Dance class leader | These “not quite right” lyrics hide the taste of the times – China Digital Times

This summer, the aftertaste of “Mohe Dance Hall” is still lingering in some beauty salons in the urban-rural fringe, and “The Lonely Brave” has been brushed up by elementary school students.

Just when the middle-aged and elderly players were at a loss in the face of these trends, the lyrics of the positive version of “The Lights of the Stars” “The sky is now a sunny sky, and the stars are always visible in the civilized sky”, Make them wonder if they have amnesia.

Different eras, different pop songs. Regardless of the level, when a song is popular all over the country and you can hear it wherever you go, aside from the melody of brainwashing, its lyrics are also pulled into the line of sight while being forced to chew repeatedly, and are broken apart, smashed and pondered. .

At this time, no matter whether the lyrics are good or bad, in this atmosphere of the whole people finding fault, it has become no longer simple.

But what we want to say is that, in fact, once you were, you didn’t care about the lyrics at all.

Otherwise, how can some songs survive to this day?

I didn’t say it, they were just as wrong as the ship’s new version of “The Lights of the Stars”.

1. Those who think about it

very bad song

Many of the things we are familiar with are not internal tastes if we think about them carefully. Apart from representing the aesthetics and values ​​of an era, these songs are also specimens of stereotypes buried deep in people’s subconscious.

For example, Teacher Tengger’s “Big Man”.

Big men are not good

no matter how hard

Lie down and touch your sadness

When “Kangxi Dynasty” was on the air 20 years ago, “Big Man”, as the ending song of the show, resounded in the streets and alleys like the opening song “Lend Another Five Hundred Years from the Sky”. The difference is that “Borrow Another Five Hundred Years from the Sky” is often a group of buddies who look forward to the future and sing loudly, while “Big Man” often appears on KTV at midnight when they are hurt. I don’t know how old these men are, all I know is that they probably didn’t dare to cry.

On the surface, this song sings praises of the strong forbearance and gentleness and honesty of the Chinese people, but just like a generation of people who sang “a big man can’t do it easily”, these saddened people who sing “it’s hard for a big man” Men, maybe they don’t know what kidnapped their lives.

After all, when people equate men with strength and women with weakness, it is not only women who seek to look up to each other who have lost their position, but men’s right to express pain, sorrow and step back is also castrated at the same time.

Similar to this is the cheering song “Man” of the 2011 Chinese Super League Xi’an Chanba International Football Team.

“If it’s a man, you have to play football, hey! If it’s a man, you have to compete for the top, hey! Don’t recognize Mao, don’t bow your head, and keep moving forward.”

Three sentences and three big bangs: the first sentence anchors football and masculinity, the second sentence ties men and success to death, and the third sentence also deprives the male group of the right to show weakness.

Men under the so-called patriarchal gaze are also victims, nothing more.

In addition to gender, what is kidnapped by stereotypes is more often identity.

“Regardless of wind and rain, spring and autumn or winter and summer, my mother never has a holiday.”

Many people will sing this “Mothers in the World are the same” since childhood. At first glance, it is an ordinary song that praises the greatness of mother’s love, but under the current values, it will feel that something is wrong- Shouldn’t every mother in the world take a vacation? I’m afraid this is not a moral kidnapping.

Not to mention the following lines:

“The kitchen is her world”, “Lion head and braised duck, she is proficient in everything and will not fake it”.

Linking the context will make people form such a logic in a trance: mothers in the world are all the same – mothers should never take vacations, and mothers should be proficient in everything – if they can’t do it, then they are not qualified mothers.

Even with the atmosphere of love, this is hardly a correct value.

Because, before a mother can be a mother, she should be a person first.She can have a life other than family life, she can not cook, and she can escape briefly when she is uncomfortable and painful, instead of “working for home, never on vacation”.

If you can’t make lion head and braised duck, don’t you deserve to be a mother? If you dare to question this, your mother will tell you with practical actions and big soles: Your mother will always be your mother.

Similar to it, there is also a song “Mom Don’t Go to Work”.

“Mom don’t go to work, mom don’t go to work, if mom goes to work, she doesn’t play with me… Even if mom goes to work, she can’t make a lot of money.”

To put it loosely, this kind of lyrics can easily cause children to not understand the hard work of their parents; to put it more seriously, it contrasts the relationship between women’s employment and family, creating a feeling of “a mother should look after her children at home”. , to go to work is to feel ashamed of the children.” Not to mention the lyrics of “I can’t make a little money at work”, which seems like a childish idea, or an adult self-deprecating self-comfort, but in fact it is more like a devaluation of the labor value of professional women. , and a mirror of society’s unjustified pay environment.

It’s not just my mother, but my father who was slaughtered by the heartless lyrics.

Strict fathers and mothers have always been said, and most of the tags of maternal love are “selfless” and “dedication”, and when it comes to father’s love, it is “strict” and “deep”. So there are songs like “Good Dad”.

“Which father does not scold others, and which child is not afraid, beating and scolding is love. Which is not a good father.”

Indeed, under the lingering power of the patriarchal society for thousands of years, there are indeed many old fathers who consider themselves “big men” ashamed to express themselves, and even think that treating their children equally is a kind of behavior of “defeating their rights and humiliating the country”, and the demands of children’s equal communication are one and the same. kind of “challenge authority”. This is probably the source of the fallacy of “beating is pro-scolding is love”, and something like a children’s song will inevitably be taken seriously when people sing and sing.

When it comes to these things that are not right, the works of family relations are simply the hardest hit.

“Only Mothers Are Good in the World” “squeezes” motherless children to the bottom of society, and I don’t know whether to make motherless cubs cherish mother’s love more, or to make motherless cubs deeply realize their misery. And 2015’s “Mother-in-law is a mother”, relying on strength to give all women who have mothers and no mothers, one more mother.

“Since I married him, I walked into my mother-in-law’s house. Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law get along together, we are mother and daughter… Thank you, the old man, for honoring your old man, and you sent him a cold and warm man for your daughter-in-law. “

The front foot really sings the greatness of maternal love, and the back foot forces people to treat their mother-in-law as a mother.

The marriage relationship and parent-child relationship were ruined, and it was the turn of the brothers and sisters. “Let Love Live in My Home”, a good song, I have to add a sentence to the part of my daughter“Love is not jealous, I have what my brother has.”People can’t help but brow a Sichuan word – in an equal family, isn’t this what it should be? When it comes to “not jealous”, is it a guilty conscience or what?

Douyin Divine Comedy is the hardest hit by stereotypes.

For example, this song “Prodigal Wife”, which had a very high appearance rate last year. (There are too many slots, see for yourself↓)

If you say that Daqing Xiaofang and their three views are like this, then you can’t think that there is such a song “Husband Makes Money and Wife Flowers” in the same album.

“Husband, I am a bank card, I can swipe it as I want”It’s true that both black and white have gone the way, and he can be called the holy hand of provoking family conflicts thousands of miles away.

Judging from the “primacy effect” and “seeing more effect”, it is this seemingly unremarkable argument hidden in an unremarkable corner, which invisibly consolidates a kind of origin from The foundation of traditional but incorrect relationships.

From this perspective, these all-powerful songs on the short video platform are, to some extent, stronger than the disciplinary effect of the Nude Bible.

And in such a distorted environment, every time a “big man” who “husbands earn money and spend money on his wife” is produced, and every time a “big man” who “takes her mother-in-law as her own mother” and “spends her husband’s money” is cultivated With a mother who “will not work from now on”, there will be a family that is deeply trapped in the contradiction of “prodigal women”, and goes further and further with harmony, balance and mutual respect.

2. The transmutation of emotions hidden in the lyrics

It is sometimes difficult to tell whether the times chose literary and artistic works, or these works created the culture of the times, or both.

Judging from the lyrics alone, if people today are cold and alienated towards love, then the love songs at the beginning of the century are full of passionate and persistent love. This kind of strong emotion can be seen at the moment, and sometimes even makes people feel sick.

For example, the description of the matter of asking for nothing, like a series of dog licking music represented by “Love Like Tide Water”, is good at pulling emotional resonance with one-sided pursuit and unrewarded efforts. (About this, I wrote an article before “No one sings dog licking love songs anymore, but the world is more boring”)

And the way of expressing affection in other lyrics seems a little distorted and unbelievable from the current point of view.

Like Jay Chou’s “Wait for your get out of class”.

“You live, in the alley, I rented an apartment, in order to meet you unexpectedly. For three years in high school, why didn’t I study hard? I didn’t get into the same university as you. I found a job. Work, very close to your dormitory…”

If it is said that when I was a teenager, I was still attracted by the so-called “affectionate” expressed in the lyrics, now I can only think that this person is not a stalker when I read the lyrics again.

Just imagine, if there is a former classmate who hasn’t said a few words at all, lurking in your activity radius all day, watching your every move, and even knowing whether you eat breakfast or not, I believe that not only will you not breed the slightest love , but want to call the police directly.

Li Keqin’s “The Messenger of Flowers” tells a similar story.

“I met her in my heart in the street this night, and I decided not to listen to the call and go home with her.”Isn’t this what the end line is? ILLUSION has to complain to the extent of injustice. Falling in love at first sight is mostly defined as the moment when you see a girl and you see a beautiful girl on the street and go home with someone, which seems to be an even more unforgivable legal coffee.

Men’s love songs are like this, and the same can be proved for love songs from a female perspective.

Some people think that SHE’s “He Still Don’t Understand” sings women’s compositions vividly.picture“Leaving is to be retained, if I speak, it is just the tenderness I want to come”This kind of lyrics is often regarded as a malicious “rubbish test” for men.

Similarly, Chen Huilin’s sentence in “It’s my fault”“But if love is asked for, I don’t want it either”is also considered to mean this.

The change of values ​​hides the change of the times, and the emotional outlook will also roll forward with the wheel of the times.What was once thought to be “good for you” may no longer be recognized at the moment; the “proof of affection” in those days may now be the embodiment of distorted emotional relationships. For example, the school committee of the dance class said that Liang Jingru’s “Courage” is not serious and can be “understood according to the derailment”.

The so-called literary and artistic works are the reflections of an era on broken glass, and the hidden meanings in them may not need to be revealed.There is no clear right or wrong。

The only certainty, perhaps, is that when time passes, something becomes visible.

3. Whispers in the corner of the times

Lyrics, like stories, are the hidden script of an era.

Although many songs written with purpose can clearly confirm the changes of the times, it is well known that the human brain and the hand are two different things.Those who come out are not advanced, but those who come in the dark are convincing”. Those songs created by the creators with the values ​​they believe in are called footnotes of the times, and are more convincing than the “victory” above the hall.

Such as “Xiao Fang”.

According to the creator, Li Chunbo, “Xiao Fang” describes the story of an educated youth who fell in love with a local girl when he went to the countryside, but had to break up when he returned to the city, but “can’t forget that love”.

This kind of love tragedy caused by the times sounds close to the drama “Secret Love” in the “Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land”, but it is not advanced when you think about it carefully. The same shadow cast by the times, the request in “Secret Love” must not be force majeure, but the hero of “Xiaofang” is chosen by himself, which sounds weird.

In 1968, Li Chunbo was just born at the beginning of going to the countryside. According to himself, his parents were old party members who joined the party before liberation, and his two older sisters and two older brothers were educated youths. A large part of a person’s early values ​​stems from the environment at the beginning of life.

Songs like “Xiao Fang” are not popular now, but they aroused national nostalgia at that time. The old educated youth will resonate when they hear this song – after all, who doesn’t have a Xiaofang in their heart? And those who grew up in that era will inevitably miss the green years when faced with the surging “new world” that followed.

“I Love My Home” also made a special episode of “Xiaofang”,

Ironically, rubbing off the love debts of the educated youths

What few people care about is how many of the survivors who were torn apart by the wind were Xiaofang standing at the entrance of the village, and how many people were far away, when the wind of sports roared and wrapped their personal fate tightly.Can you sing “Thank you for the love you gave me” without any guilt?

Coincidentally.

At the end of the last century, during the reform of state-owned enterprises, in order to encourage laid-off workers to re-employ, CCTV filmed a series of public service advertisements. The director team made an appointment with Wang Xiaofeng for a song, which is Liu Huan’s “Start Over”.

This song has a high degree of singing and a beautiful and atmospheric melody. For the post-80s and 90s, it belongs to the type that anyone can hum a few times but will not study the content carefully.

But the lyrics, if you think about it carefully, are full of arrogance and frivolous finger-pointing—”No matter how hard it is, be strong“Is the suffering of the laid-off people self-inflicted? Be strong and paralyzed!

It is hard to imagine how a laid-off employee of a state-owned enterprise felt when he heard such a song on TV.

If there are always some irresistible “highs” in life, let’s go back to the lows.

At the beginning of the new century, Snow Village’s song “Northeast People are Living Lei Feng” was very popular at that time. Korean ginseng, stewed pork noodles and live Lei Feng have also become high hats that Northeasterners cannot take off.

The popularity of “People from Northeast China are Living Lei Feng” is certainly related to the emerging online music model at that time, the novel, brutal but funny story-type singing method, but I personally rely on memory and irresponsibly think that there is something hidden behind this, maybe There is also the group empathy caused by the regional discrimination and stigma caused by the chain reaction of the wave of layoffs. When countless negative social news in a certain period of time all point to the same land, the self-deprecating three words “Living Lei Feng” will undoubtedly plant a relatively comfortable seed in people’s hearts.

Although we understand that the lyrics are limited in length, and the burden of popularizing regional common sense should not be placed on a song, it is undeniable that the interaction between the two has indeed produced some funny effects.

My roommate in college is from Dalian. According to him, whenever someone asks about Korean ginseng and stewed vermicelli with pork, he wants to deduct a mackerel dumpling. When asking him to sacrifice his rights, he wanted to mum his big pants.

But push back a few years, the same white mountain and black water, and then watch the ending song “Homeland” of the 2008 hit TV series “Crossing the Guandong”.Your embrace warms my frozen expectations, hoping that where in the sky the fate will change”,I always feel so sad.

The movies and TV drama songs in the past few years are indeed amazing. “Kangxi’s Private Interview in Micro-Service” fabricated a private interview with Emperor Kangxi who was sympathetic to the public opinion. The ending song sings, “Golden Wa Jinluan Hall, the emperor does not sit in the hall, and once he leaves the noon gate, the people’s affairs take him away.” It does not describe a feudal autocratic emperor, but the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva who saves the suffering. It is precisely because of this that some people once thought that this kind of drama that joked about history was quite inadvisable to test up and down the red line of historical nihilism.

But not all “jokes” will be called out. In 2006, CCTV had a TV series “Old Woman with Two Guns”, which told the story of Bai Kunjie, a young and beautiful female revolutionary party, and her comrades participating in the struggle and searching up and down in the turbulent era.Comment on right and wrong》。

When I was young and ignorant, facing such a drama with a stable content, I always wondered howright or wrong“.

It was later discovered that the problem might be in the title. After all, compared to the semi-fictional characters in various literary and artistic works, the one more related to these five characters is a historical figure named Zhao Hongwenguo. This old lady participated in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. She was full of heroic martyrs and had countless military exploits. She was known as “the mother of the guerrillas” and “the mother of the nation”. Later, she betrayed the revolution because of the death of her children and grandchildren and the KMT reactionaries, and ended up being shot to death in public. .

Some people think that the earliest source of the image of the old woman with double guns in literary and artistic works is “Red Rock”. Luo Guangbin, one of the authors of “Red Rock”, once pointed out that the prototype in the book is Chen Lianshi. The main creator of the TV series also said that he was filming “the story of the old woman with two guns in the south, which has nothing to do with the north”, and later said it was Liu Longhua. In short, no matter who they are, they are trying to distance themselves from the “counter-revolutionary bandit leader” Zhao Hongwenguo.

In this way, “Don’t be afraid of too many open spears, dark arrows are the most difficult to hide”, “Don’t talk about merits and demerits, let the critics say what is right and wrong”, you can freely testify what you are saying.

As the ending song of “Prime Minister Liu Luoguo” sings, “The things in the story, say yes or not, and the things in the story, say no, they are not, yes and no.”

Of course, standing in the current context, to criticize whether the intentions of past literary and artistic works are correct, is somewhat of a moral hooliganism.

after all,The world would be boring if everyone trusted and upheld the same things.

The literary and artistic works of an era are the embodiment of people’s hearts in an era. Since the lyrics are written by people, it shows the unevenness of the world. If you simply parade these songs that look wrong now, it may not be another stereotype. Because the stories written by the singers and the listeners together constitute a big era, and the important taste in the corner is the daigo.

Therefore, in order to make the world more interesting, in order to make the memory more real, in order to let us know the real thoughts of the former, we should also keep those works that are “not quite right” or even said to be “backward dross”.

They are all part of the real historical process. “Removing” them will not make the world a better place, but will limit the space for expression due to the mandatory standard of wrong and right, which will then make the works shallow because they are divorced from reality, and accelerate the desertification of cultural soil.

Besides, the things behind these songs are more important than their own right and wrong—Why does it look like this?

THE END