This song appears in the film "Ibu Mertuaku" (My Mother
In-Law) (1962). This movie is about an ill-fated marriage between a struggling
musician (Kassim Selamat - Ramlee) with an heiress (Sabariah Mansor
- Sarimah). Her mother, thoroughly against it, disowns her and the couple
move out of town. Money runs out for them soon enough and with his wife
insisting that he not work as a musician at all, so that there could be
reconciliation with her mother, he is forced to become a labourer. A few
months later, she is pregnant and unable to bear poverty any longer, writes
her mother and is taken home to give birth.
She delivers a boy. At once her mother sends a false telegram to Kassim
stating that his wife and child are dead. Overcomed by grief, Kassim cries
incessantly and after a few months, becomes blind. Living on charity, he
soon starts to wander the streets.
One night, he falls asleep in front of a house of a lady whose adopted
daughter has just lost her husband and is mourning. The mother takes
him in and he counsels the heart-broken girl to not wallow in sorrow but
to get on with her life. She sleeps and he sings the song, for himself
and the girl ...