Songs & Lyrics

Recently, I find myself listening more and more of English songs. Not because I dislike other languages or so, it’s just that I find them more profound and meaningful than perhaps, Chinese songs. Songs are supposed to blind our senses, and transit us into another world of existence; its cadence a healing hand when I am feeling at my worst, their words a trivial demarcation between fiction and reality… The amalgamation of these 2 is the one perfection man has ever achieved.

But listening to songs and reading lyrics are 2 different experiences altogether… It’s amazing how I can hum to the rhythm of songs and sing to it, but not realizing their actual meaning and purpose. It’s like reading a literature text and watching a play. The text makes you cogitate about the thoughts and feelings of the character, while the play accentuates more on the storyline. A song’s rhythm and tempo need not resonate the true meaning of each words penned into the lyrics. Like how Maroon 5 sings Nothing Lasts Forever, the beat, pace and genre is not something many of us would associate with breaking up…

Maybe its pieces like this that has drawn me closer to English songs. Though they could be a manifestation of my loveless life, but at least they do not sound that heartrending… They hum sorrow into happiness, death into rebirth, heartbreaks into new beginnings… I admire the lack of self pity such songs depict, perhaps that’s why I stopped listening to Chinese songs. Chinese songs take in the saddest form of the human condition, pain and agony at its finest rendition …

Is it a sign that I am moving on? I just hope what I thought is truth…