Chapter 23 Self-entertainment and self-entertainment in the poor life of going to the mountains and going to the countryside - educated youth songs

On December 22, 1968, "People's Daily" published Mao Zedong's instructions: "It is very necessary for educated youth to go to the countryside and receive re-education from poor and lower-middle peasants..." Thus, a nationwide movement of educated youth to go to the mountains and go to the countryside was launched. 17 million middle school students voluntarily or forcibly left the city and embarked on a journey to the frontier and the countryside. In the Construction Corps and rural areas, these educated youths were used as simple labor.The "military organization" of the Bingtuan has double imprisoned the lives and thoughts of educated youths.The corruption, ignorance, and hatred of culture of some leaders have put the educated youths in a situation where they are slaughtered and have no place to redress their grievances.In poor areas such as Shaanxi, educated youths of both sexes can’t even earn enough money for rations, and in other wealthier areas, they can barely make ends meet by working all year round.The harsh living environment, the separation from their parents and family, and the worry about rooting for life all contributed to the serious frustration of the educated youth.The educated youth who have fallen into the bottom of the society have experienced the ups and downs of life in the difficult years of jumping to the side of the queue.

In the rural areas of Shaanxi, northern Shaanxi, Shanxi, Hebei and other provinces, and in several large construction corps in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, and Yunnan, there were a large number of popular educated youth songs at that time, and no one had systematically collected them.At present, there are no less than dozens of songs that have been published in articles, newspapers and cassette tapes: , "75 Days", "The End of the World", "The Sound of Rain", "Song of Nanjing", "On the Songhua River", " Crazy World", "My Tears", "Eight Girls", "Please Forget Me", "Sad Tears", "Little Oil Lamp", "Money Notes", etc.

These songs were created by the educated youth for self-entertainment in the lonely years when they lacked cultural entertainment. They are a true portrayal of the life of the educated youth who went to the mountains and went to the countryside.They are divided into two periods: the songs of the period when they bid farewell to their hometown and the period when they first came to the countryside, and the songs created after they were hit hard in the countryside.The main content of the early songs is to express the tragic and sad homesickness, while the later stage mainly expresses the sense of disillusionment with life.

Far away from the city and long-term lack of cultural life, the inner world of the educated youth is like a long-dry land, eager to be watered by nectar.Chen Yinghui, an educated youth from the 15th regiment of the Yunnan Corps, said in a memoir article, "When night comes, the educated youths would sit together in groups and sing songs of missing their relatives and hometown to the moonlight. Shouting loudly in the direction of their hometown , to vent the unbearable loneliness and pain." In the Northeast Corps, the poverty of the educated youth's spiritual life is the same.At this time, singing became the only way for the educated youth in Northeast China to relieve their depression and loneliness.From 1970 to 1971, in the female educated youth dormitory of the 15th regiment and the 29th company, they often sang half-night and half-night, singing "Road to Jinggangshan", "Red Coral", "Liu Sanjie", "Raging Tide" (movie), and even " Evening on the outskirts of Moscow", "Deep Ocean", "Red River Village", "Lights".From 1975 to 1976, various "disciplines" and "constraints" of the Corps began to relax, and various educated youth songs began to flood the company.So there was a scene like the "Educated Youth Songs Singing Together" by the Industrial Company of the 14th Regiment.

In the Construction Corps, there are only a small number of educated youths who can serve as cadres, teachers, or drive cars.There are many educated youths whose talents cannot be fully utilized, and are extremely bored, so they each engage in some personal hobbies to pass the time.Some people who like electronics assemble all kinds of semiconductor radios by themselves.In the 11th Company of the 14th Regiment, a Beijing educated youth Li XX set up a bug to eavesdrop on girls' speeches. After the company knew about it, they organized the entire company's educated youths to criticize her.

Jin Xiaoping, a Beijing educated youth of the 14th Regiment Industrial Company, is also an "expert" in electronics.He installed semiconductors, record players, and a transmitter by himself. The educated youths once conducted an experiment. Within a distance of 1,000 meters, a seven-tube red light radio could receive clear sound. Jin Xiaoping turned on the transmitter. , Beijing educated youth Zhu Zongqiang, Zhang Hai and others sang and talked in the dormitory, and they could receive it within a square kilometer radius of the company. One day, the female educated youth of the industrial company turned on the semiconductor in the dormitory, and suddenly a strange voice came from the semiconductor radio: "This is the Beijing Educated Youth Radio Station." Then, uneven singing came from the semiconductor.First is "Beijing-Tirana", and then it's wrong to listen to it again, "Small Benches in a Row", "Wahaha", "The People Who Jumped in the Line Return", "Song of Nanjing"... the sound becomes more and more familiar. The female educated youth ran to the boys' dormitory and saw them singing with their necks up.On that day, the matter of the male educated youth working on the launch pad caused a sensation among the female educated youth.

Educated youth songs are basically borrowed songs to write lyrics, and educated youths in Yunnan mock themselves as "borrowers".The songs created by these "borrowers" have a strong folk style. "Tears will fall on your shoulders" ("Song of the Educated Youth in Shanxi") "I will come back, I will come back, return to my hometown!" ("Song of the Educated Youth in Guangzhou") "Train, train, go slowly!" ("Song of the Educated Youth in Guangzhou") Slow down the train"), such songs away from home are actually excellent contemporary works of folk songs and folk songs.Confucius once said: "The Poetry can be prospered, watched, grouped, and complained." These educated youth songs can also be prospered, watched, grouped, and complained.They are contemporary.

During the "Cultural Revolution", there were many and wide channels of information circulation among the educated youth, and the circulation was very fast.Sometimes a song or a theme has different singing styles and different lyrics in different places.For example, "Dream of Mother" has two variations of libretto in Yunnan Corps and Inner Mongolia Corps.For example, the educated youths can fill in the lyrics casually, so there are more types.In the song "Nanjing Educated Youth Song", the sentence "the depth of life is in a foreign land" has been changed in places such as Jiangsu and the Great Northern Wilderness: "deep and shallow", "deeply trapped", and "deeply embedded".It should be said that the songs of educated youth have their special regional and group characteristics, and they also have the commonality and universality of the educated youth group.

The creation, dissemination and content evolution of educated youth songs are introduced in sections below.