The revolutionary songs of Naing Myanmar, who died in February, have supplied a soundtrack for pro-democracy protests since the 1988 uprising, and activists say his music will remain an inspiration until Myanmar achieves freedom from military rule.
By FRONTIER
On the morning of February 7, a crowd gathered at a nondescript house in Yangon’s outer Thanlyin Township. They were there to mourn the death of beloved poet and songwriter Naing Myanmar at age 68.
Naing Myanmar’s wife and children were there as well. They had come from their house in East Dagon Township where they had continued living together even as Naing Myanmar had gone into hiding to avoid arrest by the junta due to his well-known revolutionary poems and songs.
The house in Thanlyin, rented by Naing Myanmar, was his last hiding place and his final stop in life. Naing Myanmar’s second son Ko Min Soe Myanmar, aka singer Nay Ma Win, said his father had recently shown symptoms of heart failure. He was found dead in the house by a friend who also lived there, presumably from a heart attack.
“We didn’t have the opportunity to send him for a medical checkup for various reasons, including concerns for his safety,” Nay Ma Win, 38, told Frontier. “His death is a huge tragedy for us because if he had been living with his family like in normal times, we could have cared for him better and he wouldn’t have died.”
Veteran activists say Naing Myanmar’s passing is a loss not only for his family but also for the country. He first became involved in the pro-democracy movement during the 1988 uprising against the regime of General Ne Win. As military rule endured, the songwriter never stopped using his art in the service of democracy.
Naing Myanmar is perhaps most famous for “Kabar Ma Kyay Buu”, or “We won’t surrender until the end of the world”, a revolutionary song that lamented the lives lost in the struggle for democracy, while also calling on those remaining to continue the fight. The singalong melody, based on the 1977 tune “Dust in the Wind” by United States rock band Kansas, became a popular anthem during the 1988 uprising and re-emerged as the soundtrack to the Spring Revolution in the wake of the 2021 military coup.
Naing Myanmar’s death prompted friends and admirers living outside of Myanmar to hold memorial services in Thailand and the United States. Ko Zaw Win, a member of the 88 Generation Students activist group, organised a memorial event in Washington, DC on March 2. He told Frontier that Naing Myanmar “deserves to be honoured” for using his artistic power to fight Myanmar’s military dictators.
“We must not forget him because, with his songs and poems, he has been a devoted participant in the successive revolutions in the country, from 1988 to the Spring Revolution,” Zaw Win said.
But even during quieter times in Myanmar politics, the songwriter gave voice to the oppressed, including workers fighting exploitation in the years before the coup. His family and friends, meanwhile, describe a man who always chose rebellion over riches, and whose songs will be sung until Myanmar is free.
A revolutionary life
Naing Myanmar was the first child of parents with matching names, U Ohn Myint and Daw Ohn Myint. He was born in Yangon on January 4, 1958, the 10th anniversary of Myanmar’s liberation from British colonial rule, foreshadowing his later passion for freedom.
His parents named him Naing Oo Myint. He was born on a Saturday, an ill omen according to Myanmar tradition: it’s widely believed that a first child delivered on that day of the week will cause harm to the family.
An antidote to this bad fortune is for the child to be placed on the floor, and for the father to step over him while gripping a sword with the blade resting on his shoulder. However, U Ohn Myint refused to follow this tradition because he believed it would amount to a spiritual attack against his son and reduce his power.
Some might call it a consequence of not performing the ritual, others an unfortunate coincidence, but U Ohn Myint died when Naing Myanmar was three years old, while the youngest of three brothers was still in his mother’s womb. After this family tragedy, Daw Ohn Myint returned to her native village in Ayeyarwady Region, leaving Naing Myanmar to be cared for by his wealthy grandparents in Yangon.
“My father grew up under the care of his rich grandparents,” Nay Ma Win said, recalling biographical details told to him by his father.
“His grandma really loved him, and my father also loved her more than he loved his own mother. His grandparents wanted him to focus on education, but he started to rebel against the family around Grade 9 because he wanted to pursue his dream of writing poems and songs.”
From the age of 16 Naing Myanmar resisted all efforts by his family to pressure him into following a different path. His grandparents eventually stopped supporting him with money, so he started working odd jobs while spending as much time as possible writing poetry and music.
After seven years, he found his first success as a composer with the song “Ko Yan Taw Tat Hmue Lay” (“Bodyguard captain”) sung by vocalist Kai Zar in the early 1980s. It launched a career during which, according to his family, he wrote more than 1,000 songs, many of them for Myanmar’s most famous singers, including May Sweet, May Khalar and the late Soe Lwin Lwin.
“Many of his songs were never released. We’re in the process of collecting and copyrighting them,” Nay Ma Win said.
Naing Myanmar married his first wife at the age of 26. They later divorced, but Naing Myanmar retained custody of the three sons the couple had together. “My father was very loving to his children. He took care of the three of us without anyone’s help,” Nay Ma Win said.
In 2005 he married his second wife, Daw War War Lwin, with whom he had a daughter and a son. The entire family, including the children from both marriages, moved together into the house in East Dagon, where they remain to this day.
“It’s common in Myanmar culture for children from a previous marriage and children from a later marriage to not get along, but that’s not the case in our family. My father taught us not to have narrow views. We look after the younger ones and the younger ones respect us,” Nay Ma Win said.
But the family faced problems years later, after the 2021 coup. Naing Myanmar kept a low profile in the immediate aftermath of the military takeover, but in 2023 his oldest son, the famous hip-hop artist Byu Har, aka Min Oat Myanmar, was arrested and tortured by the military.
He had criticised the junta on a Facebook livestream regarding electricity cuts, calling coup leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing a useless cow and an incompetent fool. Byu Har was later sentenced to 20 years in prison under Section 124 of the Penal Code for incitement to destroy the state.
Naing Myanmar wrote a series of poems about how proud he was of his son for standing up against the junta, but also took emergency measures to protect himself and his family members.
“A few days after Byu Har’s arrest, we got a tip-off that they wanted to arrest my husband,” War War Lwin said. “My husband and children went into hiding because we were scared they might arrest my sons if they couldn’t find my husband.”
One night, ward officials and soldiers arrived at the house and took War War Lwin to the ward office for questioning about her husband. They finally sent her home after midnight. The children eventually returned to the house, but Naing Myanmar remained in hiding. The ward officials told the family to inform them if he returned home.
The sound of protest
Author and poet Nyein Thit told Frontier that Naing Myanmar’s songs gave voice to the people by accurately reflecting the times. During the 1988 uprising, he portrayed what he witnessed with his own eyes, including the brutality of the military and the sacrifices young people made for democracy.
“Because he started as a poet, his songs are poetic. When we listen to his songs, we get the feeling of listening to a poem,” said Nyein Thit, who had also served as a lawmaker for the National League for Democracy. “His lyrics are composed with layers of thoughts and words. It’s like a painting made with magical brushes and colours.”
Zaw Win of 88 Generation Students said most of the songs Naing Myanmar wrote in 1988 were never recorded, existing only in the memories of people who were there at the time. Many were performed by a music group consisting of Naing Myanmar and students who toured Yangon playing for protesters, including those who were participating in hunger strikes after curfew.
“Around September, at the height of the uprising, we were on hunger strike in front of Yangon’s City Hall,” said Zaw Win, who was 19 at the time. “We were usually left alone at night, but earlier that day the military had opened fire on a protest group, and there were many wounded students around nearby Sule Pagoda. Medical officers were busy treating the wounded, and then Naing Myanmar and his group arrived and started singing.”
He said his songs “touched the hearts” of protesters because they spoke about what they were suffering.
“He also wrote lyrics about people who had fought for Burma’s independence, like Aung San, Thakin Kodaw Hmaing and Bo Aung Kyaw,” Zaw Win said, citing the words of one such song: “I want to wake up our father, Aung San, who is buried in the cemetery, and I want to tell him ‘People are dying, please wake up and see.’”
“Those kinds of powerful words made people cry,” he said.
Naing Myanmar’s song “Kabar Ma Kyay Buu” in particular became an anthem of the 1988 uprising and was revived in the wake of the 2021 coup.
Most of Naing Myanmar’s songs were written with original melodies, with the exception of “Kabar Ma Kyay Buu”. In a 2020 interview with Myanmar outlet Z Media he explained why he borrowed the Kansas tune “Dust in the Wind” for the song.
“Creating an original melody requires serious concentration. I didn’t have time to do that [during the 1988 protests] because a song was urgently needed at that moment. It also had to be a melody that was easy for the public to sing because most people are not expert singers. So ‘Dust in the Wind’ was my choice. I didn’t use the whole melody because there were some parts that would have been hard for people to sing,” he said.
Naing Myanmar said that by the time his group had performed the song in public for the third time in 1988, the people had memorised the lyrics and were able to sing along. Its popularity quickly spread among protesters.
The generals soon took notice, and Naing Myanmar was arrested and interrogated. He was set free instead of being sent to prison, but he was not spared the brutality of the military. “I was just a newborn at the time,” Nay Ma Win said, “but my father later told me that one of his ribs was broken during the interrogation.”
The workers’ friend
Even during the hopeful years of semi-civilian rule from 2011 to 2020, Naing Myanmar kept fighting for the downtrodden, standing together with workers whose rights were being abused.
U Ye Naing Win, general secretary of the Coordination Committee of Trade Unions and chief editor of the Workers’ Journal, first met Naing Myanmar in 2016 and asked him to write some songs for a May Day ceremony that year.
The ceremony, held in the oil-producing town of Yenangyaung in Magway Region, commemorated the 1300 Revolution – so named because it occurred in the year 1300 in the Myanmar calendar (1938 in the Gregorian calendar). At that time, oil workers in the region started a strike that soon expanded into a nationwide general strike. It lasted for 18 months and is considered a major milestone in the fight for independence from the British.
Naing Myanmar accepted the request, and asked Ye Naing Win for information about the contemporary labour movement to help him write the songs.
“I gave him a book that included current articles written by factory workers. I later heard from a friend that [Naing Myanmar] wasn’t able to finish reading the book because it made him feel guilty that even as a songwriter concerned with downtrodden people, he hadn’t been aware that the working class in our country was in such a bad situation,” said Ye Naing Win.
Naing Myanmar wrote two songs for the ceremony about labour rights and the suffering of the working class, both of which are still popular among workers. Afterwards, he continued advocating for workers by befriending them and attending events aimed at promoting their rights.
“By nature, [Naing Myanmar] is different from us. He’s an artist, and we’re leaders of the labour movement. But we have the same goals because we both realise how important the power of the people is for the systematic development of our country and our society,” Ye Naing Win said, adding that Naing Myanmar always sided with the oppressed over the oppressor. “Government officials sometimes asked him to write propaganda songs for them but he always rejected their offers. Instead, he stood with the people and wrote songs and poems on their behalf.”
As a result, Naing Myanmar’s funeral, held in the Yayway Cemetery in Yangon’s North Okkalapa Township on February 9, was heavily attended by workers rather than people from the entertainment industry, said Ye Naing Win.
“Many singers became successful because they performed songs written by Naing Myanmar. I didn’t see them at the funeral. Maybe they were afraid of being spotted by the junta. But the workers weren’t afraid to come that day,” he said.
Nyein Thit saluted Naing Myanmar’s decision to follow beliefs rather than pursue money. He cited one of his lyrics: “If the choice is death or slavery, I choose death.”
“He lived by his words,” Nyein Thit said. “He fought against military dictatorship and died in poverty.”
Ye Naing Win believes the songwriter will remain relevant for as long as military rule persists.
“Until this country has freedom and democracy, his songs will be sung,” he said. “Many people, including Naing Myanmar, have been lost while fighting for our country, so we need to keep moving forward to achieve the society they hoped for.”
