13. ຂັບທູ້ມຫລວງພະບາງ Kuptoom Luang Prabang by Phone Phoummithone
I wasn't sure to include this one, it's a live version and some of the musicians are offbeat in the beginning, which made it hard to mix. However it is another great call-and-response song where the chorus sings not one but four phrases:
"yer kow bai" (keep on going, the same heard in Tai Dum Lum Pun)
"sao kee hai" (cry baby girl)
"dai taa dai wah" ("get real, get talk" which I'm understanding as an exaggerated way to say "really getting/doing the most/are you forreal", but feel free to help me out here)
"na thee yon beh" (literally no idea, but our people have a habit of adding sounds that don't have any meanings so...)
And there's one guy who adds a "heya, heya, heya, heyaaa" which you would normally hear in another classic song Khonesavanh. All those sayings are meant to be encouraging to the singer to keep going. My favorite thing about this version are the breaks where the singer gets to perform a few verses a cappella.
Of course I couldn't talk about this song without mentioning my friend Lina Luangrath whose Youtube cover introduced the song to me. Like Lum Salavan, Kuptoom Luang Prabang is named after the specific region in Laos it comes from, and so because my family is from Vientiane I didn't grow up learning this song, but it's become one of my favorites Lao melodies.