Getting over it with Amp Saowaluk

Being broken-hearted is a common enough experience, just as listening to music is a basic remedy for it. We all have our own special songs to heal us, varying with our personal tastes, but I believe Thai gay men and katoey all have the songs of Amp Saowaluk high on their lists.

People love Amp’s songs due to her high performing standard and eloquent lyrics, and there’s something else about Saowaluk that attracts gay men and katoey.

During her rise as a singer-songwriter, around 20 years ago, it was clear that she was unlucky at love. Her ability to overcome heartbreak became her signature, both in songs and character. Back then few women dared to depend only on themselves, and Amp became a role model for broken-hearted women, gay men and katoey who were struggling to survive.

  Her hit singles were never positive in their outlook, which was exactly how gay men and katoey were feeling at the time. Particularly in moments of heartbreak, we were depressed about having no one to love as well as imprisoned by society’s insistence that heterosexuality alone was acceptable.

Women who were single were considered somehow defective, so whatever distress they felt at being unattached was compounded by inferred guilt, and yet they’d done nothing wrong. 

Gay men and katoey were also “wrong” because they had a different sexual identity, outside society’s rigid male-female perspective. The feeling of being a social outcast added to the misery of being unaccepted in love. 

The feeling that poured from Saowaluk reflected the combined tension of failure at love and social pressure. Her alto voice had a darkness to it that rendered simple lyrics into extreme emotions.

Society nowadays isn’t much different a ctually, but I think we have more choices and space to live the way we want. Amp’s songs have become more relaxing as the situation improves for women, gay men and katoey. Her lyrics have crystallised in the discovery of self-value in the loss of love. 

I think her songs can help gay men, katoey and women get through hard times and respect themselves, to survive broken hearts and social recrimination.