Chris de Burgh

This post is about a man whose music I've admired for many years: the Irish singer/musician/songwriter Chris de Burgh. Those of you who have heard of him, perhaps know him from his hit singles "Lady in Red" and “When I Think of You”. But there's so much more to his music than that.

For most of my teenage life, I listened to Chris de Burgh’s songs only, partly because English songs are not that easy to find in Iran. Since I came to Malaysia, I've been exposed to a great variety of new artists and bands. But still, nobody's music touches my soul like Chris’s. He's the sweetest pop star on Earth!

As a boy, my favourite Chris de Burgh song was “Sailing Away”. As much as I despise bloggers who fill their weblogs with nothing but lyrics (Don’t you just hate that?! lol), I have to quote some lines from this song to give you an idea of what it’s about:

“Waiting at the water's edge
Watching all the ships
As they are heading for the harbour wall,
I was just a boy,
Dreaming of the wide world,

Watching as they disappear,
Reading out the names
Of all the places I have never been,
Looking out to sea,
Staring out to sea,
Dreaming of a wide world,

Walking down another street,
Underneath the red lights,
I am watching where the shadows fall,
Looking at the girls,
Listening to the girls,
Dreaming of a new world,

I wish I was sailing away,
Sailing away,
Sailing away, with you tonight,
With you tonight;”

Listen to a short clip taken from "Sailing Away".

This song's obviously about the wonders of growing up, discovering new places and experiencing new things. As a boy, the prospect of learning all the things I didn’t know about this world was thrilling. This song to me was a beautiful, dramatic expression of my journey towards manhood. Here's a photo of me "sailing away"!

Unlike most artists, Chris doesn’t sing only about love. He has written some very meaningful songs on war, politics, poverty, hope, friendship, God, heaven, sex, temptation and basically a lot of the different aspects of life.

I have a complete collection of his albums and songs which I used to share on my university's internal network a couple of years ago. I advertised it as “heart-warming British love songs”, and soon I had a steady stream of downloads. I wanted to know if the downloaders enjoyed his music as much as I did. So I asked. I was delighted to find some people had become fans! Here are some of their comments, Malaysian-style:

"thanx for your songs. i love all of them. i love the rhytm. i feel very calm. im really touched. currently i am still listening to all of them. tq very much. i don know how to thank you :)"

"i was just trying it out at first. then i fell in love with them then started downloading like mad. still listening actually. at first i only downloaded the love songs series. then after the first few songs i was like wow. and went on mirc searching. i downloaded all the albums. the more i listen the more i like it. and if u really listen to the lyrics...they have meaning."

It must be incredibly satisfying to create music that inspires people. Chris de Burgh has gotten so many thanks from all over the world on his website (http://www.cdeb.com), it's overwhelming. And he probably knows there are many more people out there who deeply enjoy his work but haven't had the chance to tell him; people like me.

Click here to listen to some samples of Chris de Burgh's music. If you're already a Chris de Burgh fan, leave a comment!