Singing To Love

Love songs for one

1968. Life in Vietnam was full of difficulties, and my own road was full of turmoil. After ten years, it was time for my Muse and I to say goodbye. Whereas I used to write what could be termed love songs for the couple, about real love, from that point on I had to write love songs for one. This time the parting was for real! Even though we promised to stay together forever, one of us had to cross the bridge of marriage and there was nothing left to say, or so I thought. But in fact many lingering echoes remained, and I would continue to call out to her soul with love songs filled with memories.

NGHÌN TRÙNG XA CÁCH
A THOUSAND MILES APART
(Saigon-1969)
A thousand miles apart... now you're gone
Nothing left to cry about, nothing left to laugh about
Step on this carriage, go back into my past
Taking with you all my love
Seeing you go off into my past
I won't feel much pain
Following you into my past
Are all the memories, all the souvenirs
A few dried flowers among the old letters
That will soon turn to dust
A lock of hair, still bearing your fragrance
That will scatter in the wind
A thousand miles apart... now you're gone
Nothing left to keep for you
To you I return the beautiful memories
Of events more often happy than sad
The conversations, the laughter
The stories long and short
I return them all to you.
I return the halcyon years
The paths you walked, so peaceful and happy
Like a forest at dawn, like a moonlit street
I return them all to you.
To you all the bitter memories
On our day of parting, in the gentle rain
I send to you my love
I return the forced smile on my lips
A thousand miles apart - my life is broken
Only a last word for you...
A thousand miles apart, over the horizon
I wish you a long happy road.

From that day, I lived with memories and never stopped writing love songs for myself, sometimes writing my own lyrics, sometimes borrowing other people's verses. Even though my heart was full of memories, I sang about returning them all to her, all the love letters, the dried butterfly, the lock of hair which - in my imagination - she cut with the golden knife of poet Ðoàn Phú Tứ and gave me on a birthday. I sang about returning to her the footprints on tree-lined Duy Tân street, along which I used to take her to university, in TRẢ LẠI EM YÊU (I RETURN TO YOU). In this song, I borrowed the words of a young man joining the army, so that all young people would sing about my love.
TRẢ LẠI EM YÊU
I RETURN TO YOU
(Saigon-1971)
I return to you these university buildings
The tree-shaded Duy Tân street
The afternoons in the park, under the blue sky
The footprints on the pavement
The faint lights in the melancholic hostel
The raindrops kissing your soft cheeks
Your fragrant hair, your gentle silhouette.
I will leave for the seaside
Where heavily hangs the gunsmoke.
I will go to the countryside,
To the Highlands where the cold wind blows.
I will carry with me all these memories
Memories of footprints from the age of innocence
Memories of love and of longing
I will leave this place without hope of return
I give back to you the students' street
The bustling streets of this capital city
The Sundays when we dated in all kind of spots
Drinking sweet lemonade, drinking your sweet lips
I give back to you our lingering love
The beloved school, our friends new and old
I will tread my lonely road,
My pain unending I give back to you, I give back to you
The clouds, the blue sky...

Continuing with my love story, I wrote about the love of two students.
CON ÐƯỜNG TÌNH TA ÐI
THIS PATH OF LOVE WE WALKED
(Saigon 1970)
This path of love we walked, in small steps
This afternoon street, this dust covered street
This road of youth, where the golden sunlight
Cast a long shadow, this road of love we walked.
A street under a gentle rain, a purple umbrella
Your lips seeking my lips, ever so shyly
A street at noon, taking you home and to school
The street belongs to us, students in love
But then life is full of lovers' partings
Lovers going where there is no return
Standing by the woods, by the river
We remember the long road of old
O my schooldays love, o my love now gone,
Your shadow once was cast on this fading road
Even though I may travel a thousand pathways
I'll still remember the nameless street.
On that street of dreams they still walk two by two
Street of dreams, sweet dreams
Girl from the Arts College, your shadow is still there
Falling leaves accompany your step, girl from Trưng Vương High
Girl from Gia Long High, girl of my life
This street is for ordinary people.
Far away my love, come and look at the street
It's quietly listening to stories of love.

Love songs for self are songs of memories. Memories of sandy beaches in NHA TRANG NGÀY VỀ (TO NHA TRANG I RETURN) and of the grassy hills of Dalat in CỎ HỒNG (Rose Grass)...
NHA TRANG NGÀY VỀ
TO NHA TRANG I RETURN
(Nha Trang-1969)
To Nha Trang I return, standing on the beach at night
Walking the paths of memories, rebuilding dreams long gone
On this beach we were together
By this sea I held her
Tonight the white sand remains, and the waves
And the moonlight, and I
Crying for my love on the beach.
I never thought the sand would run out
But love in the twenties will always fade
And only the call of pine trees will remain
Waves, caressing waves, soft flesh, perfumed skin
Castles on the sand carried off by the waves
My love is in mourning
Someone calling in the moonlit night
Among the laments of the waves.
To Nha Trang I return, and I sit and listen
To my heart's crying, like a lost soul's reproach
O lonely moon! O world!
O sky and sea! Why didn't I keep my love alive?
The sea of Nha Trang is still full, but my love is not here
I am a lonely shell on the sand
Cowering in an exile body
O sandcrabs, can you bury this sorrow?

With NHA TRANG NGÀY VỀ and CỎ HỒNG, my love songs seemed to have moved from the sentimental to the sensual/sexual. However, that was a characteristic of the times rather than of my love.

CỎ HỒNG
ROSE GRASS
(Dalat-1970)
I lead you up the hill, where the grass grows wild
I lead you up the hill, to keep a date with dawn.
Your dainty feet are like a love no longer shy
Throw away your sandals and let your soles embrace the soft grass
Soft earth, calm grass, gentle sleep, sweet dream,
Virgin dew from the night.
Deep in my dream I lie to wait for sunrise,
To take you up the fairy hill
Sloping hillside, shimmering grass
Suddenly I awaken
Immense sky, vast hillside
Young grass waiting for the lovers
I lead you up the green hill! Up the virgin hill
Come with me to the peaceful heights
Where the new grass embraces our feet.
Brush off the city's dust from your dress
Come with me to the refreshing heights
My love! Here the hills stretch like so many dreams
Under the loving sunshine.
I hold you on the hillside, where the grass smells of milk
I hold you as we sit on the young grass
I hold your curves in my arms
Let your hair flow over my shoulder
Familiar hills, gentle grass, I caress your hair
Listen to the entreatments from the heart or from a brook
I fall on the grass
The sky within you, the giddy heights,
I tremble in the four winds
Nameless grass spreading, rising, for I love her
O hill! O primeval grass
Changing colors like my feelings!
Benevolent rays of sunshine!
Stirring grass, glimmering of red as in a dream
You're beautiful and all-encompassing my love
You smell of rosy grass my love!

My love companion was a lover of poetry and wrote about three hundred poems for me. Regretfully, I could not take them with me into exile. Before the end of our affair, our meetings were mainly to talk about music and poetry. I often put to music the best poems of that time - or from earlier times - to dedicate to her. TÓC MAI SỢI VẮN SỢI DÀI (Long Strand, Short Strand) was developed from a Southern folk rhyme which she recited to me.
TÓC MAI SỢI VẮN SỢI DÀI
LONG STRAND, SHORT STRAND OF HAIR
(Saigon-1969)
In those days you had just stopped using a hairpin
In those days I had just finished school
Loving me, you wrote your poems
Loving you, I wrote my songs.
In those days your poems were naive
And my guitar playing was clumsy
So you didn't show me your poems
And I didn't show you my songs.
Your mother taught you a song
So you sang it to me
Your mother taught you a lullaby
So you sang it to me
For whom are you pining thus, Orchid and Lily
Inside you are dying but outside you still look gay
. . . . .
Since those days we became lovers
We rejoiced in the love of spring
Then love and dreams came to an end
You became someone else's bride
I became an artist
You no longer write poems
And became a housewife
Life drifted on
I laughed, I joked, I played music
Yet I remember those verses
About the fading flowers.
For whom are you pining thus, Orchid and Lily.
Inside you are dying but outside you still look gay
. . . . . .
Life is like a stream that never stops
In misery it runs on.
My heart wanders in all directions
I have loved a lot
But in my heart a young woman lives on
Memories of an old love.
Many song cycles can't make me forget
The lullaby that your mother sang
The lullaby that she taught us
The lullaby we sang in the wind.
Today I read an old poem
Raindrops fall on my cheeks
Ah! Strands of hair, short and long
We can't marry each other, forever we shall be in love.

After these rather ethereal evocations, I wrote others songs using much more bitter words. I borrowed from a love poem full of death feelings by Guillaume Apollinaire in the following:

MÙA THU CHẾT
AUTUMN IS DEAD
I have gathered this spray of heather
You must remember that autumn is dead
Autumn is dead, remember
Autumn is dead, remember
Autumn is dead, autumn is dead
Remember, you must remember
We shall never look at each other again
In this life, in this life
We shall never see each other again
We shall never see each other again
I have gathered this spray of heather
You must remember, autumn is dead
O timeless fragrance
Remember I'm still waiting for you
Still waiting
Still waiting
For you!

This poem haunted me during the 1950s when I was studying music in France. By putting it to music in the ''young's music'' style of Vietnam of those days (1970), I followed the romantic tradition of writing songs about autumn but with a much higher intensity of feeling than ever before. For the song was about a real love. I went on and put to music poems about death like ÐỪNG BỎ EM MỘT MÌNH
DON'T LEAVE ME ALONE
From A Poem By Hoài Trinh
(Saigon-1970)
Don't leave me alone
Don't leave me alone
The path to the cemetery is endless
Don't leave me
Don't leave me alone
Don't leave me alone
The path to the cemetery is so hazy
Don't leave me
Don't leave me alone
Don't leave me alone
With insects gnawing at my body
Don't leave me alone
Don't leave me alone
A virgin grave, a virgin grave
Waiting for green grass to come
Don't leave me alone
Don't leave me alone
A thousand generations from now
A thousand generations from now
A thousand generations from now
Will there still be any young peole?

Other songs of this period include TÌNH HỜ (False Love), CHUYỆN TÌNH BUỒN (Sad Love), and the following song based on a line by the poet Hàn Mặc Tử:

GIẾT NGƯỜI TRONG MỘNG
KILLING HER IN MY DREAMS
(Saigon-1970)
How can I kill her in my dreams
To take revenge on a fate so cruel
I'll kill her! I'll kill her!
I'll kill the faithless one
I'll kill her! I'll kill her!
I'll kill the forgetful one
I'll kill her! I'll kill her!
I'll kill the unfaithful one in my dreams
I'll kill her! I'll kill the dream! I'll kill the love!
I'll kill the one in my dreams
How can I kill the one in my dreams
To take revenge on fate so cruel?

But why, oh why does she still come in my dreams
Why, oh why still so much passion
Why does love still live on in pain
Why am I still a fool in my dreams?
How can I, no I can't
Kill her in my dreams

How can I keep her in my dreams
To hold on to love, even though unrewarded
Kill her in my dreams
Keep her in my dreams
Kill her in my dreams
Keep her in my dreams

At that time the singer Lệ Thu was becoming very well known through my songs NGẬM NGÙI, MÙA THU CHẾT... I used her name (which could mean Beautiful Autumn or Tears of Autumn) to write a lament about my love:
NƯỚC MẮT MÙA THU
THE TEARS OF AUTUMN
(Saigon 1970)
Autumn is crying in the evening
Leaves are falling in the deserted cemetery
One by one, golden shrivelled tears
Tombs echo the names of forgotten people

The tears of autumn flow without respite
In the long night
The sound of rain echoes through the months
A dark prison people have built of deceitful love
The rain comes to share in their mistakes
Autumn is crying for love lost
Crying for happiness so fragile
That came one minute and dissolves away
Like the moonlight
Autumn is crying in loneliness
A songstress sings in sadness
How sad her voice, like life fading
Regrets enduring as long as time lasts
Autumn is lamenting its fate.

In the same thread, I wrote other songs that did not gain much popularity, such as YÊU LÀ CHẾT Ở TRONG LÒNG (To Love is To Die Inside), NỖI BUỒN CÓ TÊN (Sadness With A Name). Since I had already written love songs about spring, autumn and winter, I now wrote love songs for summer. As in CỎ HỒNG, there is more sensuality in these songs.

Summer is the season of flamboyants. The weather was warm, but my heart was cold. I wrote PHƯ"NG YÊU (BELOVED FLAMBOYANT) to tell about my love.

PHƯỢNG YÊU
BELOVED FLAMBOYANTS
(Saigon-1970)
My love for you is like leaves falling in winter
Like red clouds about to turn purple
Like a bird crying in its cage
Like a storm in the summer night
My love cries through the night
My love for you is like spring in the deep forest
Like a ship buffeted by the wind
Like a worm looking towards the sky
Yearning for the moon and the stars
How can I express my love
I love you! Flamboyants!
I love the flowers of early summer
I love the brilliant colors, I love you blindly
I love you with naive words
I love you, I love a hesitant dream
My love is like the mountain wind blowing through the gorge
Like an vampire's song
I am willing to die tomorrow
Like a spirit, a demon
I follow you to the horizon
Calling as I go
There is no escape
I love you, love will come just once
Please love me, even falsely
Please love me, even if you don't trust me
When loneliness is everywhere
How can you refuse love.

In the following three summer songs, one has a slow, lazy feeling, two are passionate and red hot - even more so than PHƯỢNG YÊU. NGÀY THÁNG HẠ (Days Of Summer) is still somewhat romantic, but HẠ HỒNG (Red Summer) and GIÓ THOẢNG ÐÊM HÈ (Breeze Of A Summer Night) are sensual rather than sentimental.
NGÀY THÁNG HẠ
DAYS OF SUMMER
(Saigon-1971)
Days of summer, immense sadness
Empty is my heart, like a schoolyard
The rows of flamboyants look strange
Dripping blood on the street
Days of summer, dragging on
Silent is my heart, like the blue sky
Sky rising, rising
Houses bending, crying

Days of summer, sleepy noontime
Among the cicadas' music
Old trees of childhood
Slopes of memories
Days of summer in the forests
In the fields, in the city
Sadness lingers like a vibrating string
The setting sun tarries
Days of summer, I come back
To the park, to the street
In the river a boat is at anchor
The stream has stopped
Days of summer, the rain falls melancholically
In an apartment two souls listen
To the future calling
Suddenly regret comes.

HẠ HỒNG
RED SUMMER
(Saigon-1972)
Summer has passed like a breeze
Summer in me glows red
Summer in us burns like a fire
A fire that consumes the earth
In the summer our hearts shine like the sun
The sun in us has risen
In summer even the rain is blood red
And colors the stars

The two os us have only a summer
The two os us have only one love
Summer has arrived
Summer has left
The two os us have only a season
Only once our lives have known joy
Summer colors the night
Summer shines on the dark heart.

Summer dries the tears
In eyes deep asleep
Like a flower's fragrance love rises in the night
Yet soon it will fade
Nature awakes
Summer takes us to primeval times
Where naked beings make love under the sky
Summer is for lovers
The two os us have only a summer
The two os us have only one love
Summer is warming us
Even though its fire may die tomorrow
The two os us have only a season
Only once our lives have known joy
Summer days are not yet old
Summer of our happiness.

GIÓ THOẢNG ÐÊM HÈ
A BREEZE IN A SUMMER NIGHT
(Saigon-1970)
A breeze passes by in a summer night
And meets a young girl in dreamless sleep.
Of school age still she is
The breeze swells her young breasts
Presses down on her heart, chills her soul
Kisses her and brings up more tears
The breeze passing in the summer night is full of longings
For the lover, for the poet
For a love far away
The days of summer are days of yearning
The breeze leaves an empty world
Virgin loves will remain fragile
Young girl, in your amorous youth
A breeze passing by in a summer night
Brings many yearnings
A thoughtless breeze arouses sad feelings
You will sleep alone
The night breeze wants to bring you love and happiness
But it is wordless
And cannot sing you a lullaby.

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