Ros Serey Sothea 2

Ros Serey Sothea Continued

A characteristic of this new Cambodian rock is the often contradictory relationship between a song's lyrics and its music. Misery soaked lyrics of broken hearts and doomed fates are wailed out, all set to exuberant party tunes. The translation to Ros Sereysothea's Have You Seen My Love reads I drink until I get drunk, But I can't seem to get drunk, The sky is all black, Love has wings to fly. Sothea belts out these mysterious and melancholy lyrics with a voice that is both joyous and anguished, grating and uplifting. In the background, the band gets the people moving with a funky, fun and upbeat dance groove.

While Sothea’s career and the Cambodian music scene were thriving, Sothea was not at all happy in her personal life. During a Cambodian media interview in the late 1990’s, her living son mentioned that when his mother was alive, she constantly reminded him not to be a singer like her because she been through so much bitterness.

Her songs are proof enough that Sereysothea understood the misery and sourness that life can provide. When she cries in her songs, you can actually feel the sorrow that she is holding inside, a pure and beautiful expression of the pain coming from the depths of her heart.

Sothea was never content with her love life. Being a female singer, she didn’t get much respect from her lovers. For a woman, singing was considered a sleazy profession by many. Selling her voice taints a woman in a way, making a part of her a public good, and thus diminishing her purity and value. But a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice is always appealing to men, and Sothea had several relationships, the most publicized of which with a son of the owner of the Preah Chhann Pign Vorng Theater in Phnom Pehn.

In the late 60's Sothea was married for a time to a Cham singer, Suos Mat. Apparently Suos was insanely jealous of her success and of the men who came to watch her perform, and is said to have beaten her savagely. The two divorced in the early 70's. Later, Sothea had perhaps her most fullfilling romantic relationship with a high-ranking army parachutist working for the Lon Nol government. While invovled with him, Sothea herself joined the army and even did some parachuiting. Unfortunately, this happy time was short lived - sometime before 1975 her boyfriend was killed in combat.

Up until 1975, Sothea continued to perform and record music in the still thriving Cambodian music scene. In April of that year it all ended when the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh. Along with everyone else, Sothea was forced out of the cities and into the Khmer Rouge worksites. There are several live witnesses who have described living and working together with Ros Sereysothea during the Pol Pot regime. Mrs. Tiv Heng, who is a resident of Kompung Speu province and Mr. Yim Sambath, a government official in Soriya Ordei Khan in Reusei Keo, are two people among others who were at the same worksite as Sothea. These two have told us something about Sothea's life during those horrible years.

According to Heng, Sothea was forced to live at the Phnom Sruorch, Kompung Speu work site, where the people were forced to work on irrigation projects. When the singer arrived as a new person the villagers did not recognize her, so she managed to keep her identity a secret. But later on, as more people from Phnom Penh were moved to the site, she was recognized. In an interview Tiv Heng said, Earlier people did not believe that she was Sothea - I was really happy. I think that if people don’t believe that, Sothea could avoided being killed. But later, the news about Sothea was heard all the way to Angkar.

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