Lilis Surjani (aka Suryani) was very popular in Indonesia and neighbouring countries from the early 1960s to the early 1970s. President Soekarno of Indonesia made life difficult for musicians and singers in the early to mid 1960s because he wanted to rid Indonesia of Western influences and wanted rock ’n’ roll to be outlawed. Lilis found herself in trouble in mid 1965 because of her stage attire, presentation and choice of songs.

In a newspaper article in August 1965 Lilis promised that she would no longer sing ‘Beatles-like’ songs and apologised for her previous ‘mistakes’. Lilis made her amends and produced a number of songs with an Indonesian nationalist theme that were more likely to be approved by the ruling regime. One of those songs is Pergi Perjuang (Depart Warrior), where Lilis is backed by guitarist Zaenal Arifin and his Zaenal Combo. This song is as about as close as you can get to rock ’n’ roll and not call it that. The song’s theme though is one that would have appealed to Soekarno with Lilis singing that she hopes the young warriors going to battle perform their duties as ‘defenders of the nation’ and return victorious.

This song reflects the fact that Indonesia and Malaysia were involved in an undeclared war from 1963 to 1966 as Soekarno viewed the newly created state of Malaysia as a British colonial plot and vowed to ‘crush’ it. Soekarno was particularly peeved that the former British colonies in northern Borneo had become part of Malaysia as the rest of the island was Indonesian territory. Indonesian troops carried out covert operations in north Borneo throughout the period, but were repulsed by Malaysian, British and Australian forces. Although Soekarno was sidelined politically in late 1965 the Crush Malaysia policy took a bit longer to wind back, but friendly relations between Indonesia and Malaysia had been fully restored by the late 1960s. What may seem surprising is that Pergi Perjuang was also released in Malaysia and seems to have been quite popular. It is the Malaysian release I feature here.

I also include Lilis’s post-Soekarno era song Perahu Bertolak (Ship Departs), probably from late 1966 or 1967, which has some good guitar work. This Malaysian release has no liner notes, but I have read that Lilis’s backing band here was Band Arulan led by Jarzuk Arifin.

Lilis Surjani went on to record numerous other songs in rock, pop and regional styles. She still performs regularly although she has been battling cancer for the last few years.