Yeh Chun-lin wrote songs about the fickleness of human relationships

“The sun is setting in the west, the water is dyed by the afterglow. Men and women, old people and children wait for the fishing boats to return….”We are all familiar with the scene that is described in these lyrics, from one of Yeh Chun-lin’s best known songs, “Danshui Twilight.” Yeh’s lyrics made popular Taiwanese songs diverse and profound in style. He had a wide range of subject matter, such a natural scenery, career ambitions and setbacks, longing for the bustling city, yearning for the uncomplicated countryside, feelings about love gained and lost. 

Yeh was born in 1921, and his original name was Yeh Hong-qing. He was interested in literature, opera and music from a young age and entered a Chinese school at the age of six. In his adolescence, he developed a love of literature. The first script he wrote was “Tide” and, later, scripts such as “Kommin Do” and “Spider’s Web” were purchased by the Writers’ Association, gaining him respect in the Taiwan theatrical community.Yeh’s mother died in the early 1940s, his father became depressed and passed away not long after and Keelung, where he lived, was bombed by the Americans in the later stages of WW2, giving him his first taste of the pain and helplessness of being destitute and homeless. From then on, he put writing songs and literature at the center of his life.

Yeh released his first song, “Leaves Falling in the Autumn Breeze” in 1957 and then followed with the well-known songs “Wandering Life,” “Lasting Feelings,” “A Man’s Lament,” “Happy Ranch,” “Storm in a Strange Land” reaching his creative apogee. With his writing skill and sensitivity. Yeh’s works always gave the listener a sense of tableau and created vivid and moving scenes, realistically describing feelings of longing, homesickness, quandary and yearning;his ability to portray characters is also evidenced by the plaintive tone of the main protagonists. Zhang Qing-rong thinks that Yeh’s lyrics can be compared to the “Art of States” in “The Book of Songs” because their content mainly describes various walks of life in Taiwan, reflects the contemporary social situation and conditions and gets close to the lives of the common people without even an ounce of affectation or showing off, taking his songs from the level of pop songs to the level of folk songs.

Yeh’s precious manuscripts are stored properly at home by his children  Yeh Sai-ying and Yeh Huan-qi. This year they provided 76 manuscripts, 21 old photographs, 40 news reports and 19 items connected to Yeh to the program team for digitization.  The manuscripts include songs and Yeh’s important artist’s statement “17 thoughts— looking back on 40 years of writing Taiwanese songs.”After digitization this information will be used as material for the teaching of Taiwanese language and it possesses a certain amount of reference value in terms of figures of speech, sentence patterns, grammar, word use and even social exploration.

A group photograph taken in front of Tainan’s Asia Records in the summer of 1958 (Yeh is 5^th from the left, Hung Yi-feng is fourth from the right)

The charms of Formosa, the beautiful scenery drawn in words 

In 1972 Yeh’s creativity entered a dormant period as a result of government-imposed restrictions on Taiwanese songs. During this period, Yeh and his wife, Wu Xiu-luan, embarked on a “tour of Formosa”, visiting scenic spots all over Taiwan;the trip ended after a short time but had a lasting impact on Yeh

Supported by his family, from this time Yeh was no longer primarily concerned with meeting market tastes and making money and he began creating the “Formosa  Landscape” series of works that he produced during the period from 1972 to his death in 1988, the works becoming his most important later works. He put a lot of effort into his creative work, even reading about Penghu against the wishes of his family when he was bed-ridden suffering from lung disease, completing his final song “The beauty of Penghu.”

Music and lyrics handwritten by Yeh

Many of Yeh’s songs became well-known and it was because of his grasp of the musicality of language that we was able to change poetic words into lyrics that have  special charm whether they are sung or recited.The highly-productive songwriter would immediately enter his fully-focused writing state as soon as he had an idea for a song. According to his family, when he was writing he always had a cigarette in his mouth and would often tap out a rhythm on the table with a cigarette lighter with his left hand, write the lyrics with his right, while humming the melody loudly, showing just how focused he was.It is not hard to imagine that, when he was writing a song, in his mind scene after scene from lovely Formosa appeared.

Yeh died in 1998 and the “Formosa Landscape Painting” series also came to an end. This year, however, through the manuscripts, photographs and items archived as part of Digital Archives Project for the Minnan Language Lyrics and Documents of Yeh Chun-lin,  we can see Yeh deep in thought as he worked and his words that describe Taiwan so vividly once again by using the Internet and digital technology.

Meeting in 1957: 1957 was a key year for the music business in Taiwan. That year Hung Yi-feng’s Japanese song sung in Taiwanese, “ Black Dog Brother on top of the Mountain,” achieved market success and he was introduced by a friend to lyricist  Yeh Chun-lin who had just released his first song, “ Leaves falling in the autumn breeze. “The pair were both highly talented, gave each other inspiration and they began writing Taiwanese songs together. They were determined that Taiwan should have its own songs and, going against the fashion of the time for Japanese songs to be sung in Taiwanese, they decided to bring out songs with an original Taiwan flavor, writing “The person I yearn for,” Lasting Feelings,”“Danshui Twilight” Formosa Mambo” etc, songs that are now classics known and loved by all.

A dialogue between original song and new recording

Music and lyrics handwritten by Yeh

How much time and space can a moving melody transcend? How can listeners today engage in dialogue with the distant past?  The unlimited possibilities behind these questions, questions that seem abstract and romantic, have been realized by the program team, supported by various  departments of National University of Tainan, by “reproducing old songs,” creating a dialogue between original songs and new recordings. Lin Xin-zhi, of the Department of E-learning Technology, is responsible for digitization technology and website management in the program and he planned the online music playing function, giving users more choice of listening angle.Hou Zhi-zheng, Director of the Department of Music, was responsible for reproducing the music and enlisted the help of the teachers and students of the department to reinterpret Yeh’s best-known songs.

 “We found many versions of the same song, with some singers adding their own touches, sometimes upping the tempo or adding dotted notes, each different in its own way, so, when we reproduced a song, we used the score as the basis. These songs might have been originally sung by Hung Yi-feng but, today, when we go into the studio to rearrange a song everyone interprets the song in their own way. This is the magic of music and its essence, it can be interpreted by different people as they see fit” said Hou Zhi-zheng, who uses arranging to express his views of the works of Yeh Chun-lin. If we compare old and new song versions  it is as if we are hearing young musicians having a conversation with the musicians in the Asian Records recording studio 50 years ago.

Apart from facilitating a dialogue across time and space, what influence can new recordings of songs have on people today? Zhang Qing-rong, professor in the Department of Chinese Literature and the program’s principle investigator, answered this question by saying: “Teaching”. In contrast to a situation where authorization can’t be obtained from the original performers or the record company, new recordings can be played publicly, in full, free of charge, thus solving the knotty music licensing problem for the team.

This information will be used in teaching in the future and, using the website, teaching plans that span literature, music and digital games can be planned, giving the archives more lasting significance.

From 1972 to his death in 1998 Yeh spent 26 years working on this series, his most important later works