On celebrating 10 years of my domain NgocNga.net, I decided to post an entry on how I picked music to listen on the road.
First, songs whose lyrics inspired me to go.
– This type of songs accounted for the big part of my playlist. For several years now, Đen and Da Lab’s raps have been famous all over Vietnam. These tracks were in my list: Chạy Trốn Mặt Trời, Đi Theo Bóng Mặt Trời, Ngày Khác Lạ, Ta Cứ Đi Cùng Nhau, Đưa Nhau Đi Trốn, Cho Tôi Lang Thang, Đời Là Đi, Lái Xe Một Mình.
– English songs: Airplane (Plain White T’s), Moving Along (The All-American Rejects), I Am The Highway (Audioslave), Somewhere Only We Know (Keane), Have It All (Jason Mraz).
– Chinese songs: Ping Fan Zhi Lu (Pu Shu), Piao Xiang Bei Fang (Namewee ft. Wang Lee Hom), Mi Lu Lu Wen Wen Dao (Zeng Zhao Wei), Yi Lu Xiang Bei (Jay Chou), Jin Ri Wo Li Bie (Mao Bu Yi), Ru Guo Wo Men Bu Ceng Xiang Yu (Mayday), Ren Yi Men (Mayday), Bu Jian Bu San (Ashin).
Second, songs with places in titles.
– Worldly, there were songs like Across The Universe (The Beatles), On Top Of The World (Tim McMorris), Li Kai Di Qiu Bao Mian (Mayday).
– Songs with country names: In Italia (Fabri Fibra ft. Gianna Nannini).
– Songs with city names: Dien Bien Victory (Various Artists), Hue Saigon Hanoi (Hong Nhung), Tokyo (Owl City ft. Sekai No Owari), Chengdu (Zhao Lei), Copenhagen Fairytale (Cynthia Wang), Prague Square (Jolin Tsai), Harbin Snow (Gao Jin).
– Just some random places: Trường Sơn Đông, Trường Sơn Tây (Thuỳ Chi and Tạ Quang Thắng), Lake Baikal (Li Jian), Beverly Hills (Weezer).
Third, songs about home.
After all, I’d come back home after a trip. And these songs I’d like to play on the way back: Đi Để Trở Về (Soobin Hoàng Sơn), Sẽ Hứa Đi Cùng Nhau (Da Lab ft. Soobin Hoàng Sơn), Về Nhà (Da Lab ft Kaang), Bình Yên Là Khi Trở Về (Thuỳ Chi), The Man Who Can’t Be Moved (The Script), Next Plane Home (Daniel Powter), Svet V Tvoyom Okne (Alsu), Zai Jia Xiang (Li Jian Qing), Zhong Yu Jie Shu De Qi Dian (Mayday).
Fourth, classical music.
Sometimes it was hard to sleep on the plane. Then I chose to listen to some classical crossover by Maksim Mrvica.
Last but not least, international songs.
I don’t mean world music. I like listening to songs of many languages. I’m not a multilinguist, but I listen to English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, Russian, and Italian music, anything that suits my ears. Sometimes I put my player on shuffle mode and it made me feel like I was traveling to other countries when jumping from language to language. Interesting!