Discovering Gendjer-Gendjer

I followed a tweet from Vincent Bevins, author of The Jakarta Method 1 to an informal performance of Genjer-Genjer by Bedjo Untung. 2 Bedjo Untung is one of the founders of the Murder Victims Research Foundation, a decorated human rights activist, and was imprisoned for nine years during the New Order regime of Suharto.3 In a lengthier performance on YouTube, Bedjo Untung explains that the song was written in 1941 by Mohammad Arief to promote a kind of lettuce which grows wild in ponds and rice fields and says the lettuce sustained the peasants during the Japanese occupation after the song was written and popularized. 4

I learned that Mohammad Arief, in addition to writing the song and many others, also established village gamelans in rural eastern Java, in Banyuwangi province. In 1962 what sounds like a field recording of the song, rendered “Gendjer – Gendjer” 5 by an ensemble called Gamelan Djawa Timur was recorded and archived in the state-owned recording studio, Lokananta. Gamalan Djawa Timur means simply East Java Gamelan and Lokananta is translated as gamelan from heaven. The rendition is in what musicologists refer to as congregational style, a style which allows the participation of all members of a congregation.

In 1965 officials of LEKRA, a cultural organization associated with the fiercely nationalist administration of President Sukarno, Guided Democracy, attended a concert in eastern Java and heard a performance of Genjer-Genjer. The officials were struck by the song, and thought the song might serve as the national anthem of the Guided Democracy, which had consolidated power by 1960. Also in 1965 prominent Indonesian recording artists Bing Slamet and Lilis Surjani recorded popular versions of the song which were widely distributed.

Scant months later, the Sukarno government was swept away, replaced by the New Order government, and it was dangerous to perform the song as it became associated with Guided Democracy and the Indonesian Communist Party. The song was effectively banned for 30 years. Mohammad Arief was arrested, imprisoned, and disappeared.

It was believed Lokananta officials destroyed the master recording and first pressing of the record by Gamelan Djawa Timur in order to conform to New Order expectations. But in 2020, as the Reformasi period relaxed the terror imposed by the New Order, a documentary of Lokananta 6 an in-depth television report and 7 have featured celebrations of the discovery of the original recording. One of the Lokananta employees says that for really important recordings, he surreptitiously hides them in his home, and in this way the Djawa Timur recording was rescued.

Currently there are many recorded versions of Genjer-Genjer. The song has been recorded in many languages and is enjoying a celebration of solidarity among mostly ensembles from South East Asia; there are heavy metal versions, some pensive, ruminative versions and lots of pastoral versions. The Bing Slamet and Lilis Suryani versions are well-known, the Djawa Timur version less so. This is a performance by New York based Gamelan Son of Lion of a transcription of the Djawa Timur recording.

David Demnitz
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