Flowers in a Small Town (小镇里的花)
First released at “Mars Concert 2021” on November 27, 2021. Officially released on December 20, 2022.
Be included in Hua Chenyu’s 5th album “Hope Forget”.
1. About the song
The MV was released on March 8, 2023, the day of International Women’s Day.
The album “Hope Forget” includes both a regular version and a Chinese Folk Ver. of this song.
Hua Chenyu sang this song with the accompaniment of Traditional Chinese Instruments including Chinese chimes in the EP10 of “Flower Bloom in Spring (春天花会开)”, a music competition program that aims to promote Chinese folk music, for which Hua serves as a mentor.
Hua Chenyu sharing his creative inspiration at Mars Concert 2021, before releasing this song for the first time
This song actually tells a story about spiritual practice.
That is…, how should I put it?
Human beings - in their life time.
Life is very long.
You may encounter many things, good or bad.
You may experience a lot of pain, spiritually or physically.
I have a friend. She has actually helped me a lot.
I have seen how painful she was.
And…Yet, when she was in great despair.
Gradually, she endured daily pain.
Then she gradually let go of (pain).
Then she liberated herself.
Then she put away everything and returned to “emptiness” (A state of mind unattached to any materialistic concerns and emotional disturbances).
So…Actually, when I saw her,
It was also… to me…Actually…it would
How should I put it? It was spiritually encouraging to me.
Because I feel tha every time, when she was in so much pain.
She would still tell me a lot of philosophical wisdom about life.
Let me relax a bit and feel less stressed.
And…So, based on her guidance.
I got this inspiration.
I wrote this song.
And in this song, I’ve used many…elements in Buddhist practice
It’s like you have been walking in the desert.
And you’ve been meditating about all kinds of bitterness and sweetness in life.
Eventually, everything returns to “emptiness”.
You may see a mirage.
So the second new song for the concert.
I gave it a very cute name. It’s called “Flowers in a Small Town”.
Later, in the variety show “Ace VS Ace (王牌对王牌)S7” EP6, Hua Chenyu explained in more detail that this song was written to his mother, who was hospitalized with a terminal illness and only had a few months left to live.
Hua Chenyu Writing About His Creation of “Flowers in a Small Town” on Weibo:
In fact, many people already know that this song is about a relative who passed away. The “flower” in it refers to my mother. I wrote this song last year because my mother passed away. The lyrics contain a lot of scenes about spiritual practice. The main reason is that about ten years ago, my mother suddenly told me that she wanted to become a Buddhist nun. In the past ten years, she often went to the temple to live for a long period of time to learn Buddhism and recite scriptures. Since then, whenever I was down, she would often enlighten me and help me out of confusion.
My mother was not tall, she looked very petite and cute. I remember that when I was in kindergarten, a female classmate told me that my mother was very beautiful. I didn’t have a deep concept of beauty at the time, but I was pleased after listening to it. Since then, I have always thought that my mother is the most beautiful woman in the world, so there is the description of “gorgeous and delicate” in the lyrics. When I wrote this song, I always had a picture in my mind: A monk is walking hard against a sandstorm in a large desert, and then he sees a woman standing and dancing in the air far away in front of him. The monk walks towards the woman, but like a mirage, he can’t reach her no matter how he tries, he can only watch her from a distance. So there is the lyric “I can’t find her”, which means that the most beautiful flower will always bloom in the most suitable place. Although you will never be able to reach her, you can always appreciate the beauty that she brought to the world.
Let’s briefly talk about the creation of this song. The song is one of my rare creations in the traditional Chinese style in the whole album. The harmony is also different from the previous harmonies I’ve used. In many places, the fourth-degree harmony is used to reflect a kind of Chan (Zen) vibe acoustically. In addition, in the second half, there is a low-pitched guitar timbre in a double-melody polyphony with my vocals, trying to reflect a sense of difficult steps brought about by the harsh environment on the road of spiritual practice. Furthermore, I designed a long solo for the ending and used a trumpet (in the Chinese folk version, a Suona) for reflecting the tragic yet perseverant feeling of life when flowers bloom in a sea of fire.
MV Interpretation
This MV transforms the concept of spiritual practice mentioned in the background introduction of Hua Chenyu’s “Flowers in a Small Town” into visual imagery, creating a situation of “one flower, one world” from the Buddhist Avatamsaka Sutra.
To present a tranquil and meditative fictional world in the MV, the production team did not choose the commonly known yellow desert, but instead chose a white desert with a clear blue sky, extending and developing the singer’s mental image as the central idea: a monk walks alone in an endless white desert, seemingly lost in a mirage. He sees a woman in red walking towards a giant stone relic symbolizing the small town, and the monk follows her through the heavy stones, thinking he has reached a dead end, but he discovers a wide and bright green oasis hidden behind the stones… The woman in red dances on a rock above the oasis, and her dance reflects on the monk’s face mask. The sunset and the arch-shaped stones are like a giant eye. As the rhythm of the dance changes, the sky undergoes a solar eclipse transformation, and the solar eclipse reflected on the monk’s face mask brings everything back to the beginning of the story in the desert, and the monk sets off again… Leaving a swaying carnation in the desert, beautiful yet fleeting.
To be closer to the Buddhist concept of “the universe in a grain of sand,” the opening title of the “Flowers in a Small Town” MV chose a design that shows dust gathering, and the handwritten lyrics express both emotions towards the singer’s mother and emotions in the details. The face of the monk in the mirror with no facial features represents that anyone can be a monk, and the world reflected in the face is what he imagines (appearance is generated from the mind). The main color scheme of the MV is dominated by blue and white, breaking the traditional image of ascetic monks. The video editing integrated Zen and aesthetics, and it echoes the broad worldview conveyed in the “Flowers in a Small Town” song.
2. Videos
MV
Mars Concert 2021 (first realeased)
“Ace VS Ace” S7-EP6
“Flower Bloom in Spring” EP10 (Chinese Folk Ver.)
3. Lyrics Translation
Lyricist: Lyu Yiqiu |
| 小镇里的花 | Flowers in a Small Town |
|---|---|
| 山 | Mountain |
| 请你慢些走向我呀 | please walk slowly towards me |
| 跨过河流 | Crossing over the river |
| 别惊醒了渔人 | don’t wake up the fisherman |
| 风 | The wind |
| 将云卷成几张幡呀 | rolled up the cloud like several long narrow white flags |
| 那飞鸟就 | A flying bird |
| 衔来天边黄昏 | fetched the dusk from the edge of the sky |
| 海 | The ocean |
| 盛不下这一弯月呀 | can’t hold in this crescent moon |
| 溢出眉头 | The eyebrows revealed a past |
| 回首满是风尘 | full of wind and dust |
| 火 | Fire |
| 烧着星辰熄不灭呀 | it’s burning the stars, it can’t be extinguished |
| 万丈高楼 | In the high-rises |
| 藏着烂漫天真 | there hides the innocence |
| 那场火 | That round of fire |
| 烧出人心的道道沟壑 | left many chasms in people’s hearts |
| 花 | The flower |
| 就在火海里摇曳开着 | swayed and bloomed in the fire |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 小镇里的花啊 | The flower in a small town |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 艳丽又娇美呀 | It’s so gorgeous and delicate |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 总也寻不得 | It’s so hard to find her |
| 哟喂嘿哟 哟喂嘿哟 | Yo-ei-hey-yo, yo-ei-hey-yo |
| 话 | Words |
| 就在嘴里边跌宕呀 | are rolling at the tip of the tongue |
| 说出来就化作陡峭山河 | They will turn into steep cliffs and deep rivers if they are spoken |
| 心 | Hearts |
| 隔着几重那由他呀 | are separated by nayuta |
| 我悲喜都 | My sadness and joy |
| 只换来这场无声的野火 | have all turned into this silent wild fire |
| 那场火 | The immortal |
| 烧出不坏的那尊是我 | born through that fire is me |
| 花 | The flower |
| 就在火海里灿烂开着 | blooms brightly in the sea of fire |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 小镇里的花啊 | The flower in a small town |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 艳丽又娇美呀 | It’s so gorgeous and delicate |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 总也寻不得 | It’s so hard to find her |
| 哟喂嘿哟 哟喂嘿哟 | Yo-ei-hey-yo, yo-ei-hey-yo |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 小镇里的花啊 | The flower in a small town |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 艳丽又娇美呀 | It’s so gorgeous and delicate |
| 哎呀 哎呀 | Aya, aya |
| 流云开一朵 | The flowing cloud just bloomed |
| 哟喂嘿哟 哟喂嘿哟 | Yo-ei-hey-yo, yo-ei-hey-yo |