Love - Suffering - Death

During an interview with Nguyễn Ðình Toàn, who was in charge of the Literature and Arts program of Saigon Radio Station, I said that at that time (1951) there were three things that were important to me: Love, Suffering and Death. I expressed these in several songs such as NƯỚC MẮT RƠI (Falling Tears). A tear comes out of the eye and dies on the lips, but within that short interval it contains the sweetness of love, the bitterness of pain, a virgin's heart, a poet's soul, a flower's brief life, a small rivulet of tear or an ocean of sorrow. In this short song there is an tear with no smell and a dry tear...
NƯỚC MẮT RƠI
FALLING TEARS
(Saigon-1961)
A tear falls to give birth to life
A tear follows love to distant places
In the spring flows a small stream of tears, cool and happy
A tear falls to bring people together
A tear comes behind each smile
A sweet tear, as lovers look for the ocean
A tear falls on a virgin's love
A tear brings a fragrance into a poet's soul
As the boat crosses the rapids of dream
Tears fall throughout a flower's life
As leaves and petals fall
Streams and rivers flow to oceans full of tears
Tears fall on the long road
Tears follow you to the roots of the world
Golden tears with no smell flow back to loneliness
Gentle tears flow into old age
Dried up, silent
Then, leaning on each other, teardrops die on the lips

Even though I loved life, I still talked about death, for example through the dying leaves in ÐƯỜNG CHIỀU LÁ RỤNG (Leaves Falling On The Evening Street). Trembling in the wind like small boats, the leaves suddenly hear the call of the Earth. They fall to the ground and form burial mounds in the street in the evening. Compared to my other songs, ÐƯỜNG CHIỀU LÁ RỤNG is very difficult to sing, with its relatively novel melody and complex modulations. So far, only Thái Thanh, Kim Tước and Quỳnh Giao have performed it...
ÐƯỜNG CHIỀU LÁ RỤNG
LEAVES FALLING ON THE EVENING STREET
(Saigon-1958)
Evening is falling on the road, I am falling in the evening
My soul drifts in the dying sunlight, in the lonely breeze
Yellow leaves floating! Yellow leaves floating!
Like the past, long hair flowing, stepping out of a dying love
Yellow leaves falling! Yellow leaves falling!
Like a last breath saying goodbye to the world
Evening comes, the dried woods is breathing smoke
The anchor breaks one last time
And wind fills the sails
In Evening's embrace
Small boats drunkenly drift
Leaves falling, rustling
Is that the tree crying
Or my heart lamenting?
. . . . . . .
Evening lingers, leaves hang on to life
My soul disappears into the world of fairies
Gentle yellow leaves! Gentle yellow leaves!
Fine needles sewing shut the door of love
Dried yellow leaves! Dried yellow leaves!
Wrinkled lips waiting for the final icy voyage
Evening is no more, Night is at the door
Without love, without memory
The dried wrinkled leaves
Follow Earth's call to the ground
Burial mounds
Waiting for the rain or the wind
To dissolve a dying love
Into nourishment for young love
Evening melts in the dark streets
My soul, like an anthill, waits for its reincarnation.

In any case I was living a full life. I had both fame and shame (because of a love scandal), happiness and sorrow. I have talked a fair deal about death. Having lived life to the full, I expressed my thanks with:
TẠ ƠN ÐỜI
THANKING LIFE
(Saigon-1959)
A momentary echo in my heart
A trembling breath
A world in my eyes
A lingering song
So much loving
So much affection
So much stirring in the heart
Life is a loving mother
In this haven I have but a moment
In a hundred springs
I have picked so many loves
A few disappointments
Have not cooled my passion
A few times I have cheated
But Life still treat me well
O so great Life's gifts
Since those three hundred days when I lay curled up
Looking out to share in the world's joys
For thy gifts I am ever grateful
From the womb I came to join thee
And grew up in the eternal garden of love
In gratitude for thy nurturing
I offer this guitar
In return for thy support
I offer this crude tombstone
To the loving soul
Lingering in the dusk.

Following my credo as expressed in LỮ HÀNH (The Voyage), I experience Love, Suffering and Death to the limit. I wrote songs about Life, not about pieces of life. MỘT BÀN TAY (A Hand) is everything. The hand brings us into life, guides our steps, beats us and comforts us. At the end, the hand close our eyes.
MỘT BÀN TAY
A HAND
(Saigon-1959)
This hand took me from the womb
One night when I took that exquisite first breath
So gentle, so pleasant, this hand
When music sang to my first cry
This hand took me to see the world
When spring came to all humanity
This hand nurtured me, this hand guided me
Through a world full of poetry and songs
In the summer rain a shrivelled hand took me home.
Shielding my eyes, stopping my song
Hand of darkness and ignorance.
But her hands with the fragrance of precious wood liberated me
Hands full of sunshine and wind
With love in the soft fingers
Hands that hold me tight in a love so fulfilling
Making my heart bloom in the autumn
Warm hands, stormy hands
Carmine hand tracing a path for us two
One day they will see me off this world
When clouds draw a veil of mourning
Touching my icy body,
Bewildered, they will close my eyelids.

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