The song was written by Li Shutong, and its melody was first adopted from the American song "Farewell".
"Farewell" is a song written by Li Shutong in 1915. The melody is taken from the American song "Dreaming of Home and Mother" composed by John Pound Otway. In 1936, EMI released a recording of a solo performed by Long Xun, a primary school student at the Beijing Normal University. This version was later included in the album "Centennial Classic 1: The Beauty of Autumn Water" published by China Records in 2004.
"Farewell" has been selected as an episode in films such as "Early Spring in February" and "Old Things in the South of the City". On September 30, 2004, "Farewell" was selected into the "100 Patriotic Education Songs" selected by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Central Civilization Office and other units to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
Ancient poem "Farewell":
"Farewell" Wang Wei
Let's see each other off in the mountains, the sunset covers the firewood.
The spring grass will be green next year, and the king and grandson will never return.
Translation: I saw off my friend in the deep mountains, and the sunset left the firewood gate ajar. The spring grass will produce new green next year. My friend, can you return it?
Appreciation: This poem "Farewell in the Mountains" does not describe the scene of farewell from the pavilion, but is ingenious and chooses a completely different starting point from ordinary farewell poems.
The first line of the poem, "Let's see each other off in the mountains," tells the reader at the beginning that it's time to see each other off. The words used to separate the scene and farewell feelings are replaced by a seemingly emotionless "Let's see each other off." "The word was written in one stroke. Here, there is a jump of time from sending each other to sending each other off. The second sentence jumps from sending off the pedestrians in the daytime to "the sun sets over the firewood door", which skips a longer period of time. When the poet integrated life into the poem, he cut out the feelings and thoughts of the farewell person during this period and treated them as a dark scene.