A few tales behind a song

By Herbert Vego

WHILE at home viewing the recorded concert of the late Nora Aunor at the Mandarin Hotel-Makati, I caught her belting out a duet with the late Victor “Cocoy” Laurel. They sang their favorite song “People.”

It struck a chord in my memory, initially because they had died within two months of each other – Nora on April 16, 2025; Cocoy on June 14, 2025.

While Nora was lying in state at the Heritage Park in Taguig on April 21, 2025, an obviously ill Cocoy walked in, assisted by a nursing aide.

My recollection travelled back in time to the year 1971 (I was 21) when I was covering a press conference of Sampaguita Pictures for the movie “Lollipops and Roses,” which would be filmed in Sapporo, Japan, starring Nora and Cocoy.

The two regaled us with the song “People.”

It was that song which had made two singers famous –Barbra Streisand in the United States and Nora Aunor in the Philippines. The song as recorded by Streisand broke records in 1964.

Nora Aunor sang the song “People” in the Tawag ng Tanghalan TV competition in 1967, which was her winning entry against the defending champion, Oscar Antonio.

“People who need people,” the song begins, “are the luckiest people in the world.”

The song is a subtle interpretation of the life and career of Broadway and film star Fanny Brice who had to “need” her gambler lover to preserve their difficult relationship.

We, too, need people to fit in various circumstances. If you are in business, you need to please hard-to-please customers to win their patronage.

If you are an employer, you need to please employees who likewise must be on good terms with you.

If you marry, you lose some freedoms in exchange for a happy family life.

In his book Looking Out for No. 1, American book author Robert Ringer wrote, “Even if you were to attempt to live a Thoreau-type life in the wilderness — a prospect that sounds rather boring — you still would find the need to talk to people from time to time. Food and medical care are two obvious reasons why.”

However, we get disappointed over “unfair treatment” from relying too much on another person. The more we rely on someone, the more we see his imperfections without realizing that they must have seen our imperfections, too.

On the brighter side, it compels us to be non-judgmental of other people.

We have learned from Charles Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” that people are programmed at birth to be selfish. This means that whatever good we do to others is commensurate with their usefulness to us. Imagine what would happen if we feed others to the point of starving ourselves. In other words, there is no absolute altruism – defined as “unselfish concern for other people’s happiness and welfare.”

If we choose to receive the best of whatever from our friends and relatives, it could lead to frustration and despair.

But by accepting human nature as it really is, we focus on any act that also creates value for others. We call that “symbiosis”.

Otherwise, we may find ourselves arguing over trifles.

That reminds me of a nugget from Dale Carnegie’s famous book, How to Win Friends and Influence People: “A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

To quote Robert Ringer once more, “All people, at one time or another, deviate from their moral beliefs; they are sometimes hypocritical. More often than not, the cause is the desire for instant gratification.”

French novelist Victor Hugo (1802-1885) rightly observed, “Prosperity supposes capacity. Win the lottery and people think you are an able man.”