3. "That Year" - Xu Wei

That year, I graduated from my senior year of high school. I made a big mistake in my studies, but I felt unusually relieved. I can't tell you what it felt, but it was in that situation that I began to hear Xu Wei's "That Year". I heard it on the radio at midnight. It is a program of Jiangsu Economic Radio that starts at 11 o'clock at night and lasts for an hour, I don't remember what the name is, I only remember that the host is called Huizi, and the advertising slogan "There will be books at night with Huizi, and there will be music at night with Huizi".

Keiko is a young girl with a beautiful voice, and in the silence of midnight, her voice exudes a soft aura that makes people's hearts feel like water. Just listening to Huizi's voice makes you feel that she should be a delicate and gentle woman, but she is a woman who gives people such a feeling, but she loves Xu Wei's rock songs deeply. Every night, when she is doing a show, she always puts on a song "That Year" first:

You were young that year, and you always felt that tomorrow would be beautiful

The ideal world is like a ray of light

Shine in your heart

How can you let this burning heart

Just like that, exhaustion disappears into mediocrity

So you decide

And he left the city

Leave the girl you loved for many years

You're walking down this bustling street

Can't find where you're going

You're standing on this bustling street

You can't find the power you ever had

You've had some heroic dreams

It's like a light shining in the night

How can there be no power of hope?

You can only move forward with your chest held high

In the middle of the night, Xu Wei's singing touched me like heaven. Huizi said that she likes Xu Wei very much, and his songs have a magic that sings into the heart. Huizi said she had three CDs of Xu Wei in her small box. She also said that she likes to let the audience feel the magic of Xu Wei's singing as much as she does on such a quiet night.

Huizi let me hear Xu Wei, which brought a clear spring to my dry heart. But it didn't take long for me to find her on my little radio anymore, and I lay in bed in the middle of the night and turned the radio up, but I could no longer hear Keiko's soft voice, and I could no longer hear her introducing us to good books and discs, and her person and her voice disappeared out of thin air, leaving no trace to be found.

At the same time, the economic radio station was broadcasting a lively talk show, and the host and guests were laughing and discussing a popular topic on the radio. It was the first host I loved, and her departure made me feel faintly sad in the middle of the night.

Later, when I went to college in Jingzhou, I liked the program "Music Night Bus" very much, and when the host Tao Ran said in the program one day that he was leaving the radio, I couldn't help but feel sad with him. At this time, I have already experienced a loss, so I am very reluctant to leave this host we both like. I feel very sad about it. However, Tao Ran said on the show that this was something he didn't expect before. As he spoke, his voice choked up. I burst into tears with him in my bunk at midnight.

Leaving should be something we have to face in our lives. In leaving, there is sadness, there is compulsion, and there is a resolute choice, I think. There is such a kind of departure: sometimes people are alive, standing here, they will always feel that something is wrong in life, and they may find that there is such a strong call, just in the distance, so they want to leave, just like Xu Wei sang in the song:

You were young that year, and you always felt that tomorrow would be beautiful

The ideal world is like a ray of light

Shine in your heart

How to let this burning heart

Just like that, exhaustion disappears into mediocrity

So you decide

And he left the city

Leave the girl you loved for many years

Therefore, the departure can be sad or beautiful. I believe that there will be all the beauty we imagined in the distance.

I don't know which song was written first, "That Year" or "Hometown", but I always felt that these two songs and "Once Upon a Time" from his latest album were like a trilogy. "Hometown" should be the song when he was young and frivolous when he was wandering on an endless journey with a travel bag on his back, while "That Year" is a portrayal of the mood of wandering in a foreign city, and "Once You" is the free and easy state of mind when he is no longer young and youthful after many years. In "Hometown", he sang:

The setting sun on the horizon reflected on my face again

Again reflected my restless heart

What a place this is, still so desolate

The endless journey was so long

I am the prodigal son who is forever walking alone in the distance

You are my woman in the middle of nowhere

Every cold night on the road to a foreign land

This thought hurts me like a knife

Always in dreams

I see your helpless eyes

Once again, my heart was awakened

I'm standing here

I think of the parting scene with you

You're standing in the middle of the crowd

So lonely

That's your broken heart

My heart

But so wild......

After many years, Xu Wei's passion for creation remains undiminished. Although he is no longer young and no longer has a passionate singing voice, his heart has never changed. His state of mind became free and calm. Now he has written many warm songs, but many fans still miss the way he sang "Hometown". Xu Wei said, because I don't want to put those heavy feelings into the song anymore, I think when people reach the age of 30, they will find that there are many warm things in life that move them unconsciously. So, I want to sing these warmth in song, so that we can all live more comfortably.

For me, whether it is Xu Wei when he sang "Hometown" and "Two Days", or Xu Wei who is singing "Time" and "Once You" now, he is a person I like very much. He is one of the few amazing singer-songwriters in Chinese mainland, he has a good voice to sing rock and roll, he writes and sings one song after another that moves our hearts. In his singing, we were able to keep warm. What's not to like?

I once dreamed of going to the end of the world with a sword

Take a look at the prosperity of the world

There is always a little frivolity in the heart of the young

Now you call the world home

The girl who once made you feel distressed

Now it is gone

Love always makes you yearn and feel annoyed

It has left you bruised all over your body

Every time it's sad

Just look at the sea alone

I always think of my friends who are walking on the road

How many are waking up

Let's dry this glass

A good man's heart is like the sea

has experienced the ups and downs of life

This smile is warm and innocent

(The current Xu Wei, as you can see from TV, is a very popular singer.) Looking at his smile, watching him sing with his eyes closed at the concert, and the way he held the trophy, I would wonder how his mental path has changed since he first released his first album and now when he started to cover the songs he wrote for others in the past, and how would he feel if he remembered his past now? Will he still get used to loneliness? And myself, at his age, what kind of state of mind will I have, and if I can't help but look back when I'm alone once in a while, what kind of thoughts will come to my heart? full of curiosity, but I don't know. —Friday, February 24, 2006 afternoon)

(End of chapter)