Versions of ‘Superstar’

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First I heard the song Superstar, written by Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett back when your mother wasn’t yet born, was on the radio, fittingly enough, and the voice was Karen Carpenter’s. Hers was an unmistakable melancholy, capturing the gist of a heartbroken groupie waiting for the musician with the “sad guitar” to blow into town again.

The theme of the unrequited is of course bread and butter for pop culture, from the Carpenters to the old bullfrog Russell, who after all was co-writer and thus could do anything he wanted with the song within the parameters of poetic license. His inflections and vocal colorings could be an acquired taste, indeed verging on self-parody, then again to paraphrase an old saying, heartbreak has no pride.

Recently the song came again into radio play in our heads if not on Spotify, with the passing of Nora Aunor, the National Artist also known as Superstar. The song was also the title of her primetime TV program of more than 20 years, the one with German “Kuya Germs” Moreno on RPN 9. Aunor also has a version of Superstar and she does more than enough justice to the classic, ranking up there with the OGs.

You can almost hear it again now: “Long ago and oh so far away/ I fell in love with you/ before the second show/ Your guitar sounds so sweet clear/ but you’re not really here/ it’s just the radio…”

Then after the refrain of don’t-you-remember-you-told-me-you-loved-me-baby, comes the second verse, “Loneliness is such a sad affair/ and I can hardly wait/ to be with you again/ what to say/ to make you come again/ come back to me again/ and play your sad guitar…”

At times the Superstar struggles with her pronunciation, but any seeming kinks can only endear her more to listeners, much like Eddie Peregrina when he sings, “What am I leaving (living) for/ if not for you.” Great singers almost always own the song they’re singing, and part of the territory is a personal way of rolling the syllables off tongue, it’s the slight blemishes that make the song the singer’s.

Another version of Superstar is by the post-punk, neo-grunge New York-based band Sonic Youth, which played at the Araneta Coliseum in the mid-’90s along with Beastie Boys and Foo Fighters. Awash in reverb and distortion, the song becomes barely recognizable, except for the eerie opening verse that sounds familiar enough however deep in gothic trappings, long ago and oh so far away is right.

Sonic Youth likes doing alternate, almost bastardized renditions of old hits, same with its take of Madonna’s Into the Groove, recast as Into the Groovy.

The Superstar’s death was sandwiched during the height of Holy Week between the passing of her balae Pilita Corrales and the pope beloved of Filipinos, Francis. Corrales said her farewell on the eve of Palm Sunday, and if you have time, you might want to google her album where she sings Visayan songs. Even non-Visayan speakers may find some comfort listening to her sing Salamat sa Gugma Mo, the Cebuano version of A Million Thanks to You.

The pope of the peripheries breathed his last on Easter Monday, a day after he made his final tour of St. Peter’s Square on his Pinoy-designed popemobile, following his presiding over “Urbi et Orbi” wherein he again gave a dressing down on the masters of war.

When the pope was here in January 2015, there was a wall of humanity at the Luneta to hear Mass. If you were coming from the south, there was no way to breach the people’s flanks to get to the north of the city, specifically Port Area, where an issue of the paper had to be put to bed.

After hours of walking, there was a kindly tricycle driver near the Aristocrat that offered his services for a modest fee, to transport a desk editor through side streets and beside esteros of depressed neighborhoods, in dizzying parabolas and zigzags before finally ending up at the foot of Del Pan bridge close to the magic hour, a few more steps to Railroad Street where the next day’s headline would be what the Holy Father said during that humongous Mass.

A news dispatch shortly after Francis’ death said the pope could barely sing due to weak lungs, but no matter, there are enough angels to do the singing for him, another version of a rock star with the gospel of sad guitars. Maybe what he really wanted to say was, “I love you/ I really do…”