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The famous Korean folk song (new minyo) Nodul Riverside (노들강변) in two versions, the Moranbong Band and by the southern singer Song So-hee (송소희). I thought it might be interesting to some to show an example of culture common to both Koreas. The song originates in 1934 during the Japanese occupation. With lyrics written by Sin Bul-chul (신불출) and music by Moon Ho-wol (문호월), it was first recorded by Park Bu-yong (박부용). Nodul island (노들섬), located in the Han river in central Seoul, was once just a sand bank in the middle of the river. Here there used to be a boat station so people could pass the river. The song lyrics lets us meet one of the boats-men. He would sing “E-he-ya!“ while rowing the boat. In the first verse the movements of the hanging branches of a willow tree reminds him of the skirt of a young woman who drowned in the river a long time ago. In the second verse he thinks about all the years he has been dragging the boat through the sand banks, making deep footprints while still feeling her presence in the water. In the third verse he thinks of his own destiny wishing for better times. And ,like so many others he will also one day be drowned in the river and presumably once again meet his loved one in there. Moranbong Band only sings the first two verses but one should not make any assumptions of that. An early example: • Видео Actually the Moranbong Band version is more true to the original lyrics. The original Park Bu-yong recording: • Видео There are several variations of the lyrics and Song So-hee doesn’t even sing exactly the lyrics written into the video! At first I thought she had made a mistake in the third verse by singing “moseun“ (무슨) instead of the written “mosam“ (무삼), the latter here meaning a kind of hemp cloth used to wrap up a dead person before the funeral. It would fit in better, but in the 1934 original it’s also “moseun“. So, in fact it was the video editor who was lazy. Typical... Song So-hee is often said to be a national treasure. Likewise Moranbong Band is definitely the national treasure of music in the north. We all know it’s hard to get videos from the north in good quality. Here though, the Song So-hee version is even more rare. It was recorded in 2013 (she was 16 at the time) but due to copyright problems the release was cancelled. They later made an audio only release so there may be advertisements when viewing as audio is the same (and copyrighted). I don’t think you can find the second video anywhere else on YouTube and maybe they will take it down here, too. We’ll see (as a well-known president usually puts it...). Technically this is an example of how the PAL video standard of the north and the south’s NTSC can work well together without losing quality. All you have to do is just work a little harder to unify...
