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Ever since I woke up to Your Latest Trick by Dire Straits on my alarm radio last week, I've been listening to this multiple times every day. The reason I like this song so much is that it brings back good memories of the times I was working in Hong Kong. This was the theme tune of a popular TV series in Hong Kong back in the nineties and whenever I hear it, it reminds me of those golden years.
Those were some of the best times in Hong Kong. The economy was great, property prices were rising, a flip could earn you much more than many years of work. I was doing well at work and earning decent money and having a good life. Even though we knew at that time Hong Kong would be changing from a British owned colony to become part of China in a few years time in 1997, we were ok with it. We trusted UK and China to look after Hong Kong which guaranteed our freedom and everything would remain unchanged for 50 years. Every body was happy. That was then, and nobody could foresee that 20+ years later everything would go south and the Hong Kong every one knew and loved would disappear forever.
Anyway, back to Your Latest Trick. It's such a beautiful song, especially the saxophone part. I close my eyes listening to it, it's so smooth, so romantic, so sexy. I think this is what having sex with music feels like, giving me climax after climax.
Following on with a nostalgic theme, here's a theme tune from another very popular Hong Kong movie called Infernal Affairs. In 2006 it was made into a Hollywood movie called The Departed, directed by Martin Scorsese, and starring a whole host of A listers including Matt Damon, Leonard Dicaprio, Martin Sheen, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wharlberg. The storyline is about a mob gang who sends kids into the police cadet so they can infiltrate and control the police force as they rise up in the ranks. On the other hand the police sends a cadet reject as an undercover into the mob gang. Both undercover last for years and they struggle to live their false lives for so long. They want to get out, but are unable to do so.
There's one scene where the fake police goes into a hifi shop to buy some speakers and is served by the fake mob. They don't know each other's identity, and end up sitting together listening to music to test the speaker quality. The song they listen to is Forgotten Times by Tsai Chin a renowned singer from Taiwan with a beautiful voice. The song is a integral part of the movie, and the music video transcends through notable scenes from the movie but without the actors. The most impactful scene of the taxi with a damaged top appears in 0.56 in the music video. I believe the same scene also appears in The Departed, and if you've watched either movie you will understand the impact it has on the movie. If not, I hope you enjoy the music video below.
And finally, I wanted to find a third nostalgic song from the era and I ended all the way back to 1985. In 1984 UK Band Aid produced Do they know it's Christmas, followed by We are the World by USA for Africa. Both were charity songs to raise money for the Ethiopian famine. At around the same time, Taiwan had a lot of issues in society and a group of artists decided to produce a feel good charity song to raise morale.
This was called Tomorrow will be better and involved over 60 artists. including Tsai Chin (she performed the song above) who opened the song. The song is very popular across the Chinese speaking world and is often performed at charity events and group performances. Back in 2018, the CN community on Steemit the previous chain performed it virtually. 21 of us took part and our individual vocals were edited into an entire song. It was a very nice experience to take part. I wanted to find the video to show you but sadly it was uploaded to the dapp that no longer exists.
Here's the original music video. Hope you enjoyed my nostalgic journey.