TBR (To Be Read): National Day lyrics and what they say about four decades of Singapore

SINGAPORE – If Singaporeans know any poetry by heart, it is the lyrics to the three dozen or so National Day theme songs that have been penned annually since Hugh Harrison’s gung-ho injunction to Stand Up For Singapore in 1984.

Not many know that Singapore’s first National Day Song – as well as the vigorous Count On Me Singapore (1986) and We Are Singapore (1987) – were written by a Canadian man who worked at an advertising company hired to come up with the songs.