1. S. on November 29th, 2007 5.31 pm

    Very cool …

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