Sing a mountain song to the party - a song and the fate of a generation

【China Story】

Author: Xing Xiaojun (Young writer, winner of Xu Chi's Reportage Award)

"Singing a mountain song to the party, I compare the party to my mother; my mother only gave birth to my body, and the glory of the party shines on my heart..." This high-spirited melody that sings the north and south of the great river has stirred the hearts of generations. Composed by Zhu Jian'er and sung by Ren Guizhen and Caidan Dolma, this song is a red classic that witnesses the process of national rejuvenation, a hymn of the times in the history of new China, and a "chorus" of national voices!

One night in the early spring of 1958, when Yao Xiaozhou, a 25-year-old young miner at the Jiaoping Coal Mine of the Tongchuan Mining Bureau in Shaanxi Province, wrote a small poem "Singing a Mountain Song to the Party" under the kerosene lamp of the workshop, he never dreamed that this little poem would be composed as a song throughout Shenzhou in the future, becoming a heart song for hundreds of millions of toiling people to express their feelings for the party.

Illustration: Guo Hongchen

An urgent "search notice": Who is Banana Ping?

One day in the early 1960s, a letter from Zhu Jian'er, a composer at the Shanghai Experimental Opera House, was sent to the desk of Zhao Bingyao, then party secretary of the Jiaoping Coal Mine. The letter said: "Some comrades in the literary and art circles in Shaanxi sent me a letter and sent me "Shaanxi Literature and Art" in June 1958, because they found that the lyrics of the song "Lei Feng's Song" were almost the same as the poem signed banana ping on the 'General Route Poetry Leaflet' of "Shaanxi Literature and Art". And Jiao Ping is a miner in the Tongchuan Mining Bureau. After receiving the letter, I quickly got in touch with the People's Daily and the Central People's Radio and changed the lyricist to 'Comrade Lei Feng copied the original words of banana ping'. Today's letter is to ask your unit to help find banana ping and its contact information, in order to express gratitude, and resend the remuneration. ”

After reading the letter, Secretary Zhao was very surprised: this well-known song was actually written by someone from my Jiaoping Coal Mine!

In the coal mines at that time, most of the miners had to ask someone to write letters to their families, and even the technicians who graduated from college wrote the coal mine as "media mine" and the mine permeable water as "spitting water". How can someone write such a high level of lyrics, how can it not be amazing.

Zhao Bingyao immediately arranged for someone to look for it, and the personnel section took out the roster of cadres and workers in the mining area, and turned it over one by one, but none of them found Banana Ping.

Well, there is only one possibility that Banana Ping is a pen name.

Looking at the name, everyone thought it was a lesbian, so the search scope was narrowed to a few literate lesbians. As a result, the female comrades shook their heads one by one, and none of them had written about it.

Yao Xiaozhou heard about this incident, and his heart was like fifteen buckets of water, seven up and eight down. "It's been a few years, and now I want to find out what the author is doing..." Yao Xiaozhou, who had been a volunteer army and participated in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, was transferred to the Jiaoping Coal Mine after he was transferred to the Jiaoping Coal Mine. In 1957, an accident occurred at the Jiaoping Coal Mine, and Yao Xiaozhou, a safety technician, was found to be indirectly responsible and demoted to a coal miner. "After the accident, because he was punished both criminally and administratively, he was pessimistic and disappointed..." Yao Xiaozhou once recalled, "Because of the pessimistic and decadent ideological foundation, he was lonely and cold in personality, impatient and bored, and had little interaction with comrades..." During that time, he was like a snail, just wanting to shrink in his own shell, escape people's vision, and stay away from the wind and grass outside.

At the meeting of coal mine cadres, Secretary Zhao held a loudspeaker and asked loudly: "Who is Banana Ping?" There was silence below, and no one answered.

Soon, the leader of the mining party committee received a clue, "That Yao Xiaozhou, often secretly wrote poems in the name of Banana Ping, and continued to receive payments." At this time, because of his good performance, Yao Xiaozhou lifted the punishment a year in advance and organized and arranged for him to teach at the Jiaoping Coal Mine Children's School.

That morning, the mining party sent someone to find Yao Xiaozhou and ask him to go to Secretary Zhao's office.

The soles of Yao Xiaozhou's feet were like plasticine, and he hardened his scalp step by step.

Secretary Zhao asked, "Are you a banana?" ”

Yao Xiaozhou swallowed: "Secretary Zhao, my surname is Yao, my name is Yao Xiaozhou." ”

Zhao Bingyao pretended to sink his face: "I know your surname is Yao." It is that you Yao Xiaozhou often uses the pen name of Banana Ping to publish articles and poems, and also receives the manuscript fee. The current policy is frank and lenient! ”

Yao Xiaozhou blushed, "Report Secretary, I... I received two yuan for the manuscript, and I used the manuscript fee to buy "On the Cultivation of Communist Party Members" and also bought..."

Secretary Zhao patted the table, "Okay Banana Ping, you have won the light for us, and you still do it secretly?" Write boldly later! Secretary Zhao handed Zhu Jian'er's letter to Yao Xiaozhou, "You can write a letter back to this composer." ”

Yao Xiaozhou's heart suddenly arrived in spring from winter, and flowers bloomed all over the path.

Out of Secretary Zhao's office, he trotted all the way back home, telling his wife the good news while eagerly reading the letter. In the letter, Zhu Jian'er explained the discovery and publication of the lyrics, and said that the lyricist had corrected it to Banana Ping, solemnly expressing his gratitude.

Happiness came too suddenly, Yao Xiaozhou had tears in his eyes, and he wrote a reply to Zhu Jian'er with trembling hands. He said: "Thanks to the party, thanks to Lei Feng, thanks to the composer, I will take Lei Feng as an example, learn from Teacher Zhu, sing for the times, continue to work hard, and write good works again." ”

In 1964, the publication "Song" sponsored by the Chinese Music Association was intended to publish "Lei Feng's Song", and for the sake of prudence, the China Music Association inquired from the Jiaoping Coal Mine through organizational channels to verify and confirmed that the author was Yao Xiaozhou, whose pen name was Banana Ping, and the "Song" published this song, with the title of "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party", the author Of which was Bao Ping.

At this point, this song that witnesses the great changes of the Chinese nation and sings the voices of hundreds of millions of Chinese sons and daughters has finally been fixed:

Song name: Sing a mountain song to the party

Lyricist: Banana Ping

Composer: Zhu Jian'er

A small poem written under a kerosene lamp was copied by Lei Feng into his diary

Time goes back to 1957, when an accident occurred at the Jiaoping Coal Mine, yao Xiaozhou was dismissed as a technician and punished by mining coal. It was the heaviest blow he had ever suffered in his life. The dark and stuffy mine, high-intensity physical labor, is nothing to Yao Xiaozhou, who is weak in strength, and he works frantically and desperately, perhaps this will make him forget his psychological guilt and torture. When Uei rests, he often faces the sky on his back, his eyes empty and unfocused. He felt that the sky in the mining area was always gray, like the faces of miners. He walked to a place where there were mountains and trees, and the mountains were also gray and abrupt, and the sparse persimmon trees stretched out the vigorous branches that seemed to be withered and undead to the unknown sky...

Once, the mine fired cannons to peel off the soil layer on the ground, and the underground shook violently, and the rocks poured down. Someone shouted, get down! Yao Xiaozhou did not respond, continued to bury his head in the head and wielded the hammer, above his head, a piece of coal fell down, and at the critical moment, the squad leader, who was a member of the Communist Party, knocked Yao Xiaozhou to the side and pressed him under him, so that he avoided the big coal block.

Another time, when he was off work, a fully loaded coal truck was unlinked, the bulky body was speeding down, people shouted to avoid, yao Xiaozhou was in a trance, and a party member old miner rushed over and grabbed him by the collar and threw him aside.

After the two incidents, Zhou Congxue, the old secretary of the party branch of the district team, knew that Yao Xiaozhou's psychological baggage was very heavy, and talked to him: "Xiao Yao, we must correctly view the handling of the organization. You are still young, after experiencing this incident, you must learn from it, and the road will be more stable in the future! The party group also specially studied and mobilized a group of party-member miners to take the initiative to care for Yao Xiaozhou.

The haze in Yao Xiaozhou's heart gradually dissipated, and the waist plate gradually straightened and hardened.

After Yao Xiaozhou went down the well, he often listened to the old miners singing high-pitched folk songs of northern Shaanxi. Living and working with coal miners, he gradually got to know the miners and fell in love with them. He was like a brother to the miners, and the miners also regarded him as a relative, often drinking tea with him, pulling family routines, and from time to time talking about the tribulations of the old society and the kindness of the Communist Party.

He recorded many miners' compilations of slips of mouth and ballads: "The party is the mother, the mine is the home, listen to the mother's words, build a good home"; "The whip is the gun of the kiln owner, and the coal kiln is the coffin (material) board of the kiln worker", and so on. Yao Xiaozhou listened more, remembered more, and had the urge to write poetry.

He thought of his mother. Because of the salary reduction and the difficulty of life, his mother asked him to send his eldest son to his hometown to help him with the children. When he wrote to his hometown, he told his mother that he was homesick and wanted to eat the lamps and hot powder that his mother made. Zhi'er Moruo's mother. The mother, who came from a family, had followed her father through the official and business fields of the old society, and now entered the new society and had a different general insight into things. In the reply letters to him, his mother always encouraged him: "Believe in the party, believe in the organization, be content, and don't be discouraged." ”

In the early spring of 1958, on a stormy and snowy night, Yao Xiaozhou stood under the kerosene lamp and wrote three small poems in one breath. Using the pen name "Banana Ping", he posted 3 small poems to "Shaanxi Literature and Art". Soon, the poem was published, the full text of which is as follows:

Singing a mountain song to the party, I compare the party to my mother; my mother can only give birth to me, and the glory of the party shines on my heart.

The whip of the old society whips me out, and my mother will only shed tears; the party calls on us to make a revolution, to take the whip and beat the enemy!

My mother gave me a heart, as if duckweed had no roots; hundreds of millions of red hearts followed the party and leaped forward in unison by riding the wind and waves.

The poem was later compiled by the Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House in the book "Three Hundred New Folk Songs".

People are connected, and poetry is the medium. In Yingkou, Liaoning, out of nowhere, a SOLDIER of the People's Liberation Army named Lei Feng read the poem and was deeply attracted, and he copied the poem in his diary.

In 1962, Lei Feng died in the line of duty. On January 20, 1963, the Forward Newspaper excerpted and published 32 Lei Feng diaries, and this poem was published as Lei Feng's diary. Lei Feng made three revisions to the poem: "Mother can only give birth to my body" in the original poem was changed to "Mother only gave birth to my body"; "The party called on us to make a revolution" was changed to "The Communist Party called on me to make a revolution"; the last four sentences in the poem were deleted. After the poem was published in The Forward, several newspapers also reprinted it.

Under the call of Chairman Mao's inscription "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng," a nationwide upsurge of learning from Lei Feng was set off. The poem in Lei Feng's diary caught the attention of Zhu Jian'er of the Shanghai Song and Dance Theatre. Lei Feng's deeds deeply touched this musician who had joined the New Fourth Army Frontline Theater Troupe and returned from studying in the Soviet Union. In order to commemorate Lei Feng, Zhu Jian'er decided to compose this "Lei Feng's last poem" into a song for singing. Infected by the atmosphere of this poem, Zhu Jian'er, who is good at symphonic composition, deliberately composed this poem into an easy-to-understand and catchy tune. On February 21, 1963, Wen Wei Po published the new song with a 300-word "Explanation of Singing Method", and the title was changed to "Lei Feng's Song - Excerpt from Lei Feng's Diary". The song was first sung by Ren Guizhen of the Shanghai Song and Dance Theatre. When Ren Guizhen's voice was sung throughout the country through the sound waves of the Central People's Radio, the Tibetan singer Caidan Dolma, who was studying in the vocal music class of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and had just become a preparatory party member of the CPC, was also attracted, and how she wanted to sing this song to express her heart for the party and the motherland, and to express the common voice of the millions of turned serfs in Tibet. In 1964, at the Shanghai Spring Concert, Tsetan Dolma's name and the song were transmitted to thousands of households through the radio.

When "Singing a Mountain Song to the Party" was sung everywhere, Yao Xiaozhou was still unknown. Zhu Jian'er has always wanted to know who the lyrics author "Banana Ping" is, whom he has never met. In the autumn of 1963, Zhu Jian'er searched for many times and finally found that "Banana Ping" was in the Jiaoping Coal Mine in Shaanxi Province, so he wrote a letter to the party secretary of the mine, and the scene at the beginning of the article appeared.

In 1965, "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" was rated as "National Excellent Mass Song" by the Ministry of Culture.

A mountain song that strings together time and space will gather the main creators in the Spring of Shanghai

Time flies. In 1997, Shanghai Oriental Television called to invite Yao Xiaozhou to participate in the 17th Shanghai Spring Concert held in Shanghai in May. Yao Xiaozhou, who has mixed feelings, accompanied by his daughter Yao Qin, took a plane to Shanghai. At the opening ceremony, the program team brought him a huge surprise: he met Zhu Jian'er and Tseten Dolma for the first time.

Surrounded by thunderous applause and camera flashes, the lyricists, composers and singers of "Sing a Mountain Song to the Party" have crossed more than thirty years of time and space and gathered on the brilliant stage. The three of them shook hands tightly and embraced without emotion. The 64-year-old Jiao Ping, the 73-year-old Zhu Jian'er, and the 60-year-old Caidan Dolma recall the century-old strange fate of "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" and recall their mental journey when they wrote songs, composed music and sang songs. With tears in their eyes, their hearts were connected, their hands were holding each other, and they sang this symphony of the fate of the sons and daughters of China together -- singing a mountain song to the party!

"Under the leadership of the Communist Party, people's lives have become better and the country has become stronger. I am a coal miner, and I am very grateful to the miners who have helped me and the Tongchuan Mining Bureau and the District Party Committee, whose real life and encouragement to me have become the source and pillar of my creation. As long as I survive, I will sweat like a miner, take a hard road, and write songs of pioneers. If I want to sum it up myself, it is: the hair has been a thousand layers of white, the heart is like an inch of Dan, the "Mountain Song" is passed on to the children and grandchildren, and the residual heat is dedicated to the party. ”

Yao Xiaozhou, who is not good at words in ordinary days, could not hide his excitement this time, standing on the stage and gushing endlessly.

He said that he had to thank Lei Feng, "This poem can become a lyric, which is the credit of Comrade Lei Feng." When Lei Feng copied this poem, he made a modification of 'turning stones into gold'... This change has a more musical sense of rhythm and is more suitable for composing music. ”

"Without Lei Feng, my poem would be a piece of coal, buried deep underground for thousands of years." Lei Feng is a miner, found this piece of 'Ujin', let it see the sunshine again, teacher Zhu Jian'er and Caidan Dolma sister wiped away the 'Ujin' floating ash, and teacher Ren Guizhen ... Let it radiate, produce light and heat, illuminate people, warm people..."

One report said: "On this day, it is a festival of 3 people with a string of songs. On stage, they forget time and travel through time and space. Offstage, the audience felt empathy and applauded. ”

A dream that has persisted for 50 years has finally come true

In 2000, at the age of 66, Yao Xiaozhou submitted his sixth application to the party organization.

On June 26, 2001, the Xinhua News Agency reported that Comrade Yao Xiaozhou, the lyricist of the song "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party," who sang all over the country, gloriously joined the Communist Party of China on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the CPC. At this time, it had been half a century since he entered the war in North Korea in 1951 and submitted his first application to join the party to the organization.

His dream of joining the party has been 50 years.

Yao Xiaozhou's daughter Yao Qin has never forgotten this day in 2001. That afternoon, her father called her early and asked her to come home for dinner in the evening. In the afternoon, Yao Qin returned with her lover and children, and the second brother's family and younger brother's family were also there. Although everyone often goes home to get together on weekdays, only festivals and the birthdays of the elderly can be so complete. Yao Qin saw that his father, who basically did not drink alcohol on weekdays, was opening a bottle of wine, and couldn't help asking: "Dad, what is the happy event today?" ”

Father said happily, "You must congratulate me, I have joined the party!" Half a lifelong dream, realized! ”

After the study of the second branch of the veteran cadres of the Tongchuan Mining Bureau, Comrade Yao Xiaozhou was approved as a preparatory party member of the CPC. After half a century of unremitting persistence, 67-year-old Yao Xiaozhou joined the party!

He said emotionally: Fifty years of red heart, a song of loyalty. My heart is like a song!

The little grandson asked him: "Grandpa, what is the party, why do you have to join the party?" ”

Yao Xiaozhou touched the child's head and said, "Dang, it's the mother." Joining the party shows that I am a good child of my mother, and my mother wants me... On this day, I have been waiting for 50 years, half a century..." His voice trembled and he turned his head.

Why join the party? On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the founding of the party, facing the party flag, Yao Xiaozhou swore an oath and raised his right hand, his original heart was clear and firm, and the feelings in his heart could not be expressed in any language, only a song rippled in his heart.

Hold the candle in your heart and guard the motherland you love. He told his family: "For decades, I have always demanded myself by the standards of a party member. Now, when you have truly become a party member, you must be more strict with yourself, and you must not smear the party's face. ”

His son Yao Hong remembers that the mine gave a 54-square-meter house that year, and a large family could not live at all. Yao Hong went to the leader and wanted to adjust a larger room.

The mine leader said, "Yes, let your father write an application." ”

Yao Hong went home to his father and said, who knew that Yao Xiaozhou refused, there was no room for negotiation: how big the organization is divided is how big it is, and it cannot add trouble to the organization!

In June 2019, "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" was selected as one of the 100 excellent songs for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

On September 1, 2019, Yao Xiaozhou passed away in Tongchuan at the age of 86. In this life, fate goes around, and it doesn't matter what you gain or lose. Yao Xiaozhou has always had a wish, that is, to create another poem for the party.

In this life, in addition to "Evening outside Moscow", Yao Xiaozhou also loved to listen to "Symphony of Destiny", and in the first half of his life, he liked the first and third movements, when he wandered in the struggle between fate and reality; later, he loved the second and fourth movements, and loved the peaceful observation, deep thinking, firm determination and brilliant brilliance.

In the last two years of his life, he composed "Forever Singing Mountain Songs to the Party":

Forever singing mountain songs to the party, generations of people singing non-stop, with the Communist Party in their hearts, civilization and harmony are everywhere in the spring.

Fifty-six nationalities followed the Party and marched forward unhindered by wind and rain. Hand in hand to strive for the goal, the people are happy to rejuvenate the motherland!

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor was named the "Symphony of Destiny". In the land of China, "Singing Mountain Songs to the Party" for half a century, the short two eight-sentence lyrics are a "symphony of destiny" of the sons and daughters of China.

Guangming Daily (2021.07.23. 13th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily