Underdogs

Written and Recorded in 1993

I had a friend from my university days who lived in my neighbourhood at the time of writing this tune. We were not close friends but worked together in a students' theatrical performance titled Zone in 1991 and due to the locational proximity, we visited each others' places occasionally, spent a formidable amount of time mainly discussing music and other cultural / philosophical things, usually along with some other friends. As years went by, the number of the friends who gathered together kept on shrinking and by the time when the tune was written, in 1993, I was the sole remaining friend who was still seeing him. We both recognised being strong at drinking but with a hindsight, we might have been simply developing our alcoholism through our visiting habit.

He had so many vinyl and CDs that covered a far broader range of music than mine and I still owe him for being familiarised with some artists like Nick Drake and Tim Buckley. I respected him while he was playing Rag Time or Polka with his acoustic guitar but despised him too while he was playing the records of Free Jazz, Noise or Avant-Gard music. After I moved out from the area we lived, our seeing occasions became quite rare. The last time we had such occasion in 1996, we had a bad dispute about stupid politics. I felt bad about my own attitude at that session but deep inside, I rather felt at ease to seeing him off from my life forever. Looking back on those stormy days, it would be fair to say that at least I wrote a piece of music for paying tribute to the respectable side of this individual.