So he sang in the streets of Beijing for more than ten years. The following is his story (a small part).
This time, Lao Yang was taken to the police station by the police. He only sang in front of the China Art Museum for half an hour.
It was about two o'clock in the afternoon. During her singing career in Beijing for more than ten years, Lao Yang almost always set off in the morning, took the No.332 bus to the zoo, and then transferred to the11bus to the art museum. At noon, he rushed to the front of China Art Museum and spread out his booth, a guitar and a harmonica. Of course, sometimes it will be a small box with some change in it.
Yang yi
Lao Yang still remembers that he was first intervened by the police six years ago. At that time, the police trampled his cotton guitar with one foot and fined him. That year, Lao Yang was detained in Changping Shelter for two months and then sent back to his hometown.
At this time, the police motorcycle suddenly came. Lao Yang can't escape. He knows he can't escape. It was August 1999.
1, because Bob Dylan went to Beijing.
Lao Yang is Yang Yi's real name. He claims to be a "silly old Yang" who "has no distinction between grains and has no accent".
Lao Yang was born in Weng Town, 0/88km away from Guangzhou/Kloc. Because his father was an electrician, Lao Yang could repair radios and tape recorders when he was Xiao Yang, and he could also listen to Radio Television Hong Kong during the day. At that time, it was the time when Samuel Hui, the god of songs, was popular. This made Lao Yang feel bored at school, so he opened an electrical appliance repair shop and soon began to resell household appliances.
When Yang Yi was young,
Or resell home appliances and get a small sum of money. Lao Yang started to leave home for the first time: to study in Guangzhou and prepare for the college entrance examination. But he still failed.
Like many young people in small towns, Lao Yang, 2 1 year-old, got a job and picked up the guitar he had been in contact with since he was sixteen. Playing the piano has become the only spiritual sustenance for depressed young people.
This spiritual sustenance eventually became the prelude to Lao Yang's second run away in his life.
1992, Lao Yang met an American who can play guitar and harmonica in Guangzhou. It was this American who let him know about Bob Dylan and the American folk movement in the 1960s.
The name Bob Dylan influenced the future of Lao Yang. Lao Yang also used Bob Dylan's way more or less in his later singing: guitar, harmonica and broken voice.
Bob Dylan
Lao Yang said in an interview: "Bob Dylan inspired me in the choice of life." Just like there are thousands of roads in the world, Lao Yang has chosen his own road: hard, dull, lonely and even legendary.
In short, Lao Yang didn't find a job to spend his old age in Guangzhou or anywhere like other depressed young people-although each has its own difficulties, who can remember the fact that there are thousands of roads in Qian Qian in the world?
Who can control his own destiny once?
1October 20th, 1992, Lao Yang got on the train to Beijing.
2. The road is long and there is no money.
Less than a month later, there are few left in Lao Yang.
Singing at the gate of the art museum for the first time, Lao Yang closed his eyes and sang seven or eight songs in one breath, which surprised the onlookers. It was not until he said, "I'm going to sing the last song, I hope you can give me some help" that someone put money into his piano bag.
Lao Yang still had some good luck this day. Several girls from Beijing University of Technology invited him to "perform" at the school when he closed the booth. The students made a bed for him in a room in the student union-how warm it is for a person who has almost no way out, and probably only those who have been in mean streets can understand it.
Lao Yang's good fortune continues. After living in the student union of Beijing University of Technology for some time, he met a painter who lived in Yuanmingyuan. Since then, I have lived in No.3, Row 2, Fuyuan Gate, Yuanmingyuan.
After that, Lao Yang took bus No.322 and changed to11to sing in the art museum.
But this time he met the police.
At the police station, Lao Yang was taken to the director's office.
Unexpectedly, the person who took him back to the police station said that he was in plain clothes and listened to him sing for several years. "He sings very well", which means "I don't know who is calling 1 10". Anyway, I have to take Lao Yang back to the police station.
This time, because of his singing skills, Lao Yang not only didn't enter Changping Shelter like1March 1993, but was also taken by the police to Lingshan (a scenic spot in the northwest of Mentougou, 0/22km away from Beijing/kloc-0) to play and sing for more policemen. "Sample Dry" made the police laugh, and "roasted sweet potatoes" made them all silent.
Since then, Lao Yang has made friends with many policemen. Lao Yang said, "Without criticism and care, artists cannot gain people's inner support and respect."
After playing guitar and playing harmonica on the streets of Beijing for more than ten years, the road to Lao Yang may be more difficult than expected. But those who can persist in this decade seem to be unable to find a second person.
3. Wandering for roots
In many folk singers, after singing their own life experiences, they will repeat themselves and look for the root of singing in (pseudo) religion. The self-repetition and superficial nothingness in that religion turned into chicken soup, and there was no anger. So in the end, most people become people they hate.
After going through the first stage-expressing his confusion, frustration and anger, Lao Yang began to feel pale. "Digging something out of one's own scars is undoubtedly a morbid condition that people like"-I don't know how many people's faces can be swollen by this sentence.
There is no doubt that life always drags people on the road half jokingly and half seriously.
1in may, 993, Lao Yang was put into Changping asylum, "eating, sleeping and despairing with the lowest people". During his detention, Lao Yang sang songs for the hundreds of "three noes, Beijing vagrants and beggars" every night.
In June, Lao Yang was taken to the train by the police and sent back to his hometown. The next day, under the cover of a group of Xinjiang people, he got off from Zhengzhou. Then I jumped on the train from Chengdu to Beijing, evaded the ticket all the way and returned to Beijing again.
A month later, Lao Yang decided to leave Beijing. He boarded the train from Beijing to Urumqi with a ticket sponsored by a friend and a guitar.
From July 1993 to June 1 1, Lao Yang was basically penniless, singing and hitchhiking all the way. From northern Xinjiang to southern Xinjiang (that is, northern and southern Xinjiang), to Dunhuang, Jiayuguan, Lanzhou, Xi 'an, Chengdu, Leshan, Daxian (now Dazhou in northeastern Sichuan), Chongqing, and finally back to Beijing.
This experience was called "wandering" by Lao Yang.
In the winter and spring after wandering, Lao Yang completed Farther and Farther, Dream of a Well-off Society (both of which have not been published) and Little Fish (included in the album Internal Reference 2? "and other songs.
Among them, "Little Fish" fully shows Lao Yang's reference and absorption of folk songs, so that you can hear his meaningful smile when listening to the online version.
After wandering, Lao Yang couldn't stop. 1during the three summers from 1994 to 1996, he went to northern Shaanxi to "learn from the teacher". Folk, there are real folk songs. This was fully reflected in Lao Yang's last (and second) album "Internal Reference 24".
In this album, Lao Yang re-recorded and rearranged the folk songs he heard. Among them, The Stand (Yanchuan minor) and The Journey to the West (Xintianyou) are the most touching-the former takes surprises from O'Henry's novels and makes people laugh, while the latter is too affectionate to listen to.
Yang Yi's Westward Journey
It took Lao Yang more than ten years, several Wan Li roads and two albums to complete his long-cherished wish of "singing for the bottom people".
The difficulty of this road is not enough for human beings. As he sang in Ode to Youth:
When the snow fell, I saw the difficulty of flying.
4. The vitality of breaking gongs and throats
About 10 years ago, I met a netizen on "Tossing Network" (which has been closed for many years), and then I met Yang Yi under his recommendation.
The first time I listened to Yang Yi, my voice was tattered, only guitar and harmonica, which was not in line with teenagers' pursuit of wealth, and it was ugly, and the lyrics were not in line with their lovelorn and unrequited feelings. Driven by the fundamentalism of lyrics, I still carefully considered the lyrics-although I didn't write the feelings of lovelorn and unrequited love, I always felt that it was another picture of life, another "thing I couldn't understand".
Looking back several years later, I picked out The Real Girl and Love in the Snow. The former has a smooth melody and talks about girls, while the latter sings about heroes and ideals, which is in line with the mood at that time: they need joy and ideals.
Nowadays, folk singers and followers have shown people that their bodies are soft and their hearts are soft. When I find Yang Yi again, I always feel a little back to the origin of folk songs.
Yang yi's live concert
In Lao Yang's two albums ***20 songs, it can be artificially divided into two categories: folk adaptation and original. These 20 songs are not only written for the people at the bottom (Lao Yang's self-report), but also for themselves, passers-by and the town where they live. And the depth and breadth of its meaning far exceed what I can describe.
Of course, if we want to talk about its vitality, it must be Lao Yang's adaptation and reference of some folk songs: Little Fish, Standing, Pinching Garlic Bolts and Walking West.
Among them, "Little Fish" is a narrative poem-like song, and the lyrics are a story of little fish playing all the way. One of the great miracles of human writing is implied meaning. If you can find the meaning of this song after listening, you might as well smile. I think you will never forget this song.
The viewpoint is adapted from Yanchuan minor. This is also a narrative poem, which tells the retelling of the dialogue between two women. The whole song sounds normal, but in the last two sentences, people can't help laughing-just like the surprise at the end of O'Henry's novel.
Pinching garlic shoots is also an adaptation of Yanchuan minor. This priority is much simpler than the "witness stand". From action to scene to color, people simply think that they have caught a scene-until the last two sentences are broken: come down when you are tired of playing, and stir-fry pork and garlic.
"Going West" is adapted from Xintianyou and tells a long series of exhortations from a woman to a man who is about to go out. This letter tour is widely covered because it is not pornographic, violent, affectionate and has obvious local characteristics.
Compared with other versions, Lao Yang's broken sound is very monotonous. Others will sing beautiful sounds accompanied by piano and erhu. I'm worried that the next accompaniment will be the most dramatic suona.
The reason why folk songs can be widely sung is probably because there is a broad and unchanging human nature in folk songs. All songs that conform to human nature will not die, and they all have their own vitality.
6. Anonymous singers scattered among the people
Someone borrowed Borges's words, if a real writer is anonymous, then an anonymous person like Yang Yi is a real singer.
Many people call him Bob Dylan of China, and Bob Dylan's influence on Yang Yi is also so profound in his music style and lyrics creation. But in Yang Yi's view, Bob Dylan's influence lies in his choice of life path. Or his behavior of "choosing a different path" when he was young is as important as his later music.
Yang yi, a bard.
Therefore, Lao Yang may not care whether he is called a real singer. Just like singing in the street for more than ten years, not many people will use this name to guide themselves to stick to it.
Perhaps no one knows how Lao Yang persisted in those ten years. But it doesn't matter to outsiders. It doesn't matter to Lao Yang.
The seasons are changing, forcing you and me to move forward.
Everyone here will leave, and I am one of them.
Passers-by, disappearing into the silent street.
-passers-by