Busking Chase

Philip Lim - Dhoby Ghaut MRT station - 27 Apr 2025

We return to Dhoby Ghaut again, featuring another young-at-heart busker.

WJ Teng

27 Dec 2025 — 3 min read

Philip Lim busking at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station on 27 April 2025.

Meet Philip Lim (林国华), a retiree busker who has been busking for over three years. A former IT support staff, he started performing on stage when he was 40+ years old for a company event and began volunteering at a nursing home after he retired, where he joined a volunteer guitar group. There he met several music enthusiasts of similar age, and along with three others, formed a group called RAPO (of note, almost all the members are known to busk on the streets).

Uncle Philip belts out English and Mandarin oldies, as well as Cantonese and Hokkien songs from the 70s to the 90s. You might also catch him perform a couple of songs by the Cantopop band BEYOND.

The three songs picked from this busking session are:

Bring You Home (originally performed by Ronan Keating)
- This song from the Boyzone member comes from the 2006 studio album of the same name. The song is about unconditional support, acknowledging life's difficulties, and offering a constant source of love and belonging.
Have I Told You Lately (originally performed by Van Morrison)
- Originally written as a prayer, this romantic ballad is often played at weddings (not sure whether this holds true in Singapore). This song is also notably covered by British singer-songwriter Rod Stewart.
情人 (originally performed by BEYOND)
- The Hong Kong band may be more well-known for the hit song 海闊天空, but I highly recommend this as the first BEYOND song to listen to. This was a song written by the four members of Beyond for their respective lovers when they moved to Japan to develop their careers, though this song is originally intended to use the feelings of being separated to metaphorically represent the relationship between mainland China and Hong Kong (a British colony at the time).