Jay Chou's song styles are diverse, in addition to the two mainstream styles of love themes and Chinese style, the most praised by senior music fans is his "Dark Trilogy".
Two of the trilogies are recognized as "In the Name of the Father" and "The Seventh Chapter of the Night", with lyrics written by Huang Junlang. The third song is considered by some to be "Nocturne" and "The Death of The Cessation of War", both of which are Fang Wenshan's lyric works, the former is partial to love, and the latter is based on the theme of anti-war.
The so-called dark songs are often characterized by a slightly sad and low singing voice, a strong sense of picture, humanistic characteristics and classical feelings, and most importantly, they can create a psychedelic scene atmosphere. To achieve this effect, in addition to the arrangement, the lyrics are also very exquisite.
If you have to put together three songs and call it Jay Chou's "Dark Trilogy", I think the third song should be "Fort William".
Just look at the lyrics of the song:
"Vines / Crawling over the earl's grave / A desert in the castle / Dirt overgrown with weeds / A fat witch who can't ride a broom / La-la-
No matter which third Dark Song is, it cannot surpass the status of "In the Name of the Father" and "The Seventh Chapter of the Night" in the hearts of Jay Chou fans.
The birth of these two "divine works" should be attributed to the lyricist Huang Junlang to a certain extent.
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Who is Huang Junlang? He is a good friend of Jay Chou, a lang in Jay Chou's movies "The Secret That Cannot Be Said" and "Rooftop Love", and another royal lyricist of Jay Chou.
Before I knew Fang Wenshan and Jay Chou, Huang Junlang loved to draw and write, and his dream in life was to publish a book, and he would not participate in any work without publishing a book. He was sought by his landlord for not paying his rent, and often hid in cafes to write, draw, and exchange paintings for a cup of coffee.
Fang Wenshan's original dream was to write a script and make a movie, and after becoming famous in lyric writing, he probably saw his own shadow in Huang Junlang. In order to recruit him to sign a record label to write lyrics, he said to him: "I am going to open a publishing house, and your book will be the first book published by this publishing house." ”
Huang Junlang agreed, and after joining the company, one day Jay Chou threw two DEMO songs to him, one "In the Name of the Father" and one "Three Years and Two Classes", asking him to choose a filler.
At that time, he had not filled in the words, thinking that Jay Chou must be crazy, how can such an important song be handed over to him, Jay Chou replied: "It doesn't matter, even if you fill it out badly, I can sing it well." ”
On July 16, 2003, "In the Name of the Father" premiered simultaneously on more than 50 radio stations across Asia, and 800 million people listened to it, which should far exceed "Say Good and Don't Cry", and July 16 was designated as "Jay Chou Day".
Huang Junlang also became popular because of this.
For most fans, the song is most impressive than the eerie scream at the beginning, which is creepy, and the melody after that is full of depression, darkness, and sadness, and the arrangement of the whole song is full of Italian opera flavor.
The lyrics are based on the three axes of "Heavenly Father, Godfather, and Father", and do not fully pay attention to rhymes, depicting the existence of three types of "fathers" through different imagery, trying to show the helplessness of the godfather, the compassion of the father, the selflessness of the heavenly father and other concepts of salvation.
The image of the Godfather appears in the lyrics, as in the lyrics, "Bow down and kiss my left hand / In exchange for the promise of forgiveness / The old organ is in the corner / Always accompanied".
Then, begin to confess to the Heavenly Father, "Merciful Father, I have fallen into/The kingdom of invisible sin/Please forgive my conceit."
Finally, it returns to the depiction of my father as "My father holds my hands / Walks gently / The quiet stone road in the morning".
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If Fang Wenshan's lyrics are skillful and the picture is beautiful, Huang Junlang pays more attention to digging into people's hearts and has the temperament of an artist.
Taking writing lyrics as a job and writing books as a sentiment, he has always held the attitude of being a poor artist. Even if writing lyrics has lifted him out of poverty, he has never been bothered about it.
This kind of Qinggao was looked at by Fang Wenshan and Jay Chou, and the two often whispered viciously: "MD, write him words to make money and still install Qinggao over there, what a thing!" Huang Junlang retorted to them, calling them "partners who do the most insulting things."
So far, he has published five books, namely "This Book", "The Second Book", "The Third Book", "Not the Fourth Book", and "Huang Junlang's Black". Just by looking at the title of the book, you can feel the temperament of an artist.
Whether he has the temperament of a real artist depends on whether he has some internal struggles.
In Jay Chou's "The Seventh Chapter of the Night", in order to fill in the lyrics of this Sherlock Holmes detective as the theme, he spent 3 or 4,000 yuan to buy heather pipes, canes, top hats, pistols, cloaks and many other props, interpreted the plot by himself, and went through the "Complete Works of Sherlock Holmes", referring to a large number of materials related to the theme of the song, and every sentence in the lyrics corresponded to the imagery in Sherlock Holmes.
Eventually, also accompanied by eerie and enchanting melodies, Sherlock Holmes's detective image is revealed through the lyrics: "The typewriter continues to push towards the next line that is close to the truth / The fog of the heather pipe / Drifts toward the withered tree / Silent Cry to Me / The Circular Square next to Baker Street / On the Arm of the Knight in Armor / The Emblem of the Iris / The Slight Light".
"Uncle Jock" depicts the lonely world of the clown, and Huang Junlang depicts the joker's humble voice in every detail, as if writing about himself. "I'm not / Lonely Clown / After you laugh / Don't need to remember me / When the lights go out / The sky is full of stars / The brightest is loneliness." 」
He knew that even the brightness of this successful loneliness now could not hide the fact that he was frustrated.
Huang Junlang and Fang Wenshan's experiences are somewhat similar, both of them turned to the creation of lyrics when they could not ask for their original dreams, and the original frustration melted into the bones into the motivation of creation.
Fang Wenshan has written too many successful works of words, and there is no doubt that it is he who has draped a gorgeous crown for Zhou's music. Huang Junlang is not able to inject soul into Jay Chou's songs, and the soul is always firmly in the hands of Jay Chou himself, but he has made Zhou's music burst out more dazzling in another dimension with his artistic achievements.
Jay Chou's success is inseparable from these two writers who were frustrated on the original road, they transformed "frustration" into "poetry", leaving the most beautiful chapter in that poetic era, Jay Chou's music is the carrier that carries their poetry and frustration.
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For creators of whatever form they are engaged in, frustration seems to be an essential life experience to succeed. Jay Chou is just the opposite, except for his parents divorced at the age of 14, he has hardly experienced any setbacks.
"Dad, I'm Back", a song about domestic violence, is inspired by the experience of a friend of his, not his own family, and the complex imagery in "In the Name of the Father" cannot be simply understood as a reflection on his father's generation. And for his grandmother and mother, he never skimped on writing them into songs.
Although Huang Junlang often maintains his arrogance, when facing Jay Chou, his arrogance is insignificant, he once said that "Jaylen is a person who is always full of love in his heart".
When Jay Chou first asked him to write the words "In the Name of the Father", it was not because he saw what talent he had, but because he felt that he was really poor at that time.
By 2013, when he was about to publish his new book "Huang Junlang's Black", Jay Chou was still able to stay up late to write a song about him about the book and attend his new book launch meeting.
The love in Jay Chou's heart comes from a harmonious family, even if his parents divorced, his father still cared for him and always encouraged him to develop on the road of music. At first, Jay Chou brought these two frustrated "literati" into the right way of "saving the country by curve", and finally achieved each other, and since then, the maintenance of friendship is inseparable from the "poetry of love" in Jay Chou's heart.
As they grew older, their respective creative passions were gone. Fate arranged for them to meet in that era, and after completing a gorgeous piece of music, everything fell flat again. The rebellion, struggle, and resentment of youth are only a flash of brilliance in creation, which does not represent them, and everything must eventually return to the original level.
For Huang Junlang and even Fang Wenshan, their original dream has also been realized, not only Huang Junlang published a book, Fang Wenshan also made a movie "Hearing the Sound of Rain" in 2013, jay Chou dedicated a theme song for him.
It's just that compared to their well-known lyrics, both movies and books are mediocre, which inevitably leaves regrets in their hearts.
In the torrent of the times, most people will deviate from the original track and passively make choices. It's good to get a windfall, but it's also getting farther and farther away from the original wishes.
The road to "saving the country by curve" is full of thorns, and over time, the "country" has gradually become the only destination. Even after reaching the destination, the original desire has been weakened by more than half.
Jay Chou was born to make flowers, but fortunately, he did not block the brilliance of the "green leaves" around him, and he understood that without the "green leaves" he would not be so gorgeous. They do everything they can to support his dreams in music, and he's also trying to make up for the regrets in their hearts.
The wind rises, the wind falls again, the wind is cold, the wind is still hot.
When people only focus on the success of their works, whether their talents are still there, even if these "old boys" lose everything, at least they can still see each other and have their original selves.