Listen and Sing

Author: Xiao Fengxiu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-10-01
Features: Actually, rock as a cultural phenomenon and cultural force has never been used for nostalgia. Lou Reed once said, "Life is saved by rock." Patti Smith also said, "If you can understand rock music, you can understand the world." Although I haven't fully grasped the meaning behind such seemingly extreme statements, I've come to realize that rock is not a simple thing or just an alternative art form. There are often two questions that keep circling in my mind: one is the position and role of rock in the collision of Eastern and Western cultures, and the other is its position and role in the development of Western culture. I know I can't answer these questions, but the thought just flashes by as the ups and downs of rock music pass by. In fact, the history of Western classical music, from the rise of polyphonic music replacing Gregorian chant to the creation of atonality from multiple tonalities, has been one of constant rebellion. And rock's own history has shown a return to and longing for classical music, indicating that it is not as irreconcilable with classical music as some might think. Similarly, classical music is not as hostile to rock as some believe; as early as in the music of Arnold Schoenberg, the pioneer of noise, there was a certain connection with rock. Classical and rock are thus intertwined in the veins of Western culture.
In China, there is an interesting reality: when the Swiss-Italian Moroder, using synthesizers, recorded "Europe Disco" in the late 1970s and it became a sensation through the film Saturday Night Fever, we were still completely unaware of rock. But as China began to open up, it accepted this new Western rock style—disco—with ease, making it wildly popular in the streets and alleys of the 1980s, even among the elderly exercising in parks. Rock has thused into our lives without our realizing it. Whether in Eastern culture or Western classical music, rock possesses a quality of mocking life, a quality of enlightening the mind, a demand and practice for democratization and simplicity, and especially a devastating power in critiquing and subverting reality—qualities that they lack or are deficient in. The Confucian doctrine of the Golden Mean in Eastern culture, the elegance and harmony of classical music, have all worn thick layers of rust in our hearts. In this increasingly aging world, most spaces are occupied by hereditary or-like habits, squeezing out the young, leaving them with no living space, no usage space, and no voice. We can thus understand, to some extent, why so many young people are crazy about rock music, and we can also grasp a little of what Lou Reed and Patti Smith meant.
John Lennon once sang in his song, "The Beatles are more famous than Christ." That's right, at least in the hearts of young people today, rock is even more famous than Christ. One Sunday in winter, my son came back from school with a bag of tapes. He introduced each one to me, played each one for me, and gave me a "crash course." This was my first experience of truly listening to rock music. There was so much excitement and shock in the tapes that I had never heard before, and a different kind of beauty unlike classical music. It introduced me to a completely new kind of music unlike classical music. In that bag of tapes, I fell in love with artists like Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, "Orange Dream," "Red House Painters," Cocteau Twins, Portishead, and Nirvana. More than a year ago, during the Spring Festival holiday, I wrote down my feelings about listening to some of them. That was the beginning of rock music in my life, and the beginning of my writing about rock. I titled the book Listening and Singing.
It all began with listening to them day after day. I suddenly realized that listening and singing are both things we lack. Learning to listen, especially to different voices, is not always easy. Sometimes we are restless, sometimes arrogant, sometimes self-important, and our ears are even worse than those of the deaf Beethoven, often intentionally or unintentionally rejecting or easily missing good music. Debussy once said, "Music exists only to be listened to." To listen with a calm heart is the first step in appreciating and accepting music. Listening to their music filled me with strange feelings, as if traveling to a foreign land, making my mood suddenly bright like a sunny day or stormy like a downpour—activating my ears, eyes, and heart. Listening brought me such wonderful and expansive feelings.
When it comes to singing, it's different from the classical music I used to listen to or the slogan songs or evening performance songs we used to sing. The tradition of singing comes from the people at the grassroots, like a diary of the nation, stretching to this day. Under the light of singing, no one feels lonely, whether in pain or sadness, for we can find echoes of the past in their singing and resonate with them. Today, we have lost this tradition of singing. Do our young people sing and write their own songs, but do our middle-aged people write their own lyrics and compose their own music? Are there singers like Bob Dylan, Vic Chesnutt, or "Palace Brothers" who continue to sing even in middle age or old age? Shouldn't we cherish the young folk singers we have now, who walk in campuses and on streets, and shouldn't we try to revive the lost tradition of singing?
During that time, I bought records with my son, listened to rock music, looked up information, and talked about our shared and differing feelings and experiences about rock. We even had heated debates that involved the whole family, jumping between the 600 or 700 records and tapes, spreading through the biting air of a snowy winter and the scorching air of my home's west-facing window in the summer. These made up some of the happiest memories of those days. At that time, my son had just taken the TOEFL and GRE and was anxiously waiting for his admission letter to study abroad. Fortunately, he had this free time to accompany me during this period. I know that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and memory for both my son and me in our lives. I know that the rigid rock music has incorporated something particularly soft and moist.
Now, my son has gone to study in the United States, and my new book is almost ready for publication. In this book, there is the love between me and my son—for music, but also for family; for the past, but also for the future. Lou Reed was right: life is indeed being saved by rock.