50 Songs That Touch the World and Their Behind-the-Story

Author: Zhu Ruihong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-02-01
Features: MacArthur once said, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away." The same goes for old songs. This book selects 50 classic popular songs that grew up in foreign lands, telling the passionate and romantic stories behind them. Against the backdrop of history and emotion, the light of thought shines on these songs, refracting colorful images. This book depicts music while collecting these scattered souls, embedding them in the music, embedding them in the culture of the English-speaking world.
These songs, you've heard them on a dim, quiet rainy night, on your way home in the summer evening, in a café filled with rich aromas, when you're embracing happiness with all your might. They are all familiar tunes. These foreign melodies once echoed in the radios of your parents' youth—perhaps Bob Dylan, perhaps Kurt Cobain. At some point in your life, they have lingered in your ears. They are all old songs.
There are always some that feel familiar, washed away in the flow of time, but you can imagine, when these songs drift through the streets and alleys, your shadow stretches long. The houses around you are not the ones you see today. Perhaps you're no longer very familiar with them, but you can still feel the map of the old streets existing deep in your soul. It seems that even now, when you close your eyes, you can still feel the color of the sunlight and the touch of the air back then. Or, you hear the strumming of a guitar, and you're transported back to that other time—when the guitarist sings and plays opposite you, as if in a yellowed old photograph.
The same old songs, the same melodies. But you are too far apart, whether in space or time. MacArthur once said, "Old soldiers never die; they just fade away." The same goes for old songs. On a twilight evening, holding a warm cup of coffee, curled up on the sofa, a melody from a bygone era drifts from the speaker. At this moment, it's as if yesterday ised, the situations and events once accompanied by these tunes flash back in your mind, but you can only gaze at them from the other side of the river of time. It's a heart-stirring feeling that melts into our blood. This is a book of nostalgia. Open any song at random, and the era and emotions spread out from that point.