Zsa Zsa bares her heart in new album

It’s easy to gauge how very much in love Zsa Zsa Padilla is. All you have to do is listen to the songs on her new album, Beginnings (by PolyEast Records), which lays bare her heart more than does her body language when she appears in public (such as in the recent episode of Kris TV) with her beloved Conrad Onglao who titillated the viewers with his announcement that, yes, he’s marrying Zsa Zsa in Italy. When, Conrad didn’t say. If and when, it would be Conrad and Zsa Zsa’s second time to commit marriage, although it’s been Zsa Zsa’s long-time dream, hampered by legal technicality, to walk down the aisle, presumably to the tune of one of the songs on her album.

I’ve listened to the CD a few times on my car player and I loved the songs, all covers which are all too familiar that you can’t help singing along with Zsa Zsa, especially if you’re leisurely driving home from work on a traffic-less weekend on a moonlit night. Zsa Zsa sounds as if she’s singing you to sweet slumber, caressing you with every word of every line of the songs, lingering on the lyrics as if squeezing them dry for the last precious drop of the love she can’t have enough of.

“The songs we chose for the album are some of those that I loved growing up,” Zsa Zsa told Funfare. “Easy listening tunes that mostly talk about love.”

It’s a refreshing change for Zsa Zsa who sounds differently than she did in her previous albums, never mind if her diction sounds suspiciously British.

“You’re right,” agreed Zsa Zsa. “What’s different about the album is my very soft and laid-back interpretation of each song which I sing as intimately as I could, as if I’m singing to only one person.” (Was Conrad standing nearby while Zsa Zsa was recording the songs?)

Okay, let’s play the CD one more time and pick out some lines that aptly describe Zsa Zsa’s present state of being (as the oft-quoted song goes) the second time around, more comfortable the second time she falls.

= Just a Love Song. All the feelings I have locked inside my soul/All the magic you bring out in me/You’re my inspiration, my every dream/So listen well and I think you’ll know…

= More Today Than Yesterday. Oh, I love you more today than yesterday/But not as much as tomorrow. (Doesn’t it remind you of the lyrics of the Basil Valdez song Ngayon At Kailanman by George Canseco? Bawat kahapon ay daig nitong bawat ngayon/ Na daig ng bawat bukas…?)

= I Just Want To Be Your Everything. Oh, if I stay here without you/Darling, I will die/I want you laying in the love I have to bring/I’d do anything to be your everything…

= How Deep Is Your Love. You know the door to my very soul/You’re the light in my deepest darkest hour/You’re my savior when I fall…

= Rainy Days And Mondays. Funny but it seems I always wind up here with you/Nice to know somebody loves me…

= If You Leave Me Now. A love like ours is love that’s hard to find/How could we let it slip away…

= Alone Again (Naturally). It seems to me that/There are more hearts/Broken in the world/That can’t be mended…(But Zsa Zsa wouldn’t be alone again, naturally, ever. Right, Conrad?)

= One Hello. If you’re not afraid of what love brings/Then endings are beginnings of beautiful things…(That explains the title of the CD, see?)

= I Got Caught Dancing Again. Cause you walked into my arms, into my heart, into my heart, into my heart, into my heart…

You might wonder why Through The Years, the song Zsa Zsa sang to Dolphy as he lay in state, isn’t on the CD. Oh, isn’t that too yesterday?

Explained Zsa Zsa, “Through The Years was a carrier single of my eponymous album Zsa Zsa which produced a monster hit of my cover song, We’re All Alone. I really felt no need to redo a cover. The only song that I did another version of is Sana’y Maghintay ang Walang Hanggan. It was part of my first album and I did a piano version of it in another.”

I guess Zsa Zsa will sing some, if not all, of the songs on Beginnings during her concert (with Martin Nievera and Zsa Zsa’s daughter Karylle) at the Newport Performing Arts Theater of the Resorts World Manila tomorrow night, July 31. (For tickets, call 891-9999.)

Aiko wins acting award in London

Congratulations to Aiko Melendez for having been given an Excellence Award in London recently. The Crystal Plaque was awarded to her by the First Sophia Excellence Awards for Outstanding Filipinos at the Grand Connaught Hotel Ballroom which was preceded by fashion show featuring 33 models wearing the creations of five world-renowned designers (Omar Descalzo, head designer of Fay Al Sharqawi House of Fashion in Bahrain; Edwin Alcazar, a fixture in the Dublin fashion scene; Erwin Flores, a boutique owner in Manila; Nolis’ Fashion, with an Italian background and English exposure; and Erwin Michalec, a Polish designer).

Aiko was cited for her performance in Asintado, the same film which won her Best Actress in a Foreign Language Film at the International Filmmakers Festival in World Cinema also held earlier in London.

According to Ogie Diaz, who accompanied Aiko to London, Sophia Consortium, an international charity based in London (with branches in the Philippines, Ireland and Brazil) selected Aiko because of her achievement in the festival of filmmakers. Doctor-lawyer Paul Salazar, CEO and director of Sophia Consortium, personally presented the award to Aiko.

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