Shui Shang Ren (From the 1982 HK movie "Monkey Business") - Teresa Teng

This is a song from a 1982 HK movie starring a young Kenny Bee. While the movie can only be, at best, categorised as a B-rated film (I was debating whether or not to omit the movie credit from the first page of my music sheet, the English title itself raises eyebrows), it’s really the song that has become a Teresa Teng classic and had been playing in the back-burner of my mind for the last few months. Its nostalgic intro and the I - vim - VII - V chord changes on the line “啊, 我们生长在这里, 与河水不分离” never fails to get my heartstrings going on every playback. So, I took a break from Kdrama songs to work on this song, in order to get it out of my system :D

The title of the song more or less translates to "people living on the water" and it uses the Yangqin and Guzheng (not a Chinese instrument expert, so correct me if I’m wrong) to emulate the unbreakable flow of the river. The song’s intro is very recognizable (if you are a Teresa Teng fan) so I wanted to ensure that my cover did exactly that on the piano. As with a lot of songs of that time, this one merges traditional elements (Chinese instruments) into Western influences (bass + percussion + style).

Fun fact: The composer-lyricist pair of this song is 左宏元 (pen name 古月) and 庄奴. Apparently, both are also the creative pair for other Teresa Teng songs such as 海韵 (Ocean Waves), and 江水悠悠泪长流 (Endless River, Endless Tears), at least, that's what Baidu (the Chynah Google) tells me :) For some reason, Chinese composers of that time sure loved writing music around things to do with nature...