In the past 2021, if you take stock of the best music in Chinese music, I think "Heaven and Earth Dragon Scales" can definitely be called the best, there is no one.
The most impressive thing about this song is the lyrics created by Fang Wenshan.
As we all know, Fang Wenshan is known for his ability to create Chinese-style lyrics. The lyrics of this song "Heaven and Earth Dragon Scales", even if you look at Fang Wenshan's entire creative career, can definitely be called a first-class masterpiece. Whether it is the ornateness of the rhetoric, or the grandeur of the overall lyric content. In the entire Chinese music scene, it is almost impossible to find a second lyricist who can match Fang Wenshan's attainment level.
So what exactly is the lyrics of this song that are moving the audience, and where is the good?
Today, I will try to analyze it.
"Dragon Scales of Heaven and Earth" is the theme song of the documentary "Forbidden City".
When it comes to the Forbidden City, most people's first impression is magnificent.
Therefore, the lyrics of this song are very ingenious.
Many songs, often from the first sentence to the last sentence, rhyme the same.
However, the lyrics of "Heaven and Earth Dragon Scales" rhyme and rhyme, but they are layered.
In the first half of the narrative fragment, the rhyme foot used is the "i" pronunciation, such as pen, inside, ground, and shift.
However, in the climactic part of the segment, the rhyme foot is changed to "in" and "ing" pronunciation, such as heart, listen, and ming.
From the perspective of the strength of the pronunciation of the text, the pronunciation of "in" and "ing" is better than the pronunciation of "i", and the progression from "i" to "ing" rhymes also represents the singer's own courage, spirit and emotions. So that the listener can feel the momentum of the song from small to large, from weak to strong.
Since it is the theme song of "Forbidden City", the content creation of the lyrics must be closely related to the theme of "Forbidden City".
I think that anyone with historical and cultural feelings, when facing the Forbidden City, will inevitably be impressed by the king's spirit that comes to the face, and the sense of historical echo of the dynastic changes contained in the Forbidden City and the sense of mission that the historical process is endless and endless will also shake everyone present.
Therefore, in the lyrics created by Fang Wenshan, instead of introducing the Forbidden City in an all-round way, the historical civilization contained in the Forbidden City is told through the three keywords of the Nine Dragon Wall, the Central Axis and the Shenwu Gate.
The Nine Dragon Wall is a symbol of imperial power, showing the spirit of the king. The endless central axis represents the inheritance of history, from which the evolution of the historical process is endless. The Shenwu Gate is a testimony and epitome of the 600-year dynastic change and historical ups and downs of the Forbidden City, through which the audience can wander in the long history of the Forbidden City.
Through the three points of "Nine Dragon Wall", "Central Axis" and "Shenwu Gate", the most intuitive feelings brought to the audience by the Forbidden City are projected.
The rest of the chapters of "Dragon Scales of Heaven and Earth" are written by the lyricist Fang Wenshan with a large number of words, lamenting his own feelings about the changes in the history of the Forbidden City.
The starting point of the lyrics is "This country, I start to write", and there is also a sentence in the middle of the "respect the past, I drop the pen" as a continuation, these two words make the whole song full of picture sense, giving people the feeling of a surging historical recorder, in the face of the forbidden city's thick history and culture, sincerely chanting and feeling. In this way, the words "I can't bear to hear" and "I firmly believe" in the lyrics will bring the audience a sense of empathy.
In the lyrics, another very prominent point is the writing and rendering of the "dragon" culture, which also echoes the title "Heaven and Earth Dragon Scales".
The dragon is a very important cultural element of our Chinese nation, and it can even be said that the dragon is the cultural symbol of the entire Chinese nation. Then, the dragon scales can be extended to every molecule and every component of Chinese culture, and even represent every Chinese son and daughter who appeared in the long river of Chinese history.
In the lyrics, there is a very vivid metaphor for dragon scales - "crushed ice".
Personally, I feel that Fang Wenshan's thought of "crushed ice" from dragon scales is really a very wonderful contrast and reflection.
Crystal clear ice is a symbol of nobility and purity in traditional Chinese culture, like jade. The word "crushed ice" makes the audience have endless imagination, such as the rupture of the glacier - all the suffering encountered in the process of China's history, just like the rupture of the glacier in the long river of history, which means to open up the world and change the new world. For example, "It is better to be crushed for jade than for the whole", symbolizing the fearless sacrifice made by benevolent people in Chinese history in order to defend national dignity and integrity - is this not the embodiment of the national spirit and soul?
As the great man said: History is written by the people.
This "broken ice" is like every figure in the long river of history, and it is their efforts and enterprising efforts that are pushing the wheel of history to roll forward.
In addition to representing a few points of the history and culture of the Forbidden City, and highlighting the "dragon culture" to make it echo the title, Fang Wenshan also quoted many cultural classics in the lyrics.
For example, "people keep their manners and keep quiet", "small becomes large", etc., these sentences actually have sources, but after being innovated and processed by Fang Wenshan, they are more suitable for modern people to accept and recognize.
Fang Wenshan is a songwriter with a strong talent for traditional Chinese ancient poetry and culture. What is more outstanding about Fang Wenshan is that although he is familiar with ancient poetry culture, he never sticks to the organizational structure of ancient culture poetry and words, but finds another way to reshape the text structure in the lyrics with an expression that modern people are very familiar with, and through the recombination of words, creates a new literary structure that integrates the beauty of words, the thickness of culture, and the aesthetic beauty of artistic conception. So that the audience not only has a refreshing feeling, but also will be deeply attracted by the rich classical culture between the lines.
Summarize Fang Wenshan's level of control over classical words and phrases in one sentence: he creates classical content into familiar and familiar content into novelty.
On the road of Chinese style creation, Fang Wenshan has never disappointed the audience.