Painting by Nguyên Khai
In the period immediately after resettling in the South, the North was
constantly in my mind (and those of other migrants), and I adapted
Huyền Chi's THUYỀN VIỄN XỨ (The Boat in Distant Shores),
a poem about the Ðà river. Shortly after, I had a poem from my new
friend Lê Minh Ngọc about two people who have to go different ways
because of their ideals. This poem, when put to music, would be
sung over and over for decades. In 1998 in the USA, it was still
sung in a PARIS BY NIGHT video produced by Thu'y Nga.
WITH WHOM SHALL I SHARE THESE THOUGHTS
(poem by Lê Minh Ngọc - adapted by Pha.m Duy)
Back there the spring was cold
A cold that chilled the flowers' hearts
She looked at wingless clouds
Gliding towards the horizon
Silently sobbing she wondered
If the traveller missed home
Silently sobbing she wondered
If the traveller missed home
As I left home that spring
When the clouds gathered over the hamlet
A yellow flower was in her hair
Sadness was in her eyes
A bright was sky in my heart
An abyss in your heart
Two people, two minds
As far apart as night and day
I left home to follow my ideals
She stayed nursing her anger
Each year the flowers came
Bringing the image of the traveller
In a fading shirt
Wandering under the coconut groves
The red silk-cotton flowers fill the sky
Then the rain follows the sunshine
Tomorrow I'll be back, tomorrow
Spring follows lonely spring
Country girl, country girl
Alone in her room
The road I walk, the road I walk
Is full of longing
Now my love, now my love
An ocean separates us.
It's ideals that separated us
Not frontiers
Not distances
For thousands of years
Tears may fall on rock
Nobody will know our story
Nobody will care
Tomorrow I'll be back, tomorrow
Spring follows lonely spring
Country girl, country girl
Alone in her room
The road I walk, the road I walk
Is full of longing
Now my love, now my love
An ocean separates us.
I PRAY TO GOD IN HEAVEN
(poem by Nhất Tuấn - adapted by Phạm Duy)
I knee and pray to God in Heaven
To grant that I marry the one I love
In my life I have suffered much
Many bitter things I have tasted since my young days
In poverty I've lived for the last twenty years
Many dreams I have built, but poor have I stayed.
God, o God...
My first love turned to nothing
For she left me for a rich man
Silently I held this crazy love
You have given me a loser's fate
God, o God...
I knee and pray to God in Heaven
To grant that I marry the one I love
Now I have met this girl
She's not rich, not beautiful, not ambitious
The two of us have solemnly vowed
To be faithful to each other.
O God
We swore that storms no matter how strong
Will not make us break our word...
I have been betrayed again, o God!
I have been betrayed again, o God!
I knee and pray to God in Heaven
God in Heaven, have pity on me...
ROADSIDE CAFE
(poem by Bình Nguyên Lộc -- adapted by Phạm Duy)
Long, long, long ago
During dreamy afternoons in the radiant sun
Two young children played together
By the doorstep they sat.
Ah, I remember your cake-style haircut
Your cheeks so pale, you were too poor then
My hair was clean shaven, clean shaven
I smelled of buffaloes and sun, I yearned for school
Yearned for school...
You held a sweet potato
With your teeth you peeled it
Then we shared equally
This discarded potato that we picked up
How sweet it was, oh how sweet!
That was in the old days
So far away now these scenes are
One cold rainy evening we meet again
Wearing nice clothes, so good to see!
So pretty you are now
Your life must have been good I thought
Is this your house?
Unfortunately it's just a cafe
Where you sell your body
You ask me what I do
What do you write with that pen day and night
I must write that the rotten world smells good
This pen is my fishing rod
You ask what is art
It's being blind, it's being deaf, it's being mute
We look at each other silently
Hurting as though somebody's hitting us.
You offer me a cake
Do you remember the sweet potato
Golden cake, colored with sunshine
Haven't put my teeth to the cake
Yet I feel a bitter taste.
You asked for just a smile
Smile? I have forgotten how to smile
I ask for a few tears
Your tears have dried up long ago.
Before saying good bye we ask if life has been good
Why don't you just ask life?
Among the poems I set to music MÙA XUÂN YÊU EM
(In Spring I Love You) by Ðỗ Quý Toàn was a particularly
amusing one:
IN SPRING I LOVE YOU
(poem by Ðỗ Quý Toàn - adapted by Phạm Duy)
I love you 'cause you can speak
You can say: My Darling! And you can call
It rained this morning, I thought about you
Now it shines and I think about you a lot...
Sit down, listen to the birds singing
The meadow's like a hand, the sky's like ecstatic eyes
We look at each other, don't know what to say
We just sit there, sit there like two marbles.
A pretty flower I pick for you
If yu don't take it I'll die in front of you
Then I'll cry day in day out
Nothing will be as sad as today
My dearest, don't you hear
The cow in the field
She goes moo moo, and she eats grass
The sky's so high today, I love you, o wind...
On a branch there's an ant nest
Ants going out, ants going in
The sun's shining, oh how I love you
My dearest, don't you know
A pair of birds flew across the sky
A pair of white birds across the sky
So blue the sky, the two of us
So blue the sky, the two of us
CÒN CHÚT GÌ ÐỂ NHỚ
SOMETHING TO REMEMBER
(poem by Vũ Hữu Ðịnh - adapted by Phạm Duy)
Highland street, foggy street
Tree-lined street under the doleful sky
I am a stranger walking this street
Lucky I have you
Pleiku girl with rosy cheeks
Here ewvenings are in eternal winter
They keep your hair and your eyes wet
Making you as soft as the evening cloud.
Highland street, close to the sky
Street so short and intimate
Five minutes and you're back where you start
This evening my thoughts wander
I thank the town for your presence
I thank your soft hair
Tomorrow in the faraway frontier post
I'll have something to remember and forget...
Ở RỪNG U MINH TA KHÔNG THẤY EM
I CA'NT
FIND YOU IN U MINH FOREST
(poem by Nguyễn Tiến Cung - adapted Phạm Duy)
Long time I haven't seen you
Long time I haven't seen you
Long time I haven't seen you
In the jungle the monsoon water is rising
Up there the wind sings, up there the wind sings
The cajuput tree makes me think of your slender silhouette
The cajuput tree makes me think of your slender silhouette
I haven't seen you since I left
I haven't seen you since I left
I haven't seen you since I left
The sulfate water has stained my battle fatigues
Bullets burst from the wet gun barrel
Love is so far, no point remembering
Love is so far, no point remembering
Each rivulet brings a regret
Each river brings old age closer
Towns disappear one by one
The war drags on like an old song...
THU CA ÐIỆU RU ÐƠN
CHANSON D'AUTOMNE
(from a poem by Paul Verlaine - adapted by Phạm Duy)
The sobbing sound
Of the violins
Of autumn
Fills my heart
With the melancholy of autumn
Pain and weariness
Fill my heart
When autumn sings
Its lonely lullaby
Choking, trembling
When strikes the hour
I remember days past
I remember days past
And I cry
And I cry...
The sobbing sound
Of the violins
Of autumn
Fills my heart
With the melancholy of autumn
I walk, I walk in the wind
The bad wind
That carries me
Here and there
Like a dry autumn leaf...
The sobbing sound
Of the violins
Of autumn
Fills my heart
With the melancholy of autumn...
I LOVE YOU INTO DEATH
(poem by Nguyễn Long - adapted by Phạm Duy)
I knew that to love you is to despair
So why oh why am I still loving you
A worm squirming through the night
And dying for love of the stars.
I knew that to love you is to be shamed
Still I cannot stop loving you
I love you with hanging tears
With hot blood in a drying heart
I love you like the jungle loves wild beasts
I love you like the tree loves the wind
I love you, there nothing more to say
Nothing to say, for I'm already in love.
You have lived, lived like a naive insect
Seeking flames to burn up your joys
You brought yourself into people's arms
An embrace that tie you to your downfall
You have lived, lived in a stranger's favor
Leaving me to long for you
You flew away on a butterfly's wings
On the fragrance of a quick fading flower
I love you like the jungle loves wild beasts
I love you like the tree loves the wind
I love you, there nothing more to say
Nothing to say, for I'm already in love.
You have died, on the way of fate
And from now on you'll always be mine
You have given me a body in peace
And a fragment of a soul extinguished
You have died, and let me come into love
Into our love, in the other world
I have followed you into the misty world of death
Where nobody will take you from me
I love you like the jungle loves wild beasts
I love you like the tree loves the wind
I love you, there nothing more to say
Nothing to say, for I'm already in love.
SAD LOVE
(poem by Du Tử Lê - adapted by Phạm Duy)
I'm like the airy mist, you're like a deep flower
We lied to each other and broke our first kiss
Step by step love advanced in the wind
Sowing the seeds of sufferings in our hearts
You went your way, I went mine
The street was high, the day was low, rain followed sunshine
Deep eyes enclosed the storm
Silence dissolved the gale
You were here, I was here
Appearances were kept, hearts were weeping
Feet followed the wind in many directions
Hands reached for the drizzling sky
For me your dreams have been broken
Hardly has your flesh borne the scent of make-up
That your lips tasted the bitterness of love
And dreams dissolved with the passing summer.
You buried your life, I tasted bitterness
Leaves stopped stirring, the mist floated away
Birds stayed silent like skeletons
The endless river died
Where are you, oh where are you
The green grass still nestles in the night
Crickets are singing of lost love
Thw sky is showing its wounds...
KIẾP SAU XIN GIỮ LẠI ÐỜI
CHO NHAU
LET'S KEEP OUR NEXT LIVES FOR EACH
OTHER
(poem by Du Tử Lê - adaptation by Phạm Duy)
As a gift for me you left heaven
To follow me
Follow me from heaven.
You followed me from heaven
And came to the sea to pick up my life.
You gave me the tender rain
You followed me into the mountain
To find the land of love.
You gave me your sweet lips and breasts
A thousand times you bestowed this gift
You gave me your warmth
A thousand years this warmth will remain in my bed
A trouble heart it will hide
Your gifts are for somebody else now.
If in this world we are reborn
Please let's keep our lives for each other.
THE ORCHID'S SADNESS
(poem by Thanh Lan - adapted by Phạm Duy)
The summer sun fills my eyes with love
I have given without any regret
I have given without any regret
I have given without any regret
What have I got in return?
I drag my steps on the uncertain road of love
Where do they lead, to the heights or to the abyss?
I turn around and see that I am still lonely
I drag my steps with no hope for the future.
I walk in the evening, the sad flowers have forgotten to bloom
I walk in the stormy night among the gaunt trees
I fly with the leaves falling on the road
I am the dying grass under people's footsteps.
The love, the passion
That once warmed my heart
The embrace that held me so tight
Suddenly have become indifferent
Happiness has faded into bitterness
Dreams have gone
And reality is painful.
I drag my steps on the uncertain road of life
Where am I ? Where am I ? Is this joy or pain?
Suddenly I see myself in a forsaken refuge
Dragging my lonely steps through the rest of my
life...
TALKING:
Orchid and lily, who made you so sad? You have faded
You have faded inside but still smiling outside.
SAD LOVE STORY
(poem by Phạm Văn Bình - adapted by Phạm Duy)
Five years we haven't met
Since you got married
I have been constantly on the road
The river of life has divided us.
Naive love letters
Tender lips and shoulders
Hurried dates
In the heavenly past.
The day firecrackers went off
I rolled up in my bed
Like a larvae nesting
In a lonely fruit.
The day firecrackers went off
My soul was bleeding
O unseen knife blade
O unseen knife blade
Five years I have gone
Never coming back
In the cold wind I lie
Alone in a church steeple
Five years we've been apart
The church yard is overgrown
Christ stands sadly on the cross
My eyes are veiled by the passing rain.
Sitting and remembering the sea
On the lonely beach of life
I am a sailor's soul
Wandering through the years
A traveller's life I lead
You raise your children
In the melancholy of sunset
A peal of church bells rings.
Five years we haven't met
Since you got married
So many memories buried
Seemingly forgotten
Five years I return
The sky is full of mourning
The girl of years past
Is now a widow...
CLOUDS FLOATING TO THE END OF LIFE
(poem by Nguyễn Xuân Quang - put to music by Phạm Duy)
In the evening of a foreign land
I look and the clouds floating, floating
In the bottom of the wine glass
I see in a daze my life come to an end
In a lifelong exile with no hope of seeing the sun
The clouds are floating to the end of life...
Where are you now my love
In an abyss or the mountains
Or some new broken land full of hardship
Are you toiling in some labor camp
Do you have a blood debt? Have you got married?
Are you riding the waves on the ocean?
You, young lady of the jungles of new economic zones
You , Cinderella of the labor camp
You, Thu'y Kie^`u, cinnamon tree bending to savages
You, pure nun in prison's hell
The devils are drinking your blood
They are revelling in the fragrance of your flesh
In a fit of drunkenness
The devils suddenly drop their masks to become men
Men hating other men,
Men betraying other men
Men persecuting other men
Men pretending not to be men...
In the evening of a foreign land
I look and the clouds floating, floating
In the bottom of the wine glass
In a daze I see my life come to an end
In a lifelong exile with no hope of seeing the sun
The clouds are floating to the end of life...
THE DEEP MARK
(poem by Nguyên Sa - adapted by Phạm Duy)
When you stepped in through the door
Through the door
A young rose on your cheek
A red cherry on your lip
The days of loving had faded away
Why are you bringing back a world of sorrow
Sadness is with me again
The day you brought back a world of sorrow
Sadness is with me again
Happiness has not yet healed the deep wound
Still there the pain
The deep wound
(painter : Bu`i Quang Ngo.c)
LỜI MẸ DẶN
WHAT MY MOTHER TOLD ME
(poem by Phùng Quán - adapted by Phạm Duy)
I lost my father when I was two,
Loving me, mother did not remarry.
Dearest mother!
She tended the mulberry trees, picked the
leaves,
Raised the silkworms,
weaved the silk
And brought me up to adulthood.
Twenty years have passed but I still remember
That day long ago when I was five,
When I was five!
I lied to you, mother!
And thought I'd be punished the next day...
But she just looked at me sadly
Kissed my young mop of hair
And said tenderly:
- Before your father passed away
He asked that I teach you to be truthful always!
- Mother, what is it to be truthful?
Mother, what is it to be truthful?
Mother kissed my eyes:
- My son! To be truthful is
To laugh when you're merry,
To cry when you are sad,
To say you love when you love,
To say you hate when you hate.
Though they tempt you with sweet things,
Don't say you hate when you love.
Though they threaten you with a knive,
Don't say say you love when you hate.
From that day on whenever they asked
Little one, who do you love most?
I would answer, as mother has taught,
That all my life I have loved truthful people.
The adults would look at me in disbelief
Thinking I was a little parrot.
But no, no, these things she said
Had imprinted upon my mind
As a bright red seal
On the gloriously white page.
Today I am twenty-five,
The child has grown into a writer.
What mother said when I was five
Still leaves it bright red imprint,
Its bright red imprint...
The tightrope walker's job is difficult
But not as hard as that of a writer
Who wants to walk all his life
On the path of truthfulness.
I want to be a truthful writer, all my life truthful,
I will not be tempted by the sweet taste of fame and rewards,
I will not be pushed down by lightning over my head.
And if someone takes away my pen and paper,
I will write with knife on stone!!!
Pre-war Poets
Cung Trầm Tưởng
Phạm Thiên Thư
Nguyễn Tất Nhiên
