(Courtesy of interviewee/Photo)
Eve Ai
Born on March 24, 1987 in Taiwan, China, singer and music composer. In 2017, she won the Taiwan Golden Melody Award for Best Chinese Female Singer Award for her album "Say Ai Yiliang", and in 2019, she won the Taiwan Golden Melody Award for Best Composition Award for the song "Forever Young".
The law of survival
Singer Ai Yiliang's dream is a collection of the worst situations in life: asked a group of people to practice songs on KTV, and everyone left after singing the first song; After practicing one song on stage, the music teacher suddenly said to perform another, let's start, she can only improvise babbling. Recently participated in the music variety show "Endless Sound Treasure Island Season", she dreamed of singing a song that she had never heard before with her predecessor Na Ying, and she was going to be on stage five minutes later, she was at a loss, and the director's roar came from her ears: "Didn't I ask you to practice?!" ”
On March 10th, "Endless Sound Treasure Island Season" was about to be recorded for the second performance, and before rehearsals, I met Ai Yiliang, who was halfway through her makeup and hair. She was dressed in hotel pajamas, leaning against a swivel chair, her long curly brown-yellow hair tied into two small twists. This time, she wants to sing "Scene in the Rain" with Na Ying - reality is better than dreams, at least the song will not change when it is set.
In addition, she also has to cover "The Past Can Only Be Tasted". This old song from 1970 was written by Lin Huangkun and composed by Liu Jiachang. When singer You Ya was still singing in the restaurant, Liu Jiachang was attracted to her singing and wanted to include it under his wing. In a hurry, the contract was written on a napkin. You Ya became Liu Jiachang's first official student, and Liu Jiachang wrote "The Past Can Only Be Savored" to give to her. This song was included in You Ya's album of the same name, which once set a record sales record in Taiwan, and has been covered by many singers such as Teresa Teng , Han Baoyi , and Gao Shengmei in the past 53 years.
Covers are less frequent in Ai Yiliang's current performances, but they have attracted her initial attention.
In 2004, Ai Yiliang's current agent Zuo Guangping was invited back to his alma mater, the Affiliated High School of Taiwan Normal University, as a senior to serve as a judge of the "Tianyun Award" of the campus singing competition, which was the first time he heard Ai Yiliang sing. Ai Yiliang's voice is thick, grainy and narrative. Among the Chinese song selections, Ai Yiliang chose the English song "Nothing Compares 2 U" and won the championship. Zuo Guangping recalled that from that moment on, he was convinced that Ai Yiliang would one day step into the music scene.
Sure enough, in 2010, Ai Yiliang won the championship in the Taiwanese talent variety show "Super Idol", and thus entered the industry. Subsequently, she successively participated in variety shows such as "China's Strongest Voice" and "The Voice of China", and the songs she covered in the program such as "Indian Dove" and "Mercy" are still circulating among fans. "Before singing other people's songs, I was more like a container carrying performances, and it was very cool during the competition. But then I felt that I couldn't keep loading other people's content. Ai Yiliang said.
With the encouragement of the staff, she began to try her hand at creation and get new stimuli. "It's comfortable to sing your own songs, like 'Say what kind of person you are.' Singing what I want to say, I sing every word has emotions, and over time, I show different emotions, and I suddenly feel that singing is a very heavy thing. ”
From the fourth album in 2019 "Vertical Alive, Horizontal Nostalgia." Since then, Ai Yiliang has completely become a singer-songwriter, taking care of the songwriting of the entire album. By 2021, the fifth album "I Remember It All" is more mature.
In the first decade of the 21st century, when the record industry was running at high speed, the quality and quantity of pop music albums took off. The success of a singer requires talent, hard work, luck and the blessing of the whole system. After finally making a name for yourself, if you don't prove your existence at the rate of one album a year, you will soon be swept away by the waves until you forget it. There is a very hard female singer, who has released three albums a year, all year round, only sleeps five hours a day, and is less than 80 pounds.
From this point of view, time once again caressed Ai Yiliang. In the past seven years, she has released two albums. For a singer-songwriter who doesn't write songs quickly, this is already approaching the limit. But for the physical recording industry, which has been replaced by streaming, it's even faster — more artists are used to getting noticed by releasing singles rather than producing entire albums with a unified concept.
"I can't play a first-class performer, I have to be honest. I'm not a person who can do a good job of designing emotions and performances, my biggest weapon is intuition, face the lyrics I wrote, throw myself into that situation, I am 'flesh and blood', I must hit the glass to know that it is glass. Ai Yiliang said.
When the tentacles of the medium extend to a wider area at a faster rate, self-talk also has the possibility to resonate with more people. Ai Yiliang benefited from this. Most of her songs are broken in love and love, tears in letting go and letting go, and there are many epitomes of many people in the current city, such a hard work and fruitless love. The audience's empathy becomes the right feedback.
Now, "how to sing other people's songs" has been replaced by another topic: how to sing other people's songs as your own. In the original song of "The Past Can Only Be Remembered", 17-year-old Youya's voice is full of vitality, singing about the past, but the emotions are all longing. Ai Yiliang listened to Youya 53 years ago and decided to sing more about the past and more memories in this song. She envisioned a nostalgic movie scene of a mature woman in her forties, and the warm yellow light hit her body, and she began to reminisce about the past.
On March 4, she gave a performance in Taipei with songs she wouldn't normally sing, and also covered a song called "Twentieth Century Boy." "Friends say it's fine, friends say it's good, Everybody says it's just like Robin Hood," she almost roared. This song reminds her of herself in the high school guitar club, hot-blooded, brave, and open-toothed. "That was where I was before I was 20, and it was enthusiastic."
Go back to be a child less than 20 years old, or go forward to become a 40-year-old woman, 30-year-old Ai Yiliang often wanders, looking left and right, roundabout temptations.
What is a successful big woman thinking at 40? A happy family, a successful career, sensible children, and a husband and wife love each other, what does she want? Yes, forever young.
Therefore, 29-year-old Ai Yiliang wrote "Forever Young", fantasizing that she had become such a big woman, and there was no shortage of everything, except for the youth that wanted to hold on but walked faster.
What is a 20-year-old thinking? Love hard, hate completely, cry brokenly, laugh wantonly. Worry about giving new words. So at the age of 31, Ai Yiliang wrote "To Julian" - Julian, the ex-boyfriend who appeared when she was 20 years old.
"I pursue two extreme emotions, representing my two growth processes, one is a 20-year-old middle school girl, presumptuous, willful, regardless of it, I also have income after the age of 40." I found my own rules of survival in these two extremes. Ai Yiliang said.
What is there to lose Ai Yiliang, who jumps back and forth between the ages of 20 and 40? There is probably the delivery of love, the obsession with memory, the investment in songwriting, the obsession with the brush, and, the lingering dreams of anxiety that are mapped by the everyday.
God poured water on me, and I took the mineral water bottle to pick it up
In July 2017, I first met Ai Yiliang in an office building on Section 5 of Nanjing East Road in Taipei. She had just returned from the height of summer Hualien, ironed with a layer of tropical blackness. She went there for days in the river and wrote a new song, "Waterfall." "'Flesh and Blood' singer" is probably so.
Before I saw me, she had just finished her workout, wearing a simple short-sleeved T-shirt, wearing the thick eye makeup that had been tightly bound to her since her debut, and showing a big white tooth when she smiled. She is small, but she walks with the wind. Her long hair was slightly curly and swayed with her steps, becoming a flowing wave from far to near. When you sit down, your curls creep on your shoulders, and your big hearty smile pulls on your back muscles, like ripples on the surface of water.
At that time, Ai Yiliang had just won the golden song "Queen of Song" (Best Chinese Female Singer at the 28th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards) for three months with her third album "Say Ai Yiliang", and there was still flattered joy and pressure on her face. "That's a huge affirmation for me. I didn't expect to get it, never, really not. "She had a very bad time, a few months after the "Super Idol" competition in 2010, the aura of champions faded, the fame was not yet established, the album was far away, and the proud creation of the future did not even sprout. During the most difficult period, the rent could not be renewed. Her parents suggested that she simply find a company and go back to work.
She returned to the competition again, trying to get attention, and successively ran music variety shows such as "China's Strongest Voice" and "The Voice of China". But it was always a small fire and soon disappeared. With the release of her second album "Adult Love Songs" and her third album "Say Ai Yiliang", her wanderings were put to rest. At the same time, she discovered her creative ability, and the songs created by Liu Ruoying, Xu Jiaying and others have been praised. But she still hasn't caught the tide, and retreating into the background has once become an option in life.
So, a big part of the Golden Melody Award is to throw a chance to float for this person who is about to sink in the music industry, or a life preserver, or a boat, or a big turtle that carries her for a while.
It is certainly a great fortune to be salvaged, even if the press release at the time was full of words such as "dark horse" and "limited gold content" that were not considered praise. Ai Yiliang was so terrified that even today, six years later, she still describes winning the Golden Melody Award as "God pours water on me, and I pick it up with a mineral water bottle". When the bottle is full, it is just a little full, and it is no different from fluttering in the water.
"I thought I would get an answer, but I was even more lost, because this album was made in my most panicked state, and eighty percent of my creation recorded a lot of my hesitant confessions: I don't know what kind of singer I am, where the next album is... Such thoughts turned out to be the queen of golden songs. But shouldn't the queen of the song be positive and radiant? Ai Yiliang said.
When they met in 2017, she was not yet indulging in such emotions, and only clearly explained the benefits brought to her by the Golden Melody Awards: "The Golden Melody Awards are like a tick for me, I don't have to be so lively, I don't have to be so lovely, and my performance is also established." "The Golden Melody Awards let you see me first, you have a reassurance, curious about my songs, and then go and listen to me sing"... The creator who relies on emotions rarely picks up logic and reason, interprets the award like a math problem, and also looks like she analyzes a failed love.
It's a pity that she can't do math. Historically, such attempts have often led to sad conclusions. For example, one of her masterpieces "Our Sum", the lyrics use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to calculate feelings, and finally can only helpless: "No matter how I truncate and straighten, I can't find you." ”
Sometimes, slowing down makes everything easier. It's like the stay-at-home model she's used to: carefully organize, put everything into small boxes, and then arrange the small boxes into the middle box, and the middle box is stuffed with large boxes. She often uses storage analogies to her own creations, "From the storage point of view, my creations are in a very complex situation, let myself achieve another state of neatness, the lyric song you see may be something sorted out after three years of thinking, seemingly rational, and choppy." ”
After winning the award, the tide of invitations and gazes obviously exceeded Ai Yiliang's acceptance ability and analysis speed, and his emotions accumulated more and more, and his inferiority surged like a wave. She began to compete with herself, with awards, as if she had to do something earth-shattering to prove that she deserved this award, forgetting early on that this award was actually a reward for past efforts rather than a requirement for the future. She began to see how the "queens of song" dressed, what they said on stage, how they chose songs, and how they lived their lives. But she couldn't be someone else, even the simplest one shouted "Friends in the audience!" on stage. Stand! Rise! Come! "She can't do it.
She made frequent mistakes in the performance, and many live singing broke the sound, went out of tune, forgot the words... The harder you push, the more counterproductive. The vicious circle of negative energy, several times she stood in front of the curtain of the performance, just couldn't step out, "Do they really want to hear me sing?" "High heels make her little man tall, but they can't pull her low self out of the ground." I went too far to prove that my heart was more than embracing glory. Ai Yiliang said.
She paused for a few months to rethink the purpose of singing. Daily life is filled with spending time with family, loved ones, and the small animals of the stray home. The new album was put on the agenda, and she was given great trust: to finish an album according to her own ideas. She looked at herself who had almost fallen to the bottom at that time, a little sloppy, a little depressed, but there was a warmth in her heart. After six months of intensive work, in December 2018, Ai Yiliang's fourth album "Living Vertically, Lingering Horizontally." released.
The first song "Glass Heart" is her counterattack: until my face follows the feeling, until beauty is no longer needlework, until what I want to say is understood, it is called a singing voice... I said I'd take over the whole world。 The next few songs are all from the past, far or near, born out of a few fruitless loves and some scattered but unforgettable growth experiences, "[These songs] are no longer just music, it represents my whole state of being, and my personality." "In these works, no one changes a word, a note, and the personal narrative is fully presented.
"I wanted to write the melody that might come out of my mind, or the lyrics that I felt should be written down, and it was such a selfish album. To make an album like this, I don't know what it is in the social sense, but I just know that at least I'm not deceiving people, I'm not playing a glamorous singer on stage, and I can't do it. If I really make an album that is all about the truth, all about myself, I seem to be able to avoid being so scared. Ai Yiliang said.
As soon as the album was released, the anxiety, depression, melancholy, and boredom in Ai Yi's conscience were smoothed out by at least 80%. The remaining 20% is filled with another flood of positive feedback. She took this album to the annual album lists of major media and the year-end inventory of music critics, and more than 19,000 people on Douban gave this album a high score of 8.8. She received many messages, some encouraging, some sharing, some expecting.
"When I got emotional recognition from the audience, I realized that I wasn't the only one who was swinging, they must have experienced something similar, so they understood what I was saying. I get as much understanding as I get as many click-throughs. Although it sounds a bit utilitarian to peg it to numbers now, it was really a big support for me who was very uneasy at the time. ”
The album's title song "Forever Young" was written in 2016 for a successful 40-year-old female singer, but the other party did not ask for it, and the song demo was handed around, and it returned to her like a stray child finding a home. She believed it was fate and decided to sing it herself. "I found out that I was writing about myself, and I already understood." After the song was released, it received unanimous praise from listeners and music critics on various music platforms. The following year, he also won the Best Composition Award at the 30th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards.
In "Forever Young", the speed of each section is different, and the ups and downs of the melody are sharp or slow, like the state of Ai Yiliang in those years. When she was a child, her mother let her learn the piano, and she loved to turn off the metronome and let the rhythm go fast and slow. Comparing the two, she suddenly rejoiced: since she was a child for so long, she turned out to be the same.
Ai Yiliang sings the masterpiece "Forever Young" in "Endless Sound Treasure Island Season" (provided by interviewee/photo)
Kazuo Ishiguro, Neil Gaiman and love
In 2021, Ai Yiliang released his fifth album "But I Remember It". The opening song "In the Name of Ash" is based on Kazuo Ishiguro's novel "The Long Day Will End". This is one of Kazuo Ishiguro's masterpieces, which begins with the memories of butler Stevens and tells the story of his experiences during his more than thirty years of service to Lord Darlington. Stevens is cold, represses his emotions, misses the last side of his father, and misses love. Ai Yiliang wrote: "Be him, it is easy to forget love, and never allow crying." Become him, a lifetime of repression, living in a dream. Become him, maybe the suit is straight, dodging love, is it himself? Become him, whenever the long days are about to end, the fireworks are all out of order. ”
Kazuo Ishiguro is Ai Yiliang's favorite writer. In 2010, she watched the movie "Don't Let Me Go", adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, and was breathless for a whole week. After flipping through the original, this mood became even more intense. In the book, Casey grew up living with two friends in the boarding school Hayerson, where they were once carefree. One day, they learned shocking news from their teacher: Helsen's ultimate goal is to train them to be organ donors, and they must selflessly give everything they have until their lives wither. At the age of 18, they left Helsen and went to boarding schools everywhere, and their fate was gloomy.
"In that story, the rich man began to copy human beings, sent people to the cleanest suburbs, forbade you to smoke, you were not allowed to drink, and this person's life was for the organ transplant needs of the rich man." Ai Yiliang said, "The saddest thing is that when the protagonist is about to have his last organ transplant, he gets a message: if he can prove that he has emotions, the ability to love, and art, he is worthy of becoming a person, and maybe he can postpone donation." He sorted out all the paintings he had painted in his life into a folder and sent them to the principal who raised him at the time, asking himself if he was qualified to have that operation again? The answer was: 'There has never been such a thing, the purpose of the gallery is only to prove that clones have souls.' ’”
At the end of the story, Casey, who is told to start donating, stands in the wilderness, both friends have died because of the donation, and the only thing she can do is keep the memory. Such a weak resistance is the only meaning she can have.
"His text has no emotion, it is to describe the scene and the dialogue of the characters, but after reading it, his head is crumpled and his heart is clenched. It's too heavy, not because of love, but because of accusations and reflections on human beings, on technology. Ai Yiliang said. She watched "The Buried Giant" and "The Shadow of the Far Mountains" again, and the same emotions were soaked between the lines.
She also loves writer and screenwriter Neil Gaiman, and she has read Gaiman's short story selection "Fragile Things" several times. Fragile is a collection of Neil Gaiman's poems, essays and novels, with surprising visions, grotesque realities and flashes of innocence, in a gloomy and elegant mood. Ai Yiliang loves one of the love poems "Chamber of Secrets", which writes that the protagonist misses the hostess in the house, reminiscing about the sweet time spent by the two, and the ending is revealed, it turns out that the hostess was murdered by the protagonist. "He gave me the scene, he gave me some whispers, and finally he reversed it. There's a lot of imagination in between. I love that. You don't tell me everything, if the picture is too full, I can't imagine it. ”
Ai Yiliang believes that these two writers have had a profound impact on their own creation. Her perspective on memories comes from the way Kazuo Ishiguro looks at memories. The laying out of the scene and the ups and downs of her lyrics come from Neil Gaiman. The difference is that she has a smaller landing point and focuses on love—all kinds of love that has been experienced, is being experienced, imagined. "The Wright Brothers Are Guilty" is about long-distance relationships, "They make the distance of the ocean seem shameful, they make the lovers who are separated seem indifferent, the Wright brothers are guilty." "How Much I Want to Be Her" is about a crush who falls in love with another girl, "Who remembers what it looked like at the beginning, even her every move and smile I tried my best to imitate." "Smart" talks about the calculation of love, "There is always a way out in the end of the story, inevitably someone goes astray, smart to the end is smart and misguided, evolving into a concession of love"...
Given that her style is biased towards thoroughly personal narratives, the appearance of these songs shows that she has a rich love experience. But in fact, in her 36 years of life, there are only a limited number of "loves that are about to be married". Because the incision is small enough, many songs are different aspects of the same relationship. "It takes two or three years for a moment to be magnified, and when a conclusion appears, I know why I was crying, why I was thinking about him. I learned that there are many things that love can't be framed. ”
If age brings growth and consumption, then Ai Yiliang's energy finally does not allow her to feel that love is everything wholeheartedly. During the new crown epidemic, Ai Yiliang's work has not stopped. In addition to releasing her fifth album "I Remember It", she also did a talk show "I Want to Be Her", starred in a movie "The Love I Didn't Talk About", and wrote songs for several singers.
She even held an exhibition. This thing that does not seem to be very compatible with Ai Yiliang is actually a "return to the line". She is an art student, picked up a paintbrush at the age of 4, studied art at university, and worked in design for a while after graduation. Writing songs is annoying, and painting is the best exit. By the time the fifth album was released, almost every song had a corresponding painting, and they had become the protagonists of the exhibition.
"I feel like [the growth and emotional ups and downs over the years] is my lesson, and there are certain lessons that must be taken at some point in life. I took one of the most valuable lessons when I was magnified: understand your strengths and weaknesses, and why you value your time on stage. It took me six years to go from winning the award at the age of 30 to almost 36 years old now, and I finally made some progress. Ai Yiliang said.
After completing her self-growth, she can't wait to get along with people. On stage, she enjoys the gaze, cheers and applause of being watched, as well as the thoughtful eyes, slightly tilted head, and confused look in the audience, the former can bring her back to 20, and the latter will bring her to 40. "I don't want to be out of the world. I can be selfish, I can go to my world. But I don't want to connect less and less with my audience. Ai Yiliang said.
She looked out the window, the sky was dark in Changsha at 8 o'clock, and large dark clouds were suspended not far away, indicating an upcoming spring rain. "I'm going out, I'm going to get along with people, I'm going to perform. I want to be with the wider world. I was already planning a trip and wanted to go to an island and lie lazily there in the sun. Yes, I'm going to Greece. ”
(Courtesy of interviewee/Photo)
I'm going to live like this Forever Young for the rest of my life — talking to Ai Yiliang
Southern People Weekly: How different is the version we heard about Forever Young from the demo version?
Ai Yiliang: Mainly arrangement. The demo is piano-only, and the current version adds a lot of gentle strings, as well as French horns. When the strings come in, the song is no longer a self-pity in my small room, but a clear idea of why I am telling the audience.
It took me three years to identify with the words I had written, convinced that this was the state I wanted. When I wrote it, I didn't know what I wanted, and I didn't know what others wanted, so I could only guess what a full woman was missing. I finally accepted that it was not because I was full, but that at that moment that year, after those lows, before I even reached the word "full", I had already decided that I wanted to live like this Forever Young for the rest of my life, and I have no regrets yet.
Southern People Weekly: What are your habits when writing songs?
Ai Yiliang: I am not a professional singer, and I wrote because the first song "Metal Girl" was affirmed by the producer, and I recorded the place where I hummed and laughed. It wasn't until the third album that I started thinking about how to dissect myself before singing.
I write songs very slowly, and I usually write the lyrics first, and then write the melody demo . After writing it, I will sing it repeatedly for at least a month, and if I still believe that this is the case, the song is right. Sometimes it is changed back to the original way. Like the first title song of "I Remember It", "Greed", I changed it for two months, and finally became the original. It's a lot like advertising to Party A, but Party A and Party B are both myself.
I feel ritualistic when writing songs. I can't sit at my desk, I have to be on a very random occasion, when I go to the toilet, when I take a bath, before going to bed, when the TV is on, when the stereo is on... I can't think, but I have some physical reactions, a lyric or two that comes out instinctively, and I usually use it.
Southern People Weekly: Is there a lyric that appears like this? How did you feel after writing?
Ai Yiliang: Like "I Want to Become Her", the title of the song is a humble word, but I wrote it in. I read it several times and wanted to say that this person once made you so bad, are you really going to write such a bad thing? At the end I wrote, "What can't be seen clearly is left behind, right?" "This is the answer I found when I was fighting my humble face. Of course, this is when you are younger, more fearless. Feel like all I love you all over the world.
After writing it, there is still pain, but there is more relief than remembrance. At that time, I could be heartbroken for myself 24 hours a day, self-pitying, and feeling so romantic, which is what it feels like to be alive. Although it is miserable, you will feel like the heroine of a certain movie. I really went to observe the woman he fell in love with, what the "Queen of Victory" wore, what she ate, what her figure was. Isn't love just like that? When the person you love is not you, you will always be the extra one. Give yourself time to live with pain and loss. It's impossible to get drunk with a friend, and the next day you're refreshed, and say to yourself, "I'm super beautiful today." I'm used to living with slightly negative emotions. As soon as time passed, he slowly spared himself.
Southern People Weekly: Your lyrics and music are very personal, but your personal story does not necessarily resonate with everyone, and it is easy to fall into the dilemma of talking to yourself. How to make everyone empathize?
Aiyiliang: It's hard, it's certainly not a one-size-fits-all resonance, but I know that even a few people who are connected can be very close. It's a little like after a friend turns from a friend to a deep friend, you must share a secret, you must exchange a scar that you dare not mention, you don't have to expose your negativity, but how deep your cognition is, and tell the person who is chatting now very frankly. I can do this without shame and don't have a very decent package.
Southern People Weekly: It's not a matter of shame, it takes courage, it's hard to give yourself over, and now everyone is reluctant to hand it over.
Ai Yiliang: Actually, I am not selfless, and while I deliver myself, I am also eager for you to tell me what you think. Although I wanted the same honesty, I actually got more than I thought. And now I've balanced a lot. I cut off a lot of painful polyps.
Southern People Weekly: Pain may be the source of creation, cut off those polyps, are you worried about your creation?
Ai Yiliang: I am very afraid. So I'm trying harder now than when I was younger to open my senses and try harder to remember everything, which would be very consuming, so I eat a lot. And I have a lot of new pain, and I'm very good at finding things for myself, there must be some, right?
Southern People Weekly reporter Zhang Mingmeng