Interview with Liu Lian: Calmly face desires, not ashamed
Author | Wang Zhongzhong
Title Picture | "Lovely Trip"
Liu Lian doesn't read novels very often, for a simple reason – she prefers social science books in comparison, which "can really solve some doubts and problems".
In the last four or five years, she has gradually enjoyed reading novels, feeling like she is watching images of other people's lives. The most important point is that she can now feel the musicality of the novel, find a matching style and melody for each novel, and bring BGM in her head when reading.
Looking at Liu Lian's reading list in 2023, if you want to use music to adapt to "Distant Mountains and Light Shadows", Liu Lian will imagine it as a "backswing", or a pure piano piece that is particularly dull and not embellished by any other instruments.
"Shadow of the Distant Mountains" begins in the first person of Etsuko, a Japanese woman who lives alone in the United Kingdom, and as Etsuko's memories gradually revived, the story moves towards a cascading fog of reality and fantasy. Some have described the novel as "writing a story on water", and perhaps the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded for a more apt reason: "to unearth the abyss hidden beneath the illusion of our connection to the world with great emotional power." ”
(Photo/Kazuo Ishiguro's "Distant Mountains and Shadows")
Kazuo Ishiguro's readers are naturally familiar with his usual method of first-person storytelling. In Liu Lian's songs, there are also many women who bring stories from the perspective of "me" - women who get drunk at their ex's wedding, women who fall into an inexplicable wait on their own balcony, and women who give their troubles to tomorrow and today as long as they are happy.
Kazuo Ishiguro said that as a writer, he is more concerned with what people tell them about what is going on than what actually happens.
Focusing on the complex inner world of human beings, distilling memories and stories, is the filter for us to examine our own lives. The same is true of Liu Lian's music world.
Important things are repeated three times
March is the day when the travelers set off, and for Liu Lian, who was "born on an afternoon on April 26", April is the time to celebrate.
Since 2017, Liu Lian has launched a "birthday song" on her birthday every year, and this year is no exception.
"Fun" released in April 2023 is a work that Liu Lian likes a lot, and the protagonist of the story in the lyrics is also very special, which is an adventure story about a drop of rain.
Liu Lian played Zheng Jasmine in "You Who Were Lost by Me".
(Photo/"You Who Were Lost by Me")
Living in the dirt, I often hear the "alarmism" of the neighbor's earthworms: another drop of water that is not self-sufficient has fallen to its death, and it is safest to stay on the ground. But the little droplets that yearn for the sky do not hesitate to climb the mist ladder that rises from the sunlight, passing by newborn jasmines, maidens and chicks, balloons and buildings.
Although the droplets that have become clouds on the horizon are only discovered that the late-blooming clouds are just beautiful and fragile ornaments in the sky, and it only takes a cold wind to pass through, and it turns back into a drop of rain that falls to the ground and shatters in the core of jasmine, but if life is destined to be lost, how can it not be fun to see all the things that should be seen in the world? Anyway, tomorrow the sun rises, and there will be the next you.
Just like this small musical that staged "Late Blooming Clouds" in the lyrics, writing the music into a small script, which has both story and drama, is Liu Lian's more comfortable way of writing songs and typical characteristics.
In one song, Liu Lian attaches great importance to the integrity of the structure, and some songs hope to give everyone a clear sense of picture in the first sentence. For example, "I drank two more glasses at your wedding", a sentence sets up a very vivid scene, not only God knows, but the people who listen to the song also feel why "I" have to run to suffer and watch them perform kissing.
Liu Lian performed "I Drank Two More Glasses at Your Wedding" on the stage of Sister Lang 3's first performance. (Photo/"Riding the Wind and Waves Season 3")
Works that pursue structural layers are not destined to be too casual, and the echoes between paragraphs should be strengthened, while also having both story and rhyme. Liu Lian's small musical theater may also be to some extent "only by working very hard can it look effortless".
And the most important thing is to end by calling cack. The "I" who suffered at the wedding was still not drunk, and resolutely chose to leave the place without looking back, passing by the raindrops of the newborn jasmine, and finally falling on the core of the flower.
The combination of story and music has also made musicals a part of Liu Lian's writing guide and teaching materials, such as "Chicago", "Les Miserables" and other classics, she will watch and study many times and draw inspiration from them.
(Photo/"Waiting for Godot" (2001))
The new song "Punish Yourself" was inspired by the play "Someone is Coming" written by Nobel Prize winner Jon Fosse, a story about someone who is afraid to wait and don't want to see him. This is clearly a reversal of Waiting for Godot. Combined with the connection and contradiction between these two works about waiting, although the protagonist of the story of "A Few Cups" understands that "waiting is a foolish thing to be moved by himself", but the matter has come to this point, so you might as well wait a little longer.
As the first solo EP released "Don't Talk, Just Kiss", the title song of the same name was originally born to break Liu Lian's own common creative chord routine, and as for the text creation of the lyrics, it also needs an opportunity to stand up the whole song.
In this "eros song" about how people look directly at desire, your lips are suitable for kissing and rock 'n' roll, "of course it can also debate and swear". This is Liu Lian's favorite part of the lyrics, and when this sentence comes out, everything suddenly becomes clear, and it also allows the song to find the real theme of expression: love.
Liu Lian's promotional copy for his first solo EP "Don't Talk, Just Kiss".
(图/微博@刘恋marmis)
Human beings kiss when they are the most moving, so let's take kisses without grammar, without borders, without hatred, and without gunpowder.
In addition to kissing, Liu Lian's "lips" have many uses. Whether it is the first time to launch a solo EP, the first time to be an actor to shoot the movie "You Who Was Lost by Me", or the first time to participate in a girl group variety show to break the circle and become popular, these "first experiences" will become the details of her creative inspiration.
However, the creator's lips and tongue will always crave the output the most. Whether it is Liu Lian, an advertising person 12 years ago, or Liu Lian, a slash young singer now, the biggest vision is to find an angle that no one has observed, cut into a little-known topic, or write about something that has not yet appeared in the world.
(Photo/"My Genius Girlfriend")
There may be nothing new in the world, but a person's mind will always find new ideas and new connections between different things.
"Usually we feel pain when we try something new, and then that pain makes us grow new flesh and blood, new feelings and new insights. Liu Lian, the creator who repeatedly jumped between "abandoned by the goddess of inspiration" and "I am the king of the world", is still on the edge of love and pain today.
The old and the new of people, things, and things, the pain and joy of creation, are mixed into the daily landscape, just like a "kiss that does not separate wet and dry"—"Isn't this description very cute?"
Liu Lian and his dog "Tao Tao". (Photo/"Lovely Trip")
Don't be yourself
During the promotion of "Don't Talk, Just Kiss", Liu Lianjian set up an online document called "Don't Talk, Only Create", combined with a small video of humming the melody released in advance, inviting everyone to write their own lyrics.
In this online document with more than 4,000 submissions, although some people are off-topic, some people can't match the format and melody of the lyrics, some people write small compositions, and more than 2,000 "occupy the pit" messages saying "next time", Liu Lian, who is used to being watched by the audience on the stage, has a chance to observe the inner world of others.
The submission that amazed her the most, the number number is "686", and the content of the lyrics is a woman's "self-examination" - "your identity is given by others" and "learn to look back and appreciate yourself with their eyes". In order not to waste this wonderful lyrics, Liu Lian rearranged the melody and sang a demo.
"Don't Talk, Just Fill in the Words" document 686 lines Fan creation.
(图/微博@刘恋marmis)
Just like the Polish poetess Szymboska, who Liu Lian likes, she observes life in a nuanced way, and re-spreads out those small things and small emotions under the pen, ink and paper from a different perspective. It's best to add a little humor, saying "life is long, but the resume should be short", and "I apologize to the time for missing everything".
"I like to write about a topic from a very small incision, and the smaller the incision, the deeper the writing will be. If you drag it big and talk about some big concepts, it will become utilitarian. Liu Lian said. Only by retrieving the lost details can we empathize with our own feelings and follow the creator's train of thought to the real theme to be told.
The expression of desire is the theme of Liu Lian's creation most of the time. A fan once said to her that she would feel embarrassed to forward those songs with "straightforward" titles to the circle of friends. "The purpose of my songs is to allow people to face their desires. ”
Liu Lian's first EP promoted the comments under Weibo. (Photo/Weibo @刘联MrMiss)
Since writing his first lyrics at the age of 18, most of Liu Lian's works revolve around narratives of love and desire. This is not something that can be said with the word "love", love and desire are the innate instincts of human beings. To love life, start with the pursuit of life. When we say confronting desire, we are talking about being brave enough to love, to express, to grasp what we desire.
When you are still a high-spirited young man, the most important thing is naturally the things that occupy most of your life. And the work that was rushed out in just two or three days in order to participate in the campus competition was described by Liu Lian as a bit like "the English version of "Wonderful Ability Song"", "I have seen something, but I have not seen anything, and it has something to do with love".
However, to be honest, Liu Lian still sighs from time to time how he embarked on the road of a text creator. Obviously, when I was in junior high and high school, my composition was very poor, and my language was not good, even if I studied archaeology in college, I didn't need to study ancient Chinese and poetry, what went wrong? If I insisted on finding the reason, Liu Lian chose to throw the "pot" to independent music—we independent musicians must write our own songs, otherwise we will look down on ourselves.
Szymboska's reaction when she won the Nobel Prize. (Photo/wiki)
Just like "Whispering" sings, "Who is in the dream, who is in love, whispering", "The evening breeze will blow away the old whispers and celebrate my complete destiny". This "evening wind" that brought a turn of fate happened when Liu Lian was 27 years old.
Although nothing too specific happened, before his 27th birthday, Liu Lian, who suddenly realized that he was about to turn 30, fell into anxiety and emptiness. How to confront the downward force of life, deal with his pessimistic emotions, and "how to get along with himself" have become the melody that Liu Lian wants to express the most.
"I've found that one of the tricks to getting along with myself is not to be too yourself. It's not as simple as "love yourself before loving others", it's not about wronging yourself in order to "please" the world.
Liu Lian writes to her past self. (Photo/"The Band's Seaside")
Many of the choices made by adults do not start from the heart, but take into account many external factors, and when all of them are combined, it is difficult for us to distinguish whether this is something we really want to do or a helpless move that is affected by the environment.
At the age of 27, Liu Lian did not find an effective solution, but she wrote the first birthday song for herself - "When You See Me".
"Keep my heart gentle and my soul free / The setbacks I've experienced / are all my accumulated passbooks / Make me rich / Always keep my head up. ”
(Photo/"Little Women")
Text is Liu Lian's method of sorting himself out in an orderly manner. If you feel unwell, you can go to the doctor and let the doctor solve the problem. When I write, I am treating the confusion in my soul, and sometimes I don't even need to have an answer, I just write it down and get an answer.
If you want to get her personal writing experience from Liu Lian, it is not to have any skills. At the same time, don't let go of any thoughts that you feel are insignificant. Any innocuous word or ordinary day in life will have its meaning of existence.
Like Liu Lian, don't talk, just kiss, don't hesitate, ask directly, and fill the world with your curiosity.