Looking up is a man's day.
A teenager who once dreamed under the stars.
I don't know how high the sky is and how far the sea is.
But vowed to take you to the end of Hainan.
Irresponsible oath, young and frivolous me
Lost in the dark, I found my vulnerability.
Looking at your red eyes, thinking about the house far away from you.
Stars all over the sky, please light a lamp of hope for me.
The stars light up my door.
Let the lost children find their way.
The stars light up my future.
Warm the child's heart with a little light
Now the sky is dirty.
There are no more stars in the civilized sky.
The sky is not high and the sea is not far.
The human heart is actually higher than the sky and farther than the sea.
Learn to lie and pursue fame and fortune.
Only when you get lost in reality can you find your own vulnerability.
Watching you leave in tears, thinking about the boundless future.
Stars in the distance, please light a lamp of hope for me.
The stars light up my door.
Let the lost children find their way.
The stars light up my future.
Warm the child's heart with a little light
Many years later, a heavy rain woke me up.
Suddenly, the rainbow in the city stopped flashing.
There is a dim starlight sneaking away in the sky.
Your eyes are still waiting for me in the distance.
The stars light up my door.
Let the lost children find their way.
The stars light up my future.
Warm the child's heart with a little light
Zheng Zhihua's songs are different in genre, topic and pop music, which is the main reason why I regard him as a heresy.
If we want to classify Zheng Zhihua's works, I think it can be divided into two categories: realistic lyricism and pure lyricism. Among them, realistic lyricism can be further divided into two categories: strong narrative and weak narrative. Maybe this classification is not very accurate, but it should still be basically in place. There are few realistic lyrical works with strong narrative, only Teddy Boy and His Woman, Thirty-three Pieces, About Commitment and Your Birthday. Among them, the most narrative ones are Teddy Boy and His Woman and About Commitment. Because these two works have narrative elements such as time, place, people and events, and even outline the basic outline of the protagonist's personality.
There are many works with weak narrative, such as Middle Class, Family Education, The Story of Lao Yao, Big Citizen, Game Room, Light the Stars, The Silence of the Lambs and so on. It can be said that most of Zheng Zhihua's works belong to this category: neither completely narrative nor completely lyrical. Even the so-called pure lyric works, in fact, many can see a little narrative shadow, but it is very light and submerged in strong lyric color. Such works include Shanghai Beach, Single Escape, Tell Me, Twist Discrimination, Let the Wind Blow, Men like me, Let me hug you to sleep, and I will never forget it. Pure lyric works are mostly love songs, and the number is second only to weak narrative works. One of the characteristics of this kind of works is that there is almost nothing realistic on the surface, but you can obviously feel a strong sense of reality. It is hidden behind lyrical words, revealing a little breath from time to time.
No matter what Zheng Zhihua's works are, they can all be attributed to realism. Realism is originally a literary creation technique. It seems a bit inappropriate to describe Zheng Zhihua's lyrics, but it is not. His lyrics can be read as literary works, which are very literary. They can even be divided into different literary genres.
I am afraid that only Lu Xun's essay "On the Surprise of Friends" can compare with the fierce wording, straightforward exposure and sharp criticism of the people. For example, "small island country/dirty Taipei/corrupt officials cover the sky with one hand/how many times have beautiful lies been told/the slogan that everyone has money/the gap between the rich and the poor pretends not to see it/this is no longer an island suitable for a good life/etiquette and shame are not important/this is no longer an island suitable for a poor life/you have worked hard all your life and can't even buy a house." I dare not say that Zheng Zhihua has Lu Xun's talent and thoughts, but I will say that he has Lu Xun's courage. The criticism in the lyrics hit the nail on the head and hit the nail on the head, expressing a young man with a sense of justice's deep hatred for the ugly politics of that year. This is an excellent paper.
Teddy boy and his woman is a typical realistic mini-novel. It tells the love tragedy that the protagonist A Fei and his woman struggled desperately for a better life in a cruel real environment, but there was no result, so that they finally had to decide to break up. When singing this song, Zheng Zhihua slowly tells the sad love tragedy in a low voice. I think not only I, but everyone has compassion. When he or she first hears this song, his or her soul will tremble involuntarily. It's like the hero is standing in front of you and crying sadly, and it's like you are the hero, who suddenly got out of bed on a dark night and then cried for some reason. When listening to this song, you will also feel the cruelty of reality, so cruel that "A Fei and his woman have to make money by drinking." When Zheng Zhihua sang this lyric, he deliberately emphasized his tone to show his anger, but he soon sank down and sang, "To live in this real world/it is inevitable to learn to give up a little dignity." In fact, the author buried great pain and anger in his heart and revealed such an indisputable fact in the sad and calm tone of a weather-beaten old man. The book was not what he wanted, but he did it anyway. Why? Because I can't let my feelings get too excited and out of control, I finally fell into an awkward state of aphasia. Here, the author easily became an actor.
When describing the daily life of A Fei, the author accurately and sensitively grasped two fragments. "Teddy boy's temper is getting worse and worse/he often feels sorry for himself alone/he only cries secretly when he is drunk/he fantasizes about his future with a woman in his arms/Teddy boy and his personality are getting weirder and weirder/he often wakes up from his dreams in the middle of the night/sometimes he finds that the woman around him is not there/he gropes for his sadness alone in the dark." As a bottom punk, he really wants to get rid of poverty and humiliation as soon as possible, but at the beginning, the author explained the reality that "punk was full of ideals/things, and now there is nothing to do". Teddy boy wants to get rid of it, but he can't. He doesn't want to live in humiliation, but he can only live in humiliation. He is helpless, although it makes him very painful, but he has been depressed. Because reason told him not to be at the mercy of pain. But the more depressed he became, the more painful he became, and he became self-pitying. How much he wanted to find something to relieve the pain, so he found wine. He tried to soak himself in alcohol without thinking about the future of his love with other women. It's not that he doesn't know that their love can only end in tragedy in the cruel reality. He just doesn't want to think about it, and he doesn't want to carry a painful burden on himself. And then fantasize that they finally live a beautiful and happy life. For them, even daydreaming is a very happy thing. The word "hug" in "holding a woman to fantasize about her future" accurately describes the mentality that A Fei is very afraid of losing his woman. Losing his woman is the scariest thing for teddy boy. She is the only person he can rely on and be comforted in real life. He must hug her tightly and not let anything separate them. Because if we lose her, what will punk's world be like? This would be unthinkable.
After the first break, the second break followed. Teddy boy woke up in the middle of the night and found that his woman was gone. The fear that she would leave him forever filled his mind like a river that burst its banks. Maybe his woman just left temporarily, but teddy boy, who has always been suspicious, is more inclined to imagine it badly. So he was at a loss and groped involuntarily. He tried to touch something he could rely on in the dark, but all he could touch was his sadness.
The end of the story has finally come, and it can only be a breakup. "A Fei and his woman/finally decided to leave/she still loves her man/but this man won't give her a future." The breakup that scared A Fei most happened irreversibly, so "A Fei's life has lost its dependence/like a child abandoned by his mother/but the arrogant man has long been spoiled/he still doesn't realize his true colors." A Fei despaired and became a love nihilist: "A Fei lost his woman/seems to have lost his soul/he no longer believes in so-called love/deeply hates the woman who left him." Teddy boy doesn't know that his woman still loves him deeply, waiting for him to give her a happy future. So the author deeply regrets for A Fei: "Ignorant A Fei, when will you grow up/shoulder the responsibility of a man/do you know that when a woman entrusts her life to you/she may leave but she is still waiting?"
Zheng Zhihua tried his best to describe the sad atmosphere and showed it incisively and vividly. Among them, the arguments complement each other. The whole song is tearful and thought-provoking. Just a few hundred words, concentrating extremely rich thoughts and feelings, requires superb artistic expression, far beyond the reach of ordinary people. In this sense, Zheng Zhihua is a real artist, not just a singer.
"Single Escape" is a love poem with deep artistic conception and one of Zheng Zhihua's best love songs. The whole poem revolves around a word "love", expressing the sad heart of a lovelorn person. The topic has pointed out the main idea. "Single" is lovelorn; Escape is in a state of pain. Because "single" is why "escape".
"A person walks into a long street/a long night/what is a person running away from/not others but himself/what is a person afraid of/not cold but loneliness/a person walks into a cold street/a long night/what a person wants to pursue/is not reality or illusion/what a person wants to conquer/is not the world but love." The lovelorn wander in the middle of the night and the streets with the pain of lovelorn. "Long street/cold night/cold waiting/long night/intertwined time and space/no feeling." At the end of the poem, the essence of "street" and "night" is explained, that is, "time and space are intertwined" The streets in space and the night in time are long and cold, and they become a contradictory unity that can replace each other. But this is just the feeling of the hero in the poem. But why does the hero feel this way? I'm afraid this is the painful result, and it is the painful result of lovelorn. This kind of pain is so deep that the protagonist has a feeling of "feeling without feeling". Pain to the depths is numbness. Of course, there are reasons and processes for the pain to develop to this point.
At the beginning, the protagonist's four pursuits for himself all point to the subject and object world of "love" and ignore the objective world of "existence". One is running away from something/not others but oneself/what a person is afraid of/not cold but loneliness. Whether these two questions qualitatively point to love. Escape from yourself is not afraid to face the pain of lovelorn, but fear of loneliness is to endure the loneliness of lovelorn. The two indirectly show that the hero refuses to accept the lovelorn, and the soul still yearns for the happy world of love, but the ruthless reality only gives him lovelorn, and he has to accept it, so he is very painful. "What one wants to pursue/is not reality or illusion/what one wants to conquer/is not the world but love." The two questions must point to love, and the pursuit of phantom is to relive the romance when you are in love. Although this is untrue, he would rather abandon the real objective world and pursue the subjective world of nothingness. This is as Nietzsche said: "One would rather not pursue it than have nothing." Conquering love means wanting to have each other. In his opinion, the other person is more important than the world, so he wants to conquer love instead of the world. These two questions directly show that the hero longs for love, but the reality still can't satisfy his desire. When his wish came true again, he was even more miserable.
Since the desire of the subjective world failed, he turned to the objective world for comfort, but what did he see? "The midnight light/lengthened my figure/pedestrians/I couldn't see clearly in the fog." What I saw was a lonely lamp, a shadow and a night fog. All these made him feel lonely and lost, so the pain in his heart deepened. As an instinctive reaction, he immediately turned from the objective world to the subjective world. "When will the faded love die with the wind/when will the wandering footsteps stop?" "Hot lips/persistent eyes/fickle heart/beautiful lies/I will never believe again/extinguished flames/like my indifferent passion." When we return to the subjective world, we encounter imagination and memory. Imagine being based on the present and facing the future. However, the current relationship is swaying in the wind, and the future prospects are unpredictable. Memories face the past, but there are only scenes of sad memories of the past. Imagination and memory are intertwined with lovelorn love, and the protagonist's pain deepens.
The whole poem focuses on the deepening of the protagonist's pain. From the beginning to the end, he experienced a painful-more painful-more painful-more painful-more painful-numb process. Everything mentioned in the poem focuses on the painful bull's-eye. Such as: long and cold streets and nights, solitary lights, single shadows, night fog, cold wind. There is not a word about pain in the poem, but the audience or readers can feel the deep pain of the protagonist. The author hides the pain between the lines, which will be revealed as long as he listens or reads it. It should be said that this is an excellent bitter poem.
The realistic style of Zheng Zhihua's songs is not only manifested in the diversity of body, but also in the diversity of theme. His lyrics broke the single content pattern of popular songs in the past, including laughter and love, crying and love, joy and love, sadness and love. He extracted materials from real life and wrote things that others had never written. Write all the meaningful things he saw, heard, thought and felt into his lyrics, including the description of the hardships of life, the thinking and feelings of life, the exposure of social ills, the irony of those who are rich and heartless, the criticism of corrupt politics, the introspection of inner loss, and the description and exclamation of love. Various themes are different, but they are always deeply rooted in real life, and can be combined with narrative, description, lyricism, discussion and other forms of expression to expand the expressive force of lyrics. There have been all kinds of characters in his songs. There are rich people, unemployed people, middle class people, girls, bar girls, students, gamblers, actors, miners and so on. These characters became the protagonists of Zheng Zhihua's life picture of the times, which comprehensively reflected the social reality of a certain period.
If most singers in Hong Kong and Taiwan are "angels" floating in reality in love fantasy, then Zheng Zhihua is an "ascetic monk" who trudges to the barren land in reality; If most popular songs are colorful but lightly floating soap bubbles, then Zheng Zhihua's songs are solid and heavy lead blocks. From his songs, we can hear sad memories, helpless reality, superficial idleness, inner sincerity, ruthless irony, sharp criticism, profound self-denial and unyielding resistance, and deep sympathy.
Brainwashing is about a memory of love passing away in reality. The Game Room is a self-deprecating work. There are several paragraphs in the author's mind: "A rich man is a boss/a miserable job without money/even if I don't like it/what can I do?" "Laughter is too sweet/tears are too salty/vows are bound to change in the end/troubles are too much/the future is too far away/why don't you accompany me to the wild?" On the surface, this song seems to have a cynical attitude towards life because of its helplessness to reality. In fact, this is just a sneer and wry smile at the painful self. In The Silence of the Lambs, we can see that what is written in the game room is only a superficial debauchery. In fact, the author's pressure on real life is sincere and unyielding. "When more and more enemies leave me," he said, "I am not a silent lamb/I have something to say/give me some wine/give me courage/tell you my sadness." This shows that he can't give up his concern for reality. Under the pressure of life, he still has something to say and never gives in. Finally, the author declared: "The lamb will growl/silence is a kind of strength/are you like me/learn to be strong in reality." "Face Problem" is a wonderful satire, satirizing the rich to show off in front of ordinary people, arrogant. The ugly face was vividly portrayed by Zheng Zhihua. "Fight to the death for a little vanity/spend a lot of money without frowning or changing color/compare with others/just to save face in the end." The author deliberately satirizes them in English and Chinese. "I give you face, you are shameless/you lose face/I turn my face. I give you face/you are shameless/you are shameful/I turn my face. " Listening to such songs is really exciting. As for the sharp criticism in "Great National", it has been discussed in the previous article, so I won't go into details here. But what needs to be added is that Zheng Zhihua's sharp criticism of reality is usually accompanied by profound self-dissection. He himself once said, "If I am destined to write songs for this land, I must start writing from myself." His criticism is a double-edged sword, pointing to both the darkness of the external real world and his own inner spiritual world. From the beginning, his songs first pointed to the darkness of the spiritual world. The story of Lao Yao is such an example, which was also discussed in previous articles. Here, I want to give a few more examples to discuss this point, because I think it is the best thing in Zheng Zhihua's songs.
The Actor in Tears is the most profound and comprehensive song in this respect. The image of the actor is very real and touching. The actors in the song have two directions, one is to those actors in real life and the other is to the author himself. Double pointing will also produce double criticism. This criticism in the song has a wide range of social significance, revealing the pain behind the star's brilliant life. The lyrics of the whole song are showing another side of the star's life. Because the lyrics are too long, only part of them are quoted here. "When the lights are on/I forget my nervousness and trembling/I forget my dignity and persistence/I bow my head in reality/the colorful stage/the floating life/the crowd gradually disperse/I face the loneliness of the ending." "When it is a big hit/when there is no time to rest/when there is no original self/when you bow your head in front of fame and fortune/when you are extravagant/when you are empty and restless." At the end of the song, the author evokes an inspirational sigh: "Who is writing the drama of this life/is it true or not to play a puzzle all his life/does everyone have to wear a mask/perform a play that he doesn't want to play?"
If The Actor in Tears completely combines the criticism of reality with the criticism of himself into an inseparable whole, then the criticism in The Sailor and The Stars is naturally a transition from this criticism to that criticism. "Now there is a sky/a dirty sky/the stars in the civilized sky/out of sight/the sky is actually not high/the sea is actually not far/people's hearts are actually. (Light the stars) "Now I/life is like acting/saying insincere words/wearing a false mask/always deceiving myself with insignificant achievements/always feeling empty for no reason/always relying on a little alcohol anesthesia to fall asleep." "I can't find any living evidence/the asphalt road in the city is too hard/I can't step on it/I am a proud and ignorant modern man/I don't know how to cherish/trample on the sea, sky and land. "These quoted lyrics reflect the dirty social environment and my decadent life in it, and have profound introspection and criticism on the latter. In particular, as early as 1992, the author had a clear understanding of environmental pollution. Although there is only one sentence: "proud and ignorant modern people/don't know how to cherish/that ocean and world destroyed by civilization." But it contains the author's deep worries. I'm afraid this is unique among popular songs at that time.
The last point about Zheng Zhihua's lyrics is "deep sympathy". This should be the most critical factor for his songs to arouse the audience. His sympathy is mainly aimed at people at the bottom and edge of society. He fully understands that some deformed people choose to live a life of humiliation. He deeply knows that this choice is not what they want, but what reality forces them to do. It's not their fault, it's someone else's fault. Almost every realistic lyric work by Zheng Zhihua is full of deep sympathy for them. Fallen angels, punk and his woman, and your birthday, which one is not? Zheng Zhihua has this passage before the text of his autobiography fallen angels:
Fallen angels is a song and a true story.
Fallen angels describes a woman in the world who is played by both reality and love. For the sake of reality, she played a girl; For love, she played a mother. In this life, she has played a child, a woman and many roles, but she has never played herself.
He is a good actor, but he is a terrible screenwriter.
Fallen angels may be a special case or a microcosm, but from her, we can capture a world, an era, you and me. "
Through this passage, we can more clearly understand the tragic fate of the heroine with decadent face, fashionable clothes and heavy makeup in the song and the author's deep sympathy for her. Zheng Zhihua knows that he hasn't changed the fate of people like this heroine, punk and his woman, and friends on your birthday. The only thing he can do is to record the tragedy and let these people who live in humiliation get the understanding, sympathy, blessing and help of the world.