Gombloh: The composer of 'unofficial' anthem

Gombloh: The composer of 'unofficial' anthem

By Johannes Simbolon

JAKARTA (JP): When patriotic feelings fill the air and
national pride occupies the hearts and minds of the Indonesian
people, millions proudly sing the song Kebyar-Kebyar (Sparkling
Lights).

It is chanted so often that the public appears to have
recognized it as the second national anthem after the officially-
decreed anthem Indonesia Raya (Great Indonesia), which was
composed by WR Supratman decades before Indonesia's independence.

Indonesia Raya was solemnly chanted by a number of Indonesia's
founding fathers 50 years ago when Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta
declared Indonesia's independence in the front yard of Sukarno's
house on Jl. Pegangsaan Timur, Central Jakarta.

Now, as Indonesians celebrate the country's 50th anniversary,
Kebyar-Kebyar along with Indonesia Raya is again on everybody's
lips. Unlike Indonesia Raya, which is sung at official
ceremonies, Kebyar-Kebyar is the song that knows no time or
place. When over a million people gathered for the Kenduri
Nasional at Monas Park on Aug. 19, almost everybody sang Kebyar-
Kebyar, which closed the firework display that night.

"Indonesia/ merah darahku/ putih tulangku/ bersatu dalam
semangatmu/ Indonesia/ debar jantungku/ getar nadiku/ berbaur
dengan angan-anganmu/ kebyar-kebyar/ pelangi jingga" (Indonesia/
red is my blood/ white is my bone/ united in your spirit/
Indonesia/ the beating of my heart/ the throbbing of my pulse/
mixed in you dream/ sparkling/ orange rainbow).

"I shiver whenever I hear the song. It fully expresses what we
feel inside about our country in these modern times. It aptly
represents the spirit of today's generation," said musician Mus
Mujiono.

The song was composed by Gombloh, a bohemian musician who died
at a young age. He spent most of his life living among
prostitutes and other members of the underworld in his hometown
of Surabaya.

Gombloh in fact bequeathed dozens of songs to his beloved
country, yet Kebyar-Kebyar is the only one with patriotic lyrics.
The others are mostly love songs whose lyrics are peppered with
everyday stories about the lives of his underworld friends.

Gombloh's description of love was put most succinctly in his
song Lepen (Short Legend): "When love bites, cat's feces tastes
like chocolate," a phrase still remembered and often repeated by
thousands of Indonesians.

Yet of all his songs, only Kebyar-Kebyar seems to have managed
to survive amid the deluge of Indonesian pop songs.

"It was an instinctive work of a citizen who loves his
country. I can give nothing to this country but that song,"
Gombloh was quoted as saying in the Surabaya-based Semesta
magazine 15 years ago.

The tune is quite simple, as "simple" as the life of its
composer.

Gombloh is still alive in the memory of his friends, in the
city of Surabaya and throughout Indonesia because of his simple
and modest life.

"In my opinion, he was a man who always tried to be honest
with himself," argued Mujiono, one of Gombloh's neighbors in
Surabaya who claimed to know him well.

After years of witnessing the eccentric musician slip into
brothels, talk with cyclo drivers and other night workers, the
city wept when he died in January 1988.

The tears should be for his honesty -- a rarity in today's era
of tricks and ploys.

"Traffic jams occurred here and there as tens of thousands of
locals joined the procession carrying his coffin to the burial,"
recalled Mujiono.

Born Soedjarwoto Soemarsono in July, 1950, in the house of a
chicken trader, Slamet, in Tawangsari village, Jombang, East
Java, he was later nicknamed Gombloh by his peers after a
neighbor's cow he used to play with.

From then on he carried the name with pride.

Gombloh started playing the guitar in junior high school, when
he would play gigs for his schoolmates. Music took up most of his
time, though he was also a thinker. Even though he never touched
his school books, he managed to get accepted at Surabaya's
technical college, but dropped out after two semesters.

His restlessness, however, was apparent while he was still in
primary school. After school he never returned home before going
to the streetside to see painters exhibit their works. He would
sit there for hours, just watching and watching.

As an adolescent, his impatience with this life demanded an
outlet. He often set out aimlessly like a poor vagrant. He slept
anywhere he liked and chatted with anyone he met on the street,
in the brothels, in alleyways, or wherever he stopped on his
seemingly relentless journey.

"I go to wherever my heart and feet tell me to go. When I feel
tired, I take a rest. That's all. A nearby place seems distant to
me, and a distant place seems close to me. I cannot describe it
with other words," he once confided to Semesta.

He could not remember all the places he had visited.

Surabaya began to grow more familiar with this strange man.
For reasons still unknown -- possibly genetic, said Mujiono -- he
already looked like an aged man at youth. He lost all his teeth
in his twenties.

Eventually, Gombloh found the meaning of his life in music. In
1969 he formed a band called "Lemon Trees" together with Leo
Kristi, one of the country's most celebrated folk singers. Before
long they separated. Leo formed a new band and Gombloh went on
with a solo career. He produced several albums, including Nadia &
Atmosphere, Berita Cuaca (Weather Report), Kebyar-Kebyar and
Hong Wilaheng.

His popularity gradually soared to a national level. His
penultimate song Kugadaikan Cintaku (I Pawn My Love) of 1987 sold
one million copies.

He became rich. Every time his albums earned him a lot of
money, he returned to his original source of inspiration --
Surabaya's underworld. Like Santa Claus, he distributed his money
to his cyclo driver and criminal friends and bought bras for his
hooker "friends".

Gombloh at last fell in love with a "clean" woman, Wiwik
Soegiarti.

"At last I surrender to fate," he told his friends of his
decision to end his bohemian life.

He went to his wedding ceremony in 1982 in a T-shirt and
jeans. The marriage produced a daughter.

Six years later, when he was recording his last album in a
Surabaya studio, he suddenly collapsed. The tuberculosis he
contracted from years of going out at night was about to kill
him. He died after vomiting some blood, the same "red blood" in
the lyrics of Kebyar-Kebyar.