Luo Dayou: After 45 years of writing songs, it's bad, it seems to be hard to quit

Beijing, June 6 (Zhongxin Net) -- Luo Dayou, 8, does not want to stop.

Last summer, exactly 40 years after the first album "Zhihu Jiye", he waved his right arm high at the concert and sang the phrase "youth without regret and no death" in "Dream Chaser", which deeply moved many netizens.

Not long ago, he released a new single "Moon Night Sorrow 2023", and the new album "Love, River, Earth" is also about to be released this summer.

"I've been writing songs for 45 years, but the reason why I didn't give up is to discover, how to do it, still want to write songs, how to do it, there is still a new melody running out in the morning, bad, this seems to be difficult to quit, no way."

Luo Dayou. Source: Photo courtesy of interviewee

The story of time, the story of light and shadow

In September 2000, Luo Dayou came to the mainland for the first time to hold a concert, and literary and artistic young people from the south and north of the world took trains and planes to buy tickets and rushed to Shanghai, just to see the idol. That night, he opened with "Proverbs of Love", and tens of thousands of spectators in the audience instantly boiled.

Some people remember that many Beijing friends dragged their families to the scene, and finally stood on chairs to watch because no one was sitting. Xu Zhiyuan also said that after the concert, there were many young people crowded on the bar street of Hengshan Road in Shanghai, and every bar was full of excited people, singing Luo Dayou.

In everyone's hearts, his songs have greatly broadened the style and content of Chinese pop music, and have a calm social reflection and poetic humanistic care, "Lugang Town", the sonorous rhythm sings the nostalgia of young people, "Wild Lilies Also Have Spring", there is no complicated choice of words and sentences, but it speaks of the bones of love, in "Future Master", "We don't want to be invented by you to become computer children" still sounds deafening now...

These heavy chants and delicate love songs are intertwined to hit the young people who are in high spirits. And they are not only related to the story of time, but also always related to the story of light and shadow.

In 1976, the movie "Shining Days" starring Liu Wenzheng and Zhang Aijia was prepared, and Luo Dayou, who was studying in medical school, was introduced by the band drummer in high school to create three works for the film: "Song", "Shining Day" and "Myth".

"At that time, I didn't expect that I would write a theme song when I was a student, but I don't believe that the director also used it later, and my song seems to be popular, so I inexplicably stepped into the music circle." The year the movie was released, Luo Dayou was 23 years old.

Later, he continued to write songs for many films, and in the late eighties, Luo Dayou was invited by Shi Nansheng of Hong Kong's New Arts City Film Company to become the music director. The theme song of the same name of the movie "Rolling Red Dust", "Love Song 1990" and "Your Look" in "Alang's Story", as well as "Flying Sand Wind Transit", "It Seems to Be an Old Man", "Dream Chaser"... At the peak of Hong Kong film and television development, the golden songs he wrote were also widely sung.

Luo Dayou. Source: stills from "The Drama Sounds Good"

Recently, he announced that he would join the variety show "Songs of Good Dramas", and cooperate with the new generation of musicians such as Xue Zhiqian, Mao Buyi, Zhang Yuan, Lu Hu, etc., so that more young people can hear those timeless melodies.

"The drama is very interesting because it is a cross-border cooperation," in Luo Dayou's view, the most attractive thing about the film and television soundtrack is that continuous stories can be connected together through the interpretation of music, and the addition of different artistic modes will make it particularly strong in its ability to move people.

However, the trouble with creating music in this way is that each director has different requirements for each song, and his experience is "you have to believe in yourself": "If you really do a lot of homework and really put your heart into writing the song, don't worry about it not being in place, just worry that you haven't done it well enough." ”

Created for different stages of life

Recently, Luo Dayou bought a grand piano and spends three or four hours a day practicing desperately, playing classical music such as Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, etc., learning their chord usage, melodic walking, and feeling the touch of different weights, "I think people live to be old and learn to be old." ”

Now he feels that it is easier to write songs, because it is easier to grasp the theme, and he is more mature in the use of words, and every morning when he gets up, he still feels that there is a new melody running out.

Time and time, for Luo Dayou, are already old friends. "Songs are an art of time, I have been with time and time for a long time, and the theme of many songs is related to them, oh, old friends, meet again, have a drink."

At the turn of the millennium, shortly after his concert, he began to be asked "nostalgia" questions.

In the years that followed, Luo Dayou traveled around the world and held concert after concert, but people would always ask over and over again: Why are you no longer angry?

He once said that he cannot always play the role of "doctor", no one will always live in warmth, and of course no one will always live in anger, which is very related to the entire era and personal life experience in the era.

Luo Dayou. Source: Photo courtesy of interviewee

In 2017, Luo Dayou released a new album "Home III" after 13 years, when the young man who left home became a father who returned to his hometown, he felt the nourishment of home and the meaning of home, and his works also paid more attention to the delicate daily life and the connection between people.

Luo Dayou, who has a daughter, admits that he has become softer, "Any father will of course become soft after having a child, and this is definitely not my personal problem." ”

However, when asked what kind of father he was, Luo Dayou smiled and said: "This should be left to my daughter to evaluate, my own evaluation seems to be a little unfair, in case I think she doesn't feel right, 'I will be scolded by my daughter when I go home.'" ’”

In his opinion, each stage of life will have different feelings about life, for family, friends, love, the next generation, for society, for personal health, for the changes in the universe and the world... Since the feelings are different, of course, it is necessary to create for each different stage of life.

"My current stage of life seems to be relatively rare for a musician, and I am still writing songs at this age of almost 70, so I am quite happy." He admits that he has never regretted writing songs over the years, "You can do a profession for so long, and then it will always be a career that needs to be completed with the word innovation, which is still quite an important job." ”

The vitality of music is important

In 2022, Luo Dayou recorded a cover album "Encore Song" as a "pure singer", and he reinterpreted 11 classic old songs that have been circulating for a long time and have special significance in the process of growing up, evoking everyone's long-lost touches.

His latest release "Moon Night Sorrow 2023" also stems from a ballad that has been sung for 21 years. He embedded a new arrangement of folk rock in it, hoping to infuse this classic song with the emotions of <>st century people.

"When the world of the future is filled with some unfamiliar melodies, you may think of this old song now." After standing in the music scene for more than 40 years, Luo Dayou began to sing those ancient songs.

At the same time, today's young people are still listening to the golden songs he wrote over and over again. After the release of the first round of the performance song list of "Songs of Good Drama", Luo Dayou's "Dream Chaser" once again made netizens call "memory kill".

Luo Dayou's "Moon Night Sorrow 2023" single cover.

In recent years, variety shows and film and television dramas, the frequent appearance of era golden songs will always resonate collectively, Luo Dayou feels that this is the accumulation of some achievements, and the question that makes him often think is that with the help of technology, the current creation is becoming faster and faster, and when everyone is more inclined to pay attention to traffic, will the music work have longer and longer vitality?

Just like Chen Gexin's "Forever Smile" that he has repeatedly sung on many occasions, "The power of music is really great, Mr. Chen would not have imagined that the song he left behind fifty years ago would move another composer fifty years later." I hope my song will be sung in fifty years. ”

In Luo Dayou's view, many foreign music magazines are still reporting a lot of news about The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd, whose music has floated from the sixties to the present day, and listeners can still find new meanings in it.

And that's his goal, "I think the young composers, they were the right way at the right time, with the greatest passion to influence everyone." In this day and age, we also want to find some of the same passion to influence people who are much younger than us in 30 or 50 years, and this is my hope and I hope to share with you. (End)