Luo Dayou, known as the godfather of Taiwanese pop music, wrote lyrics when he was young and extremely critical.
The lyrics of that song, like a scalpel, exposed and criticized the injustices of that era.
When he was young, Luo Dayou had an exploding head, wrote dark lyrics, and sang rock or pop music, he was a proper angry youth in the eyes of people.
However, his angry spirit has influenced many young people, especially musicians.
The music made by previous musicians, just like the works written by writers and poets, has ideal feelings and social responsibility.
Unlike today's music, just writing love and love is not enough to express.
At that time, domestic musicians, known for their rebellious and critical spirit, were the first fathers of rock and roll, Cui Jian.
Critical lyrics are only visible in rock 'n' roll.
But the appearance of Luo Dayou broke this pattern, and Luo Dayou sang both rock and pop.
And his critical lyrics appear not only in rock music, but also in pop music.
As soon as his debut album "Zhi Hu Zhi Ye" was released, it broke the popular folk song style at that time and led Taiwanese pop music to a trend of criticism and introspection, which had no precedent before Luo Dayou.
There are many songs circulated by Luo Dayou, such as "ZhiHu Ren Ye", "Lukang Town", "Childhood", "The Story of Time", "Love Song 1980", "Love Song 1990" and so on.
The most noteworthy is the public welfare song "Tomorrow Will Be Better".
"Gently awaken the sleeping mind/
Slowly open your eyes/
Look at the busy world/
Whether you are still spinning around alone/
The spring breeze does not understand the style and blows the heart of the teenager."
These lyrics must be familiar to everyone, right? That's right, because we've been singing this song since we were in elementary school.
Released in 1985, "Tomorrow Will Be Better" has been circulating for 36 years, and this song will be featured at almost every charity event.
The song was composed by Luo Dayou, and there were as many as 7 lyricists: Luo Dayou, Zhang Aijia, Zhang Dachun, Li Shouquan, Xu Naisheng, Qiu Fusheng, and Zhan Hongzhi.
The singing was in the form of stars, as many as 60 big names, including almost all the top singers of that era.
Luo Dayou is a master of music, whether it is composing or composing lyrics, it is first-class, so why is there 7 lyricists in the lyrics of this song "Tomorrow Will Be Better"?
In fact, the original lyrics were filled in by Luo Dayou himself, and what we heard was actually the second version that was modified by 6 people, and there was a little-known story behind it.
1986 was the year of world peace, so in 1985, someone launched a campaign to emulate the superstar Michael Jackson. Jackson composed a great public service song sung by the stars, dedicated to the following year of peace.
The stars singing public welfare songs have to start with "Do They Know It's Christmas" written by British singers Bob Geldorf and Mitch Ur.
Bob Geldolph
In 1984, the Ethiopian famine caused millions of deaths, shocking the world, and reports called the site "the closest place to hell on earth."
British singers Bob Geldorf and Mitch Ul wrote a public welfare song called "Do They Know It's Christmas" (Chinese translated as "Do They Know It's Christmas"), and called on dozens of music celebrities to sing this song together, which is commonly known as the stars singing.
After the song was released on December 3 of the same year, on the last day of 1984, the record sales exceeded 3 million, becoming the best-selling single in British history.
The song eventually raised £8 million for African starvers, which took only a year.
The incident spread to the United States, shocking superstar Michael Jackson.
So in March 1985, Michael Jackson also released his own public welfare single "We Are the World" (Chinese translated as "The World"),and organized 45 popular singers to sing together.
"We Are the World" is better than blue, creating even more amazing sales and influence. To this day, "We Are the World" is still regarded as the world's greatest public welfare song.
Feeling the influence of these two public welfare songs, coinciding with the upcoming World Year of Peace, Taiwanese artists also came to imitate and launched the Chinese public welfare song "Tomorrow Will Be Better".
The initiator of the campaign "Tomorrow Will Be Better" is Zhang Aijia, who is also Luo Dayou's ex-girlfriend.
So Luo Dayou, who was developing in the United States at that time, was called back to Taiwan to be responsible for composing the song.
Due to the characteristics of Luo Dayou's musical path, everyone was afraid that he would not be able to write a gentle public welfare style, so Zhang Aijia proposed a song title "Tomorrow Will Be Better" to Luo Dayou as a "propositional composition".
Who knows that Luo Dayou's score of the song is indeed catchy, and there is no shouting radicality in the tune, but the lyrics still follow his critical and reflective path, let's take a look at the beginning of the original lyrics:
Gently caress the numb body/
Helpless to close your eyes/
This ridiculous world/
Still black and white turning around/
The spring breeze has dissolved the style and stung the heart of the girl/
The old torn scars will never heal...
Good fellow, such sharp lyrics, how can you make a public welfare song?
And looking at his lyrics, it doesn't fit the proposition that "tomorrow will be better" at all.
Song producer Li Shouquan took a look at it, this is not OK, so he asked Luo Dayou to modify.
But at that time, Luo Dayou was only 31 years old, only three years after he released his debut album "Zhi Hu Ye", and it was still the time of rebellion, how could he possibly change?
In the end, there was no way, the song producer Li Shouquan had to find someone else to join himself with six people, and changed the song sentence by sentence, retaining less than half of Luo Dayou's original words.
After the song was launched, the beautiful melody and warm and healing lyrics immediately caused a sensation throughout Southeast Asia.
Stars sing "Tomorrow Will Be Better"
It turns out that this imitation was successful, and to this day, the above three public welfare songs are also recognized as the top three global public welfare songs.
In The Taiwan region, because the song "Tomorrow Will Be Better" is too popular and has a great impact, during the Taiwan election the following year, politicians actually used this song as a campaign promotion song, which caused Luo Dayou to run away in anger and fly to the United States again for development.
Luo Dayou never imagined that the first political song he composed, "Lukang Town", told the story of a young man who was forced to leave his hometown due to politics.
Three years later, he himself was forced to become the young man who had left his hometown.
Therefore, this song is satisfied with everyone and has also made great contributions to charity and public welfare, but for the original Luo Dayou, it is a pain that he is not willing to mention.
So far, the song "Tomorrow Will Be Better" has been circulated for 36 years, and will continue to be circulated, I believe that many years later, it is still the existence of the ceiling in Chinese charity songs.
Before Dao Lang became famous, his idol was Luo Dayou.
His musical ideal is to be able to make music like Luo Dayou, dissecting life and life like a scalpel.
Dao Lang
Therefore, the first band he formed in his early years was named "Scalpel" Band, which was to pay tribute to Luo Dayou.
Later, Daolang's music was commercially successful, but unfortunately he had to abandon his early musical ideals.
It can be seen from this that Luo Dayou's preciousness is that it is difficult to replicate his success.
The man who can replicate his commercial success cannot copy his musical ideas; and the man who can copy his musical ideas cannot replicate his commercial success.
Although Luo Dayou did not like to be called "godfather", it was true that only he could live up to this title.