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Widely considered the "grandfather of Chinese rock", Cui Jian trained as a classical musician before embracing rock and roll in the early 1980s and leaving his job as a trumpet player with the Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra. He catapulted to national fame in 1985 with the release of this song. In the years that followed, Cui would find himself stranded in the political wilderness before a tacit thawing in 2005 allowed him to continue playing large shows in China.A quick note on pronunciation: don't be confused by Cui's occasional reading of "de" as "di". This is common in Chinese folk music, although less and less common in modern pop.
marco64
said on September 24, 2008
probably worth mentioning that there's a double entendre here. 跟 X 走 is romantic shorthand for "to get married with X". makes it a pretty moving song, especially the last verse.
Maple
said on September 24, 2008
Great band, too! Going over the lyrics, I realized how cool the display controls are now. Those artists, always broke, always in love ! Just kidding, I quite like them and these lyrics.
brett
said on September 24, 2008
@Maple - that's funny! I didn't put 2+2 together with the band and poverty thing. Maybe he should switch into banking. ;)
I really like this song anyway guys. I'd heard of Cui Jian before but never heard anything by him except for some counting song that didn't exactly make me want to rush out and buy his music.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/cui-jian-the-man-who-rocks-china-515208.html
"For a lot of people in China, music is just an industry. In most of China, people don't really have a musical education, so they don't know what real music is. Maybe it's because I'm old, but a lot of modern music seems to be about pretty girl, pretty boy, pretty video, make lots of money. I like some of the hip-hop, some of the electronic music. But people don't want music with a message in it now. Pop music is just about counting the money."
A pretty interesting read, especially the bits about 1989.
Maple
said on September 24, 2008
@Brett, so true, so true...nowadays people can make mad money in the music industry. Who can blame them ? I also miss music with a message, at least at times. My 'problem' with a lot of Chinese pop music is ( and I have not listened to a lot of songs), it is too 'clean-cut' for my personal taste, in all aspects, production, lyrics, video...My language exchange partners have introduced me to some real nice stuff, though. Thinking of my statement again, a lot of Western pop songs these days are awfully clean-cut... I would love to hear what the Chinese at Popup Chinese have to say about 'the Chinese music taste'...you can write in Chinese, too, help me fight laziness;)
