กล้ามาก เก่งมาก ขอบใจ So Daring! So Talented! Thank You

By Paeng Surachet เป้ง สุรเชษฐ์ FEATURING Pai Daodin (Jatupat Boonpatararaksa) and Hockhacker (Decathorn Bamrungmuang) (of Rap Against Dictatorship)

Note: There is an official English-language translation that you can see by clicking on the closed captions (“cc”) button on the YouTube (and changing settings to “English”). This translation is good, but I would like to do a second translation to bring out some jokes that didn’t make it into English. This song makes fun of two recent statements by King Vajiralongkorn. On November 1, 2020, a reporter surprised King Vajiralongkorn by directly walking up to him (while other were bowing on the ground) and getting an interview. From a Coconuts Bangkok article: “The king was outside the Grand Palace when a Channel 4 and CNN news team asked him about the ongoing protests and calls for royal reform. After initially saying ‘no comment,’ the monarch repeated, ‘We love them all the same’ three times. Asked if there was room to compromise with the protesters, the king replied, ‘Thailand is the land of compromise.’”

In a second incident, not much later, the king was walking through a crowd of royalists bowing at his feet, and one praised him in some way, to which the king replied, “กล้ามาก เก่งมาก ขอบใจ,” which means “So brave! Very good [or very talented]! Thanks!” Then the man dissolved into tears of gratitude. This incident went viral because the man was groveling and hadn’t done anything brave or good, and the king’s comments were just drivel.