Cui Jian on TAM recording

[Lu]

Someone just posted this elsewhere, a recording of Cui Jian performing on TAM in May of a certain year. Not a very good recording, but wow. Historical.

 

I can understand at most half of what he says, mainly (I hope) because the quality of the recording is not very good. He repeats a few times 不要离开; then at about 11 minutes there is some speaking out of a loudspeaker that I don't understand. He asks if everyone is 没问题, the crowd assures him that 没问题. (I'm not sure what kind of 问题 he was worried about.) Then a short speech about how he supports the students; then a part I don't quite get; he says some people said he shouldn't go perform on the square as the 影响 might be 不好, and the students also wouldn't appreciate it, but he finds they are actually very happy to have him here, and he thanks them. Then some more talking I didn't get; noise; then he fortunately resumes singing.

 

No idea if this has resurfaced before, but I thought it might be of interest to someone here.

[gato]

Good find, Lu.

The 不要离开 appears to be a re-write of his song 从头再来, which is the first song he sings:

http://www.meile.com/song/1019382

www.meile.com/song/757271

从头再来 - 崔健

歌词.

我脚踏着大地 ... 我想要死去之后 从头再来;

我 不愿离开 我 不愿存在 ...

[roddy]

Apparently he's pulled out of the New Year Show, as they wouldn't let him sing 一无所有。 

[Tianjin42]

Like this recording, thanks. And for anyone else who enjoys learning by playing a few songs in Chinese, here is the tab (with 汉字, pinyin and translation). Credit to the guy who put this together.

http://chinahopelive.net/wp-content/guitarchords/YiWuSuoYou.pdf

I think there are some small issues with the chords in the tab (I make it a variation of Bm in the chorus) but it is close enough to get you there.

[Lu]

Apparently he's pulled out of the New Year Show, as they wouldn't let him sing 一无所有。

I find this less surprising than the fact that they invited him in the first place. I wonder if inviting him was an attempt to tame him (a la Zhang Yimou) or an attempt to show (but show who?) that China has changed and a rockstar formerly banned from stage is now invited on the country's biggest stage of all. Or perhaps it's just a matter of him appealing to a certain demographic that the organisers wanted to please. As far as I know, his most famous songs are also the most controversial, so not sure what they were thinking. And props to him for pulling out.

[roddy]

And here was the news.

 

I'm sure they'd love to have Cui Jian in the tent. Having 王菲 on was a major deal, and she's not even political.

[roddy]

I was looking for a Cui Jian song on Youtube and found

- I'm not sure where it's come from, maybe Taiwan, but it's footage and interviews from 1989 and there's some incredible stuff. Dan Rather saying "we came to cover a summit and walked into a revolution" was fun. 

Actually is this a part of Gate of Heavenly Peace? I might have to get that...

[Lu]

Yes, it's from Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Thanks for that link, those images are chilling. The optimism of those days...