If the locals were to vote on an official Chiang Mai theme song, I’m guessing they’d choose this northern Thai folk tune that I hear constantly around town. As background music in shops and restaurant, from street musicians, on local-music CDs, it seems to be everywhere. One evening at Sunday Walking Market I count three different renditions within 10 minutes by performers young and old alike. Some nights I awake to the sound of my idiot neighbor upstairs tootling out the melody, terribly, on his wooden flute.
Curious to learn more about the song, I run a Google video search of “Thai folk music” and instantly strike pay dirt – all kinds of performances, from teeth-gritting single-chord traditional instrument ensembles to modern soft-pop vocals, and everything in between.
I still don’t know who wrote it or when, although Lian thinks it might be the musician who produced this simple and headphone-worthy version that I first heard in her spa when we met. She tells me he’s been dead and gone for a good many years.
All I know is, it’s the perfect melody to play me out of Chiang Mai once again – for how long this time, who can say? Final post for now. See everybody soon.
Oh, I do know one more thing: the song is called Long Mae Ping.
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