One of these #ThreeTuneTuesday (HT @ablaze) songs had to be by Chyi Chin, whose music formed the backdrop to the lives of millions of young people across Taiwan and most of China as it was just waking up to the delights of acid-wash jeans, perms and rock music during the economic reforms of the 1980s.
I had to choose from among a few hugely popular ones, and I could equally have gone for Yuanlai de wo (My old self), Dayue zai dongji (Maybe in winter), a stadium-rousing, lighter-waving GenX singalong anthem or Waimian de shijie (The big wide world). In the end I chose Lang (Wolf), because despite the rather low-budget video in which producers try to make a beach in Taiwan (east coast?) remind you of the steppes of Mongolia, it rocks.
Plus, I had it on my Sony Walkman cassette player on repeat while riding the trans-Siberian train across the literal steppes of Mongolia, and it worked beautifully as a soundtrack for a six-day train journey that went roughly: Bogey-changing shed at Erenhot; grasslands; yaks; horses; Mongolians; Ulaan Bator station with Mongolians in traditional dress rubbing shoulders with Russian soldiers; grasslands; grasslands; grasslands; silver birches; brief glimpse of Lake Baikal, silver birches; silver birches; silver birches.... David Lean eat your heart out! Pretty much all the way to Moscow. There's some lovely archive footage of Ulan Bator and the train from the 1960s on YouTube here.
Translation by me:
I'm a northern wolf
Pacing the boundless wilderness
The desolate north wind blows
Over the slowly shifting sands
...
My next is by Beijing rocker Cui Jian, who I once had the pleasure of eating lunch with in Beijing along with a bunch of other people. He's probably the most famous musician I've ever spent a couple of hours with, and yet the rest of the world's never heard of him. I was going to play you his all-time greatest hit, Yiwusuoyou (Nothing to my name) but it's not actually my favourite song of his.
So here instead is Yikuai Hongbu (A bit of red cloth). I particularly like the lyrics (which are probably an ironic comment on the ability of the Communist Party to make a person happy -- the government censors seemed to think so, because they pulled the plug on his tour of Chinese cities after he performed it with a red blindfold over his eyes) but the trumpet solo is what steals it for me. I read somewhere that CJ used to hang out at a jazz jam in Maxim's French restaurant in Beijing, where he probably honed his improv skills? Who knows?
Translation by me
That day you covered my eyes with a piece of red cloth
and blocked out the sky
You asked me what I saw
and I said I saw happiness
It felt so good,
and made me forget that I have nowhere to live
You ask me where I'm going
I say I'm going along with you
But I can't see you or the way to go
You've also tied my hands
You ask me what I'm thinking
I say I want you to be in charge
I need some water but your mouth is covering mine
I can't walk and I can't cry because I'm so dry
...
My last was a big hit in the 90s for Taiwanese artist Zheng Zhihua, who also does a great cover of Let It Be, but that's in Taiwanese, not Mandarin.
HT to Wu Anby on YouTube for the English lyrics:
The bitter sand, hurts as it blows on my face,
Like father would scold me, how mother wept, I won't ever forget
When I was young, I adored that man by the sea,
Pants rolled up, barefooted he stepped on the sandy shore
Always dreaming there beyond the sea there lay another world,
Always thinking those sailors' courage made them the greatest men
Always was a coward who was fragile as a twig,
When I was teased, pushed and shoved around I'd hear the sailor say
Saying, "Wind and rain, I can shrug off this pain!"
"Wipe your tears, don't be scared, for at least we still can dream!"
Saying, "Wind and rain, I can shrug off this pain!"
"Wipe your tears, and don't question why."
This tune got taken up by the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, who used to sing Cantonese lyrics to it at annual vigils for the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Those vigils have been banned and their organizers locked up. So, even though I'm playing the original here in Mandarin, this tune is dedicated to Chow Hang-tung and the other Alliance members.
光復香港! 時代革命!
(Free Hong Kong! Revolution now!)
