Listening to various versions of 美酒加咖啡 (Fine wine and coffee) on youtube and 万沙浪's version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7-G7IOiTBA) is one of the best, started looking for it because I've been listening to the Timi Zhou version of the song on DVD and wanted to listen to it in the background whilst online. I love the Timi Zhou rendtion of the song but like everything that she does hes is laced with a ton of saccharine, no criticism it's one of the reasons why I listen to her after all. But at heart hers is a little girl's version of an adult song, some of the versions on youtube bring so much more depth and emotion to the song. I'm impressed and appreciate 楊小萍's version, though I find it hard to listen to and harder to love. Her's is sang with the emotion of an older woman wronged and scarred by love but still addicted to the "wine that is love" I can hear and feel some of the hurt not to say desperation that she sips with each refilled glass.
I can't help but feel that these are songs that I should know, songs heard in the background unappreciated by my younger self. I remember standing as a child amongst the vinyl in a shop in London's China town in the early 70's, as songs like this one played in the background, my parents browsing but only ever so rarely buying a record. I remember our old wooden record player and our small record collection. Most were mum's collection of Cantonese Opera (for which I showed even less appreciation then the Mandarin popular
songs of the time) however there were three records that I would listen to again and again Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Water, Agne's Chan's debut album Will the Circle be Unbroken and a third album of which I forget the name of and the singer. I do remember two songs on it though Chinese Charleston was one and a second was a narrative based on zhaungshi's butterfly dream. (googling suggests that it might be a record by Rebecca Pan).
The 70's would end with the gift of a tape player all for myself and a stack of cantopop tapes, most of which I still have, but somewhere over the years the vinyl has all been lost. I think of them still and on occassion mourn their loss, and when nostalgia strikes me I trawl the net for moments from my childhood.
