Moonlake’s Lyrics (15)

Sorry about breaking the promise coming back on first Sunday of Nov but I was fully engaged by my student (I did mention that I took up tutoring, didn’t I?) until this Tuesday. Anyway, now I’m back fully though I’ve decided to cut posting frequency to once per week. Posts will be put up every Sunday in Australasian time or potentially Monday for US time.

This is a set of lyrics that I like because it tells a story (it might actually be one of theme songs of a movie but I don’t know for sure), it was sung by a HK singer that I quite liked but had already passed away- Anita Mui. She has many classic songs, of which this sort of falls in the middle in terms of being famous. It’s very Chinese in that it’s reminiscent of the 30s or 40s (not that I have a personal thing for that era but the tune and the lyrics just fit so well into that particular era). The title of the song is called “Seemingly like the coming of one from the past”. In Chinese, the title’s only 5 characters and has a much more poetic ring to it but ah well, you always lose something through translations. Also, before I actually present the lyrics, just want to note that in Chinese, the term “One from the past” can refer to all kinds of contexts including an old friend, a former spouse/lover, someone who is deceased as well as disciples and old followers but obviously in this song, it’s referring to a past lover.

The lyrics is as follows:

Both passer-bys         both dreaming the same dream            we should’ve been a couple
In youth                        don’t realise within the dream              (we) already returned home once awake
Barely having three meals and a night’s sleep          yet still a couple          who will that person be?
Whatever not attained                  whatever in the past      is always (considered) the best fit

Down the stage you look              up the stage I act             the drama that you wish to see
You who have forgotten all worries         the past and past people              did you still remember?
Happiness and sadness                 ageing, sickness, life and death      these are not considered legends
Hate the fact that neither those intimae upstage              nor down stage                is you and me

*the world is tiny                             fate is vast                          separating you and me
Sentences of broken-hearted words      consecutive sounds of storm      seemingly like the coming of one from the past

Which day it will be         where will it be                                 that we meet again
Not meant to be yet brought together by fate   memories won’t stop    but life is bitterly short
The same type of missing             two bitter loves           it takes more than half a lifetime to tell this tale
In the abyss of time        looking at the moon faraway      imagine your hidden bitterness

Leaving you                        or leaving me                                                                     in this world alone
Before parting                   (we) did not know the days together                     are so good
Holding the other’s hands            but then letting go (breaking up)              loving and yet as if not loving
Couples ten years later      or ten thousand years later       it’s a pity that we won’t be able to see them

Repeat *