Wu Ge is the floorboard of Wu folk songs in the history of literature and an important part of Wu culture. Wu Ge is an oral literary creation of the common people in the Wu dialect area in the southeast of Jiangsu, and Suzhou is the center of the emergence and development of Wu Ge. Wu Ge has been handed down from generation to generation with strong local characteristics, mainly showing the love between men and women. Folk songs circulating among children in this area. Folk songs include "songs" and "ballads". Generally speaking, "song" refers to "singing folk songs" and some folk songs, and "ballad" refers to "jingle". This area "roughly refers to the Wu dialect area in the Yangtze River Delta. Due to the different geographical divisions in the past dynasties in history, the early "Wu" was a concept in Wu, even including Nanjing and Yangzhou now. "Wu" now refers to Wu-speaking areas, including southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang and Shanghai, that is, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai have the same language and culture circle, which belongs to the traditional Wu culture category. Suzhou is in its center. It is a famous historical and cultural city with the reputation of "Xanadu" at all times and all over the world. It brings together Wu Ge in history and takes it as the center, and occupies a certain position in the history of China literature. Wu Ge's poems, ci, songs and fu are different from those compiled by literati in past dynasties. They are folk culture created by the lower class, folk oral literature handed down from generation to generation, and folk rhymes with strong national characteristics and local colors.
There are six kinds of Wu Ge's music, namely "Life Whistling", "Five Tones", "Wandering Music", "Half Folding", "Six Variations" and "Eight Interpretations", among which the last three are from the Han Dynasty. In addition, there is a local folk sacrifice song "Fairy Song". On the basis of old songs, Wu Sheng has an innovative arrangement technique called "change".
Wu Ge, who was born in the Wu culture area of Jiangnan water town, has its own distinct personality. Since ancient times, it is usually summarized by euphemism, beauty, gentleness, implication, lingering and metaphor twists and turns. Different from the northern folk songs, they are passionate, lofty and magnificent. Wu Ge is rich in water culture, which is different from the towering mountains and vast grasslands. It is like a trickle, fresh and bright, full of twists and turns, flexible and affectionate, with Wu Nong's soft language style and unique folk art charm.
On May 20th, 2006, Wu Ge was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. On June 5, 2007, the Ministry of Culture confirmed Lu Ruiying and Yang from Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province as the representative inheritors of this cultural heritage project.