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Cover news reporter Yan Wenwen
"You love me, I love you, Honey Snow Ice City Sweet Honey." Recently, a magical advertising song has "brainwashed" everyone from the streets and alleys to major short video platforms. Since its launch in early June, the song has been viewed more than 15.35 million times on the B station, with 718,000 likes, 24,000 bullet screens and 29,000 comments.
The song's popularity in Chengdu even triggered a lawsuit to discuss whether the song should be paid to the author "copyright" fee, so that the official blog of the cold drink brand explained that the song was adapted from the famous American song "Oh, Suzanne", because the composer has been dead for 157 years, the song was already a public version of the song as early as 100 years ago, and the user did not need to pay copyright fees.
Behind the cheerful tune is a sad story
"Oh, Suzanne" was written by Steven Foster, the father of American music, who was only 21 years old when he wrote the song.
The song's title, Suzanne, has two different accounts: the first is that Stephen had a sister named Charlotte Susannah, who wrote the song in honor of her; the second is that Foster once formed an orchestra called the Amateur Male Vocal Quintet, and one of the members' wives was Susan, who was beautiful and moving, and his lively and straightforward personality was also endearing. Foster used Susan as inspiration to compose this song. The song caused a sensation when it first appeared at the Eagle Salon in Pittsburgh, becoming a popular "folk song" and a favorite song of developers who flocked west during the Gold Rush.
Although the lyrics of the cold drink shop sing "You love me, I love you, Honey Snow Ice City Sweet Honey." But "Oh, Suzanne" is not a sweet love song, but a tragedy of "the lover is married, the groom is not me."
In the unfamiliar third paragraph, Foster writes, "I dreamed of a calm night when I saw dear Suzanne coming out of the mountains. She ate buckwheat cake in her mouth and her eyes were filled with tears. I said, I'm from the south, Suzanne, don't cry. ”
Buckwheat cake was eaten as a wedding cake at weddings among southern blacks at the time. Some researchers believe that what Foster wants to express here is Suzanne's regret of marrying a woman. In fact, in the 1970s, country music singer Conway Tweedy also had a song that expressed similar emotions, "Jonny, Don't Cry", which tells the story of a wanderer who runs away after being shown love by the girl next door, and finally returns home after trying to understand his feelings, only to find that the girl is married to his best friend.
In recent years, the song "Oh, Suzanne" has been controversial. Since the author lived in 1820-1860, there was a huge gap between whites and blacks in the United States, the status of blacks was relatively low, and most of the white people's views of black people were "funny", "funny", and "stupid". In the original version of the song, a large number of dialect words used by black people in the South were used, and even some words were written wrong, and some insulting words were also used, so many people also had a negative attitude towards the song. But in fact, the historical issue should still be viewed with the eyes of the times, and the song has been adapted more and more like a children's song since then, retaining only a short lyric without any discriminatory content.
America's first professional music creator died of poverty
If the song "Oh, Suzanne" has only a small element of sadness, then the life of songwriter Stephen Foster is also full of sadness. The talented musician was not yet 38 years old when he died, with only 38 cents left.
Foster was the ninth child in a extended family, and although his parents subsequently gave birth to another child, the child died not long after, and Foster became the youngest in the family. Being doted on by his parents and older siblings from an early age also contributed to the tragedy of Foster's drunkenness as an adult and eventually his untimely death.
Foster wasn't the first in his family to show her musical talents, his father, Foster Sr., loved music and bought a piano at home to play it, while his sister, Charlotte Suzanne, who died at the age of 19, shined in school and even prepared to make her debut as a musician. But the sudden fall of the family led to the Foster family no longer being able to afford Charlotte's studies, the family's piano was sold, and Charlotte died of malaria at the age of 19.
When Charlotte died, Foster was only 3 years old, and he soon showed a talent for music, starting to compose in his 10s. He was only 18 years old when he published his first work.
In Foster's time, more than a decade before the invention of recording technology, and radios were only introduced 66 years after his death, so a musician had no way to make money through royalties, and the only way was to rely on publishers to publish sheet music and sell them to others. No composer's score had sold more than 5,000 copies before Foster, and Foster's "Oh, Suzanne" sold 100,000 copies.
But Foster didn't make any money, and his publisher bought out the rights to Oh, Suzanne, for just $100, or more than $2,000, which was a drop in the bucket for him.
Because of poverty and alcoholism, Foster fell ill and died at the age of 37. There are many theories about the cause of his death, but the more mainstream one is that he fell near the sink because he fell and broke the sink because he fell ill with a fever, his neck was cut, and he died in a new York hospital 3 days later. But there is also a theory that his brother Morrison did not want people to know that Foster died by suicide, so he made up this claim, in fact he committed suicide with a fruit knife in his apartment. On a piece of paper on his body he wrote in pencil: "Dear friend, gentle heart", I don't know if it is a new song or his last words to his family and friends.
After spreading to China, it quickly combined with local culture
"Oh, Suzanne" came to China after nearly 90 years of popularity in the United States. In 1932, li Jinhui, the "father of popular music", translated this song as "Su San Don't Cry" according to the historical and cultural environment of China at that time, which was sung by the famous actress Wang Renmei. This song was almost universally known in the 30s and 40s of the last century, and even the cross-talk taidou Ma Sanli once changed it into a cross-talk work and recited it for a while.
Translating Suzanne as "Susan" is a stroke of genius that is not only harmonious, but also can be found in classical Chinese culture. The famous Ming Dynasty literary scholar Feng Menglong compiled the "Three Sayings" of the "Cautionary Tales" and included a vernacular short story called "Yutang Spring Fall and Difficulty", in which the heroine's name was "Su San", and this script was compiled into Kunqu opera, Peking Opera and other dramas widely circulated. "Su San, leaving Hongdong County, will come in front of the street" catchy, but also by many pop singers into their songs, let it rejuvenate.
In her two essays, Zhang Ailing mentions "Su San Don't Cry", one is the religion of Chinese": "Although Chinese studied how to die, some places are very casual, the coffin head is engraved with a vivid and beautiful 'Lü Bu drama mink chan', and the funeral music team blows 'Su San don't cry'"; the second is to write about the old house where she was born in "Whisper": "On the edge of the dark junction, you can see the sun, you can hear the bell of the tram and the cloth shop with the big sale blowing 'Su San don't cry' over and over again. In that sunlight there was only sleepiness. "
In Zhang Ailing's eyes, "Su San Don't Cry" has always been connected with a mournful feeling, which can also prove her attitude towards this song to a certain extent.
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