Lyrics

I do like most of Sam Hui's songs. He is not the only one to seek inspiration from classical Chinese poetry, Jim Wong was another practitioner who comes to mind.

I must say that I learned a lot of my Chinese from these songs - both Sam Hui's and Jim Wong's. To this day I still use this phrase
命裡有時終須有, 命裡無時莫強求 which I first learned from this song.

For non Chinese speakers, it roughly means, "if it is fated that it is yours, it will eventually come; if it is fated not to be yours, do not continue pursuing it".

Some might think this is rather negative, and does not inculcate the sense of perseverance. This may be so, but on the other hand, one could waste one's life pursuing a dream that was not to be.

LOL, me too!  i gave back most of my chinese after i finished chinese school.  whatever i retained and relearned was from karaoke.    and that allowed me to manage to get through wuxia novels.  

and yes, some of the other master lyricists like lo kwok tsim and cheng kwok kong also acknowledge their debt to chinese poetry and cantopera.  cheng kwok kong is currently involved in writing new lyrics for new cantopera productions.  and apparently, james wong also tried his hand at it when he helped with a production for hung sin nui before he passed away.  sadly, there was a limited number of CDs/DVDs made of that project, so we're out of luck if we wanna find an authentic copy now.

Admin that sucks, andrea! *hugs*

and don't worry about learing canto--it's dying out anyway.

haha, i'm very biased toward canto songs, so if i say "agree", that's a bit unfair--i haven't listened to a wide-enough range of mando songs (mostly because i don't know what the lyrics mean, so that decreases my appreciation of the song).

i'm just going to venture a guess (it's not even a hypothesis because i have no data to support): i think one of the reasons mandarin songs from the mainland aren't quite up-to-par with cantonese songs is that they haven't yet received the cross-cultural influences that cantopop has gotten. in hong kong, the types of music that people grew up with were (in chronological order): cantopera, english pop, old mandarin songs of the 40s/50s/60s (from shanghai, mostly, which also had some western influence), cantopop. and western music in terms of compositional structure definitely had a major impact on cantopop, so it it essentially a mix of western music and chinese music; at the same time, there was also japanese music that became popular.

but because mainland was isolated from most other cultural influences, it not only retained the more ancient style of chinese music, with maybe some russian influences (relations with the soviets back when they were communist). my impression of "communist" music is that it tends to be a bit loud, in-your-face, narrow in thematic matter (indoctrination). so, current day mainland mandarin songs seem a bit old-fashioned in compositional style. especially to those who've had western music influences (whether directly through english pop songs, "classical" music, or indirectly through cantopop).

now, if you were to listen to the mandarin songs from taiwan, you wouldn't think they are "worse" than cantopop because there was enough cross-cultural mixing/influence between hong kong and taiwan. taiwan still maintains it's own style, esp. of folksongs, but they sound more "cantopop" than mainland mandopop.

just my two-cents.

This song reminds me of another song. Both are friendship songs. Friendship songs always pull at my heart-string.

老死 Fast Friends 

作詞：林夕 Lyricist: Albert Leung (Lam Jik)
作曲：吳國敬  Composer: Eddie Ng Kwok Ging
編曲：Adrian Chan
合唱：吳國敬,蘇永康  Duet: Eddie Ng, William So

你對我說你我都總會有錯
似你造句我己聽得很多
陌生者的關心　卻彷彿一種切磋

你說這世界美好不要錯過
你卻說你錯過了的很多
明天雖不清楚　仍願意苦心勸我

* 未算識你　但已想抱抱你
像老死　只需想到了你
打不死　輕傷的我哪敢死
讓我跟你　學會不要放棄
未算乖　都知這個世界
不算壞　否則怎會碰到你 *

我與你某次也許街裡見過
各有過去　你我也不清楚
陌生的世界裡　共同的東西太多

我信你愛過更加哭過笑過
錯過跌過也算個好傢伙
誰捨得不信你
良善似兄弟對我

Repeat * *

@caiyi CAIYI! you're back!

huh, a 3rd song! never knew lam jik's english name so thanks! the lyrics are definitely written for a younger generation--different approach.