Monthly Archives: February 2015

I believe the song Surrender by Cash Cash and Drinking with the Moon by Li Bo have similar underlying messages. In Drinking with the Moon, Li Bo writes “I drink alone, no friend with me. I raise my cup to invite the moon.”  This line clearly states that he has no friends and is thus a loner.  Additionally, the moon is often personified in Chinese culture, and by doing so in his work, it sounds as if he is yearning for companionship.  This is the similarity where the two works meet; the chorus for Surrender goes as follows:

If you hold me now and leave me never,
Say you’ll stay with me forever
Then I surrender, surrender
If you hold me now and leave me never,
Say you’ll stay with me forever
Then I surrender, surrender

The singer is willing to submit to her lover if he/she is willing to be with her.  Additionally, the part immediately following the chorus says:

I pushed and pulled all the ones that tried,
Then I watched them fade away
As I look around a vacant room,
I see nobody left here to blame

She too is a loner, just like Li Bo in his poem.

Lastly, I think another similarity of the two works goes beyond words.  While reading the poem in class and again to myself at home, I couldn’t help but to feel a little upset, as if I was feeling bad for him.  A lone drunk, talking to the moon and asking it to share his drink is just a depressing thought.  The song on the other hand, is of a woman who has pushed everyone away and she is left alone.  She too has no one else around, and is waiting for someone to “break down her walls”

Here’s the song if you wanted to hear it:

I have chosen to compare the song Howl at the Moon by the Script to Drinking  Alone with the Moon by the Chinese Tang Poet Li Bo, translated by Stephen Owen. In both the Poem and the song there is a strong relationship between the author and artist in the way they relate to the moon. The moon as a celestial object takes on a human role to converse with both the poet and the artist respectively in their own unique ways. Not only that but, both the poem and the artist were each looking for companionship and answers from the moon as well. I also see a connection between the moon and the heavens, almost in a way that they weren’t ask the moon, but looking up to heaven and trying to converse with god himself.

In the Poem, Drinking Alone with the Moon, Li Bo describes his relationship with the moon as his sole friend and only companion besides himself and his shadow.

He says:

“I drink alone, no friend with me

I raise my cup to invite the moon

He and my shadow make three”

He is alone and happy to be so, but  he confides in the moon his one true confidant. With the moon he feels safe to express his true self. Bo is comfortable dancing in the moons presence, and truly embracing himself and his shadow, when he is his true sober self. But when he no longer feels connected to the earth when he is drunk, that is when his relationship with the moon gets rocky. He no longer can maintain the connection to this world, and that is why he chooses to severe his connection with the moon and reality. But when he comes out of his drunkenness he want nothing more to pick up where he left off. Just himself and the moon to conquer all, an unlikely friendship.

“I sing the moves moon moves to and fro

I dance my shadow leaps and sways

Still sober, we exchange our joys

Drunk and we’ll go our separate ways

Let’s pledge-beyong human ties to be friends

And meet where the Silver River ends”

Meanwhile in the song, “Howl at the Moon“, The Script converses with the moon when he is trying to figure out what he wishes to become. He looks at the sky:

“Lying in my backyard

Head is facing skyward

I’d imagine all the things that I could be

A pilot or a fighter

An astronaut or writer

Anything except just being me

The artist is uncomfortable with who he is, and is trying to discovers who he should be!”

He wonders and converses with the moon just like Bo:

“With the moon as the spotlight

That shines on me

And the stars were the lighters in the air

And the wind screaming loud sounded just like a crowd

And I swore I was already there

I’d howl at the moon

I’d howl at the moon”

He asks the moon and the stars which shine down on him, and the wind which sounds like a large crowd of people to answer him. To guide him, and show him the correct path. The artist keeps howling at the moon hoping for an answer from this animate object, who cannot answer him. He is looking for a friend and a companion in the moon. The longer he howls at the moon, the louder the sounds become. He hopes much like Bo to gain  a greater understanding of himself with these interaction with the moon. But I think that it goes much deeper than that in the way in which he connects the moon to a godly figure. Perhaps the moon is just a metaphor for connecting with God himslef!

Drinking Alone with the Moon: Li Bo

“A Pot of wine among the flowers

I drink alone, no friend with me

I raise my cup to invite the moon

He and my shadow make three

The moon does not know how to drink;

My shadow mines capering;

But i’ll make merry with them both

And soon enough it will be spring

I sing the moves moon moves to and fro

I dance my shadow leaps and sways

Still sober, we exchange our joys

Drunk and we’ll go our separate ways

Let’s pledge-beyong human ties to be friends

And meet where the Silver River ends”

 

One of the poems that quite interested me was “Bring in the Wine” by Li Bo. The main theme of this poem is drinking. Li Bo was known for his drinking habits and his love to drink. A song that I thought of that related to this poem was “On My Level” by Wiz Khalifa. “Bring in the Wine” mainly talks about the love for drinking and just having a good time being drunk with good company. In relation to the song Wiz Khalifa raps about drinking, partying, and having no worries when you are drunk.

One quote from the song is “Hit the club spend this money up, roll another one, drink, act a fool That’s what I have to do” and a quote from the poem “Then take my dappled horse, Take my furs worth a fortune, Just call the boy to get them, and trade them for lovely wine” have quite similar meanings in the sense of money. Wiz Khalifa spending all the money to drink at the club while Li Bo has is conveying a similar message by trading fur to buy the wine to drink.

Another quote from the song is “So let me take one shot to the brain, And I order three more shots ,I’m going in” is also similar to the quote from the poem “Bring in the wine! Keep the cups coming!. They both share the message of wanting more alcohol while they are drinking and not wanting to be sober. As a result, you can see that Wiz Khalifa and Li Bo both convey the message of their love to drinking alcohol.

I’d chosen to compare Drinking Alone with the Moon by Li Bo and the song 九月九的酒 (The Wine of the Ninth of September).

In the song it spoke of the long wait for the ninth of September to go home and drink. Though the translated version of the poem we read in class said he’s drinking alone and seeming happy with it, but in Chinese culture it’s not a norm to drink alone. Chinese people tend to be social drinkers so Li Bo had to create companions to drink with him for him to feel comfortable.

And I get the sense that he’s feeling lonely too. By the verse “But I’ll make merry with them both — and soon enough it will be Spring” it shows me how lonely he must be to have to create companions with him to drink. In the song it sang of longing and running back home by the ninth of September.

There was also the general sense of how I felt when I was listening to the song and the way I felt when I read the poem. It was a sense of calm, secluded sereneness. It sounds counterpoint to what I’d written just above about Li Bo’s loneliness, but the flowers, wine and moon at night sounds nice. The long wait in the song and the drinking alone in the poem both shows a waiting period before they could be with friends and family again, and sometimes there’s a happiness to waiting, when you have something to look forward to.

Here are the lyrics:

It is again the ninth of September.
It is difficult to meet on the night of the Chongyang festival
Those that are homesick are drifting to and fro outside.
It is again the ninth of September.
Worries begets more worries and sentiment gains anxiety.
The plan to return home has always been on my mind
Run, run, run, run, run, oh, run!
Arriving on the ninth of September
That place far from home is absent of wine and regards.
Run, run, run, run, run, oh, run!
Arriving on the ninth of September
Freedom and the September wine are only found at home.
Dear relatives and friends, raise up your wine-filled cups.
Drink to your nostalgia until you are drunk in front of your house door.

I Stand Alone

A single bird of prey beyond the sky,

a pair of while gulls between riverbanks.

Hovering wind-tossed, ready to strike;

the pair, at the ease, roaming to and fro.

And the dew is also full on the grasses,

spider’s filaments still now drawn in. 

Instigations in the nature approach men’s affairs

I stand alone in thousands of sources of worry.

Based from reading this poem, the author points out his view of rise and fall of his society. In the poem, he uses and compares two different birds, a bird of prey and a pair of white gulls. From there, he differentiates that bird of prey as the end of an era while a pair of white gulls represent the era that he witness that it will come. From there, he sees how society is worrying and fear that the era is coming to the end and doesn’t want to let that happen. As for the author, he accepts it since it is a connected concept of living.

Du Fu’s poem “I Stand Alone” reminds me of a song called “Buried Alive” by a rap artist, Logic. Both the author and the artist share the view of changes in society. Here is a line of lyrics from the song:

Look around, everything changes

It feels like I’ve been buried alive.

This lyric related to the previous quote that was mentioned. While the idea between two is different, but the concept is the same. The author is alone, surrounded with frightening people because the Tang dynasty was coming to an end. As for the artist, he feels being “buried alive” as everything around him changes drastically to a point that he couldn’t recognize or accept.

Reading Li Bo’s “Summer Day in the Mountains” Reminded me a lot of Nelly’s 2002 Pop hit “Hot in Herre.” Here are the words of the poem

Lazily 
waving 
a 
fan
 of
 white 
feathers,

Stripped
 naked 
here
 in 
the
 green
 woods,

I 
take
 off 
my
 head band, 
hang
 it 
on 
a
 cliff,

My 
bare 
head
s pattered 
by 
wind 
through 
pines.

Here’s an excerpt from Nelly’s song as well.

“Check it, got it locked at the top of the four seasons
Penthouse, roof top, birds I feedin
No deceivin, nothin up my sleeve, no teasin
I need you to get up up on the dance floor”

Nelly describes in his song as he being hot on a rooftop, and penthouse at the very tall Four Seasons Hotel. In the poem the author is on top of a mountain, with his headband hanging on a cliff. Many would say that skyscrapers are the mountains of today. Nelly is “locked at the top,” he’s is stuck up their or has no plans of leaving. Just as we can see from the poem that he is implying that he is stuck on the top of the mountain, suffering from the heat.

We also see both authors referencing birds. In Li Bo’s poem he tried getting over the heat by “waving a fan of white feathers.” Part of Nelly’s attempt to getting over the heat (other than stripping) was to go on the roof and feed the birds. “roof top birds I feedin”

Nelly than goes on in his song to describe how he is feeling on the rooftop.

“It’s getting hot in here so take of all your clothes.”

This compares to when Li Bo is “stripped naked in the green woods.” Suffering from the heat both artists have no choice but to take of their cloths. We can see from the song he was suffering from the heat just like Li Bo, especially when he says “I am gettin so hot, I wanna take my clothes off.” But instead of wanting to be naked in the green woods, Nelly wants everyone to get naked on the dance floor.

I wasn’t sure if the music video is appropriate for class so I just attached this awesome lyric video. Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fUjcPCUWD0

As I read the Tang poetries, the poem “Bring in the Wine” by Li Bo reminds me of the song “Cigarettes and Alcohol” by British rock band Oasis, which released on 1994.

The song and the poem shares the same idea that drinking ( and smoking) makes them feel good and that they need it to escape from the banality life.

Both lyrics talk about how they feel about the reality of their lives:

“Bright in the mirrors of mighty halls a grieving  for white hair, this morning blue-black stand of silk, now turned to snow with evening.” (“Bring in the Wine”)

“Is it worth the aggravation when there’s nothing worth working for?” (“Cigarettes and Alcohol”)

and they claims that is why they need to drink and have fun, as a remedy.

Also, both talks about future, which basically saying that they are not just drinking but when the time comes, they would make things work out.  Li Bo mentions that the Heaven gave him the talents and he would wait and see till someday, when people need it from him. And the song says that “When it comes to top, you gotta make it happen”.

However, there is a difference between those two, which is, while Li Bo sees things in a positive way. He says he need to drink because people have to enjoy the life while they can. On the other hand, despite the encouraging music, Oasis’s lyrics tells us that, as a part of working class, the only thing they got in their lives is drinking. It is understandable because even though they talks about drinking and having fun in their life, their lives are different. Li Bo was established, he was working in a government and was one of the most important poet in the dynasty, while the members of the band born as working class in England and they said that you can’t get away from their life unless you become football player or rock musician.

The flocks of birds have flown high and away,

a solitary cloud goes off calmly alone.

We look at each other and never get bored–

Just me and Jingting Mountain.

To me, this short, four-line Tang poem has a lot of meaning. The narrator is completely alone, but feeling serenity out in nature on the mountain.

I heard a song on TV recently that reminds me of this poem: “Ends of the Earth” by Lord Huron:

To me, the song ultimately is about traveling the big world to discover the small world inside your soul. The protagonist of the song does not seem to want to do it alone at first, but in the end, he is completely content with it.

“Ends of the Earth” immediately begins with lines connecting to being at peace with nature. The most relevant connection to the poem is between mountains: “Oh, there’s a mountain that no man has mounted / I’m gonna stand on the peak.” Both protagonists in the poem and song feel a connection to the Earth that they do not believe anyone could understand.

The song line “To the ends of the Earth, would you follow me / There’s a world that was meant for our eyes to see” simply connects the desirability to travel for both the protagonists. The lines “what good is living a life you’ve been given / If all you do is stand in once place” showcases this as well, stressing the importance of freeing your soul through travel and away from society.

The song line “Oh, there’s an island where all things are silent / I’m gonna whistle a tune” shows how the song’s protagonist finds purpose in his travel, without any boredom. In this sense, he is using his own sounds to connect himself with the Earth, able to listen to himself in the silence. This connects to the poem’s line: “We look at each other and never get bored / Just me and Jingting Mountain.” In this line of the poem, the protagonist is connecting himself through vision, with him and the mountain “looking at one another.”

The last lines in the song: “Maybe I’m headin’ to die but I’m still gonna try / I guess I’m going alone” showcase the solo travel of both protagonists. For whatever reason, both proceed their journey solo, and therefore feel a stronger connection to nature and the Earth. The poem’s last line “Just me and the Jingting Mountain” shows the peace the poem’s protagonist made with himself, his soul, and with the Earth. Neither are truly alone, since they feel such a strong connection with the Earth.

SONG LYRICS