Songs to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the First Moon Landing

After a long absence, I've finally decided to post something here again, inspired, as noted in my other long-neglected blog, by the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon. I did two separate shows on my radio program dedicated to the topic. In the first I played songs from 1969, the year of the Apollo 11 landing (as well as the Apollo 12 landing and the Apollo 10 flight to the Moon), including songs from Taiwan, Britain and the US, some of them directly connected to the Apollo missions, others not. In my other show I played songs connected with outer space in some way or another. Here I'd like to highlight a few of the songs with a direct or indirect connection with the Apollo missions. Some of them I played on my show,  but others I didn't, either because I didn't have room for them or in a few cases because I only discovered them in the week since I recorded the second show.

"Fly Me to the Moon" (Bart Howard) as performed by Frank Sinatra (the link is to a live version)
"Everyone's Gone to the Moon" (Jonathan King) as performed by Jonathan King
These two songs are connected to the Apollo 11 mission in a different way from the ones described below. They weren't inspired by the Apollo missions, as they predate them (indeed one of them predates even Sputnik), and they aren't really about space or space exploration. The Sinatra song was in fact originally titled "In Other Words", which is the phrase repeated in the chorus; "Fly me to the Moon" is the opening line of the song, and only this and the subsequent lines about the stars, Jupiter and Mars have anything to do with space. But Sinatra's version (recorded in 1964; the song itself dates back to 1954) was taken to the Moon by the Apollo 11 astronauts, and Buzz Aldrin supposedly played it while he and Neil Armstrong were on the Moon, making it the first song to be actually played on the Moon (though there is some dispute about whether this happened, as Aldrin's comments have been inconsistent and, unlike most of the songs played on the way to and from the Moon, the song isn't on any of the audio recorded during the mission - though he could have played during a time when they were out of contact with Earth). As for "Everyone's Gone to the Moon", written and recorded by Jonathan King in 1965, the crew listened to it at some point on the way back to Earth. Aldrin seems to have been the one who brought it, as he was the one who brought contemporary popular music (Michael Collins let the others choose the music, and Neil Armstrong brought some more exotic recordings, such as Harry Revel and Les Baxter's Music Out of the Moon), but in his autobiography Michael Collins said that though he'd never heard it before it was his favorite of the songs the others brought, as he found it "restful". While my own impressions of Jonathan King as a person are not particularly good, despite his role in giving Genesis its start, this song is pretty decent, though as far as I know it's the only good thing he did.

"Space Oddity" (David Bowie) as performed by David Bowie
This is an obvious one, not only because it is clearly inspired in part by the Apollo missions as well as the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, but because it was released just a few days before Apollo 11 launched for the Moon. The BBC actually played it during their coverage of the Moon landing, even though, as Bowie himself later commented, the fact that the trip didn't end well for Major Tom made it a somewhat questionable choice. Many decades later, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield had similar qualms about the lyrics when his son urged him to do a cover of the song on the International Space Station, so he asked his son to rewrite the lyrics to fit his own situation. Apparently Bowie approved. I was able to watch Hadfield perform his version of the song live at the Starmus festival last month; on keyboards was Rick Wakeman, who played Mellotron on the original recording (he also played piano on "Life on Mars?").

"Armstrong" (John Stewart) as performed by John Stewart
Many years ago, I read about this song in a book - I forget the title, but it was something like 100 Great Songs - but I didn't actually hear it until very recently. In late June, as mentioned above, I attended the Starmus festival, at which Buzz Aldrin, among other prominent astronauts, scientists and musicians, was a speaker. At the festival, they showed the new film Apollo 11, which was put together entirely from original footage from the Apollo era, without any new dialogue or narration, though in some scenes music was added (the director and producer were part of a panel discussion before the film showing along with Neil Armstrong's son Rick). In one scene, Aldrin was playing music on a portable cassette player as the astronauts are travelling toward the Moon. At first the song is heard directly from the original footage, with the expected loss of quality, but suddenly it becomes clear and loud, turning into part of the soundtrack for the subsequent scene.

After returning to Taiwan, I looked up the song, which was "Mother Country" by John Stewart. When I did so I discovered that he had also written and performed "Armstrong" (his most successful composition was "Daydream Believer", though he himself only recorded it several years after it was a huge hit for the Monkees). He started work on the song even before the landing had taken place, and released it as a single soon after, probably in August or early September (a new recording of the song with some tweaks to the arrangement was released in 1973 on Stewart's album Cannons in the Rain). The song was controversial at the time of its initial release and was even the target of record burnings because some thought it was criticizing the Moon landing. But while it does have a certain degree of ambivalence, it's actually positive about Armstrong's achievement. It says that while the world still had unspeakable poverty and suffering, war, and growing environmental problems, the moment when Armstrong walked upon the Moon brought people all over the Earth together, if only for a brief moment. Armstrong's Apollo 11 crewmate Michael Collins made a similar observation about how people he met as they toured the world after their return viewed the landing as an achievement by humankind, not just one nation. Stewart's song captures this well, while reminding us that a lot of problems remain. This is most clearly encapsulated in the penultimate verse: "The rivers are getting dirty/The wind is getting bad/War and hate are killing off/The only earth we have/But the world all stopped to watch it/On that July afternoon/To watch a man named Armstrong/Walk upon the moon". It does slip from realism into mythology in the final lines when it draws a parallel between Armstrong and Adam, but even this verse is only weak in comparison with the powerful ones that came before. In any case, the song is one of the best written about the Moon landing, made all the more appropriate by the fact that another songs by its writer/performer was listened to by the Apollo astronauts on the way to the Moon.

"Armstrong,Aldrin and Collins" (Z. Manners/S. Seely) as performed by The Byrds
This song is more the kind of thing that those who protested John Stewart's "Armstrong" wanted to hear, though both share the sentiment that the achievement made people all over "proud of the human race". But this song is thoroughly positive, at least in the portion that appears at the end of the Byrds' album Ballad of Easy Rider; their recording fades out after just over a minute. One of the writers, Zeke Manners, was also a country singer and sometime comedian (among other things, he wrote a song called "Take My Wife, Please" for Henny Youngman), but if he himself recorded the song, I couldn't find a copy. It certainly doesn't come close to Stewart's song, but it is at least nice that all three of the astronauts got a mention.

"Moonhead" (Gilmour/Waters/Mason/Wright) as performed by Pink Floyd
I only first heard of this recording a few days ago, in an article about it from The Atlantic. It was an improvised instrumental jam that the band played to accompany a BBC program on the eve of the Moon landing. The same program also featured the newly released "Space Oddity", by a still relatively unknown David Bowie. While this is one of Pink Floyd's most obscure recordings, it creates the appropriate atmosphere to accompany that historic moment.

"For Michael Collins, Jeffery and Me" (Ian Anderson) as performed by Jethro Tull
A track from Jethro Tull's 1970 album Benefit that it is sung in part from the perspective of Michael Collins, who remained in orbit around the Moon when Armstrong and Aldrin went to down to the surface. While the thoughts expressed are probably more reflective of Ian Anderson's outlook than that of Collins himself, it's an interesting song with that distinctive Jethro Tull sound.

"Rocket Man" (Elton John/Bernie Taupin) as performed by Elton John
While Elton John's hit song doesn't expressly refer to the Apollo missions, they surely played a role in inspiring Taupin's lyrics, though the direct inspiration is said to be another song by the same name written by Tom Rapp and performed by Pearls Before Swine, which in turn was inspired by a Ray Bradbury story. Nevertheless, the Apollo missions were still taking place at the time the song was released (Apollo 16 launched the month after the song came out, and Apollo 17, the last mission to the Moon, launched at the end of the same year), and while those were only going to the Moon, not to Mars, the closest living equivalents to the song's Rocket Man were the Apollo astronauts. However, unlike the astronaut in the song, they understood a lot of the science and mostly likely didn't think of their jobs as ordinary nine-to-five ones. Be that as it may, this ranks along with "Space Oddity" as one of the most successful songs about space travel.

"Alan Bean" (Darren Hayman) as performed by Hefner
Like several other songs in this list, this is a new discovery. A song about one of the Apollo astronauts who struck me as one of the most personally likable, and who became a talented painter, putting his art skills to use in conveying what it was like to walk on the Moon. I don't know what Alan Bean himself thought of the song, but I would imagine he liked it (the band apparently did get a chance to speak to him at one point, but I don't know what was said). The video in the link above consists of paintings by Al Bean accompanied by the song. An interesting bit of trivia: Tom Hanks, the actor who played Jim Lovell in the movie Apollo 13, wrote a short story titled "Alan Bean Plus Four" about a group of friends making a trip around the Moon in a spacecraft that the narrator had named Alan Bean, after the astronaut.

"Rocket Experience" (Lisa Cannon) as performed by Buzz Aldrin aka Doc Rendezvous
This is something I just came across, an entertaining rap song performed by Buzz Aldrin himself in 2009 not long before the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing, when Aldrin was 79. The track was produced by Snoop Dog with help from Quincy Jones (who also produced the recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" Aldrin played on the Moon), Talib Kweli, and Soulja Boy. Of course it includes plenty of lines about Aldrin's moon walking, as well as his promoting future space missions to Mars. The "Making of" video is also pretty entertaining.

"Michael Collins" as performed by The Boy Least Likely To
I only first heard this song the other day, but it is a pretty good one. Michael Collins himself would disagree with the characterization that he was lonely, as he's said many times that he wasn't (for that matter, John Young flew alone for a short time on Apollo 10, and the command module pilots on many of the later Apollo missions were alone in orbit considerably longer than Collins), but the worry that he might have to return to Earth alone if things went badly for Armstrong and Aldrin was one he said he had at the time. The song also talks about a sentiment Collins and other astronauts have expressed, how one gets an entirely new perspective on the Earth when you see it from a distance.

"Contact" (Bangalter/Homem-Christo/Queme/Braithwaite/Mitchell/Porter) as performed by Daft Punk
This track by the well-known French electronic music duo opens with a snippet of dialogue spoken by Gene Cernan, the last person to walk on the Moon, during the Apollo 17 mission. While that's it's only direct connection to the Apollo missions, the music itself is worth a listen, even for those who like me don't listen to much electronic music. It makes an interesting contrast to "Moonhead".

"Tracy's Song" as performed by No More Kings
This evocative song is also closely connected to Gene Cernan and his trip to the Moon on Apollo 17. Tracy was the name of Cernan's daughter, and at one point he traced her initials in the lunar dust. Though as with a number of the other songs written as if from the astronaut's perspective, it may not be a completely accurate reflection of Cernan's own feelings, the basic facts are accurate and the rest, accurate or not, creates a poignant mood. Incidentally, there was also a large rock on the Moon that was examined by Cernan and Harrison Schmidt which later was nicknamed "Tracy's Rock". One of the more commonly seen photos from the Moon, taken by Cernan, shows Schmidt and the lunar rover near the rock. It seems that fellow moonwalker Alan Bean told Cernan he was going to do a painting of it, and Cernan said if he'd known how popular the picture would be he'd have written his daughter's name on it. So Bean painted the scene as if he had done so, which has led some to believe inaccurately that Cernan actually wrote her name there, when it was apparently somewhere else. Also, unlike in the song or in Bean's painting, Cernan wrote her initials, not her full first name, and he apparently didn't think to take a picture of them. But, as he said in later interviews, they'll still be there for people to see when humans finally return to the Moon.

"Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" (Alex Turner) as performed by Arctic Monkeys
Tranquility Base, of course, was what the Apollo 11 landing site was called. This song is the title track to the Arctic Monkey's 2018 album, and is sung from the perspective of a receptionist at the hotel and casino in question and is a satire on sterile modern life. The band's vocalist, Alex Turner, sounds quite a bit like David Bowie on this song and even more so on the other song from the album that I listened to, "Four Out of Five". The connection with the Moon landing is basically just in the title and the concept of a hotel and casino at Tranquility Base, something which of course should never be allowed to be built in reality - though it may be unavoidable if Moon tourism ever becomes a big thing, as Tranquility Base will certainly be one of the biggest attractions.

"Charlie Duke Took Country Music to the Moon" as performed by the Stryker Brothers

This is another recent release that I just discovered the other day, and it relates the true story of Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke taking a tape of country music on his flight to the Moon. It even incorporates the spoken introduction that Merle Haggard recorded on the original tape, presumably provided by Charlie Duke himself. Duke is one of the last four living moonwalkers and, along with the late Al Bean, strikes me as one of the most easy-going and likable of the Apollo astronauts. He also played a big role in Apollo 11, as he was one of the Capcoms (capsule communicators) who were responsible for relaying whatever messages Mission Control had for the astronauts. He was Capcom when Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the Moon. As for the song, since I'm not a huge country fan I can't say I like it as well as most of the others on this list, but it's not bad, and it tells the story well.

Other Space Songs:
Of course a list of all the space-related songs out there could go on forever. I played a few on my recent show, like the Byrds' "Mr. Spaceman", Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine", Jimi Hendrix's "Up From the Skies", David Bowie's "Starman", Brian Eno's instrumental "Under Stars", Eric Idle of Monty Python's "Galaxy Song", Blur's "Far Out", Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai's "太空彈", Taiwanese aboriginal band Matzka's "089", Brian May's "New Horizons" and several more. But of course there are far more than can be fit into a two hour show, so there were great songs I had to leave out, including Hendrix's "Third Stone from the Sun", Pink Floyd's "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun", Bowie's "Life on Mars?", Genesis's "Watcher of the Skies", Stevie Wonder's "Saturn", the Police's "Walking on the Moon" and Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Exogenesis: Symphony", among others. One I just discovered deserves special mention here, as it has a little bit of a relationship to the Apollo missions, though somewhat more indirect than the songs listed above. The song is Rush's "Countdown", which is about the launch of the first orbital Space Shuttle flight, which took place in 1981 and was watched by the band in person. The track includes recordings of dialogue spoken by mission control and the two astronauts on the Space Shuttle, John Young and Robert Crippen. John Young, of course, was also an Apollo astronaut (and before that a Gemini astronaut) and flew to the Moon twice (one of only three people to do so), walking on it during Apollo 16 along with Charlie Duke. Since the Rush song is about the space shuttle, not Apollo, I didn't include it above, but it's a reminder of what an amazing career John Young had - the first person to fly six space missions (the current record is seven, held by two astronauts, with a number of others tied with Young at six), the longest career of any astronaut, and the only person to have piloted and commanded four different types of spacecraft (Gemini, the Apollo command module, the Apollo lunar module, and the Space Shuttle).

A final special mention goes to a song which has no connection to Apollo but is perhaps my favorite song about space travel. It's one I played on my show and heard live at Starmus, performed by its composer in a new arrangement, backed by an orchestra. I refer to the Queen song "'39", written by the band's guitarist Brian May, who also sang lead vocals on the studio version from the band's masterpiece A Night at the Opera (Queen's lead vocalist Freddie Mercury sang backing vocals on the studio version, though he sang lead when they did the song in concert). May studied astrophysics (he later finished his PhD, so he is now an actual astrophysicist), and so while the song might be mistaken for a tale about a sea voyage, a closer listen reveals that the "milky seas" in question are the Milky Way galaxy. What's more, the song is perhaps the only major rock song to hinge on Einstein's theory of relativity, specifically the time dilation that would occur if one were to travel at a speed close to the speed of light (probably not likely to ever happen in reality, but this is a science fiction story). The voyagers leave in the year '39 (the century is deliberately not revealed) and return a hundred years later, having only aged one year. It's very cleverly done, and the catchy melody is a match for the lyrics. It certainly should be ranked among the all time best space related songs, along with obvious ones like "Space Oddity". Brian May's performance of the song at the recent Starmus is worth checking out too.

A Brief Update

Yes, I'm still alive and (mostly) well, and still involved in a lot of music related activities, aside from what personal listening I manage to find time for. But as is readily apparent, I've gotten out of the habit of regularly updating this blog. It's not for lack of things to write about; there're plenty of albums, songs and groups I could comment about, and I've even had occasional personal news that would have been worth reporting here. For an example of the latter, my radio show on Alian 96.3 was nominated for a Golden Bell Award for Non-Popular Music Radio Program, and I myself got a nomination as host. Though I didn't win, getting nominated was recognition enough. But as this blog is less for that kind of news and more for relatively in depth musings on music related topics, with a particular focus on writing in English (as I think I should set up a separate blog for things I manage to write in Chinese about Taiwanese music, though I will occasionally refer to them here), most future entries will still be along those lines - which means they'll only appear when I get around to writing something. Until then, happy new year and happy listening!

Album Review - Led Zeppelin IV

Last month I posted the tracklists for the first four CDs of the Taiwanese pop music compiliation I put together many years ago. I was going to post the tracklists for the next few CDs this month, but the other day I happened accross a music writer's ranking of all Led Zeppelin songs, and it occurred to me that I hadn't done any entries on that classic 1970s band. I thought about doing a list of my favorite songs by the group, but even if I avoided trying to rank them it's often a difficult task to pick a set number of songs, and anyway some albums would inevitably get shortchanged as I haven't listened to them in a long time. So instead I decided to do a review of the band's most familiar album, though I may get around to making a list encompassing other favorites, or reviewing some of their other albums.

Album Title: Led Zeppelin IV
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Release Date: November 8, 1971

Side One
Black Dog (Jones/Page/Plant)
Rock and Roll (Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant)
Battle of Evermore (Page/Plant)
Stairway to Heaven (Page/Plant)

Side Two
Misty Mountain Hop (Jones/Page/Plant)
Four Sticks (Page/Plant)
Going to California (Page/Plant)
When the Levee Breaks (Memphis Minnie[/Kansas Joe McCoy]/Bonham/Jones/Page/Plant)

All of Led Zeppelin's albums were huge in the 1970s, a decade that was the heyday of "album rock", in no small part because of Zeppelin themselves (granted, the band's first two albums were actually released at the tail end of the 1960s, but even those albums remained radio staples throughout the following decade) and continued to sell well for years afterward. However, their fourth album
has to be their most well-known, largely though not entirely because of the presence of "Stairway to Heaven", the song that consistently topped "best songs of all time" votes on classic rock radio for decades after its release. Whether it is actually their best album is of course highly subjective; I'd say a good case can be made for Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti (II and III are also very good, if not quite as varied, and I'm even quite fond of much of the somewhat inconsistent In Through the Out Door, but none of these can match the middle three albums - in my opinion, of course). But this album is certainly one of their best, and not just because of "Stairway". Several of the eight songs on the album are almost universally regarded as classics, and none of them are truly weak. I'd say that if this album falls short anywhere in comparison with its two successors, it's in terms of variety. Not that it lacks variety - songs like "Going to California" and "The Battle of Evermore" are quite different both from each other and from the stereotypical heavy rock song that many people associate with Zeppelin. But there is even greater variety on Houses of the Holy and Physical Graffiti, particularly the latter - though that is a somewhat unfair comparison, since Physical Graffiti, as a double album, has far more songs. The other two albums also each have a number of songs that rank among the band's best, though that is true of IV as well.

Note on album title: Technically, this album doesn't have an official title, since there isn't one on the cover. It is sometimes referred to using the four symbols that appear on the inner sleeve, each representing a band member, for example as Runes, Four Symbols, or Zoso (after Jimmy Page's symbol, the first of the four, which resembles those letters). It is also sometimes called simply Untitled. But since the band's first three albums were titled Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II, and Led Zeppelin III, the title most commonly given to the fourth album is Led Zeppelin IV, a title often used by Page himself. 

Note on links: There don't seem to be links to the studio versions of a few of these songs on You Tube (presumably either the record company or the band blocks any attempts to upload them), so some of the links are to live versions, which are often noticeably different from the studio versions.

Led Zeppelin IV Song by Song

Black Dog: The iconic opening track, famous for its call and response structure (which Peter Green had previously used to great effect in the Fleetwood Mac song "Oh Well") and the riff written by bassist John Paul Jones. Pretty much anyone who has listened to any amount of classic rock will recognize Robert Plant's opening line and then the thundering riff. Some of Plant's lyrics are (not
for the first time in the band's career) on the misogynistic side, but that aside the song is very much deserving of its classic status.

Rock and Roll: Another widely recognized classic, powered by some intense drumming by John Bonham. Plant's vocals are excellent, though his lyrics (paying tribute to the early rock & roll of the 1950s) are not always intelligible - again not unusual for the band. Rolling Stones pianist Ian Stewart also played on the track, his piano connecting the song more closely to the music it celebrates, though of course Zeppelin's version of "rock & roll" is kicked up a notch. Another high point on an album full of them.

Battle of Evermore: After two hard rocking tunes, the band wisely decided to slow things down with this song, the music for which Page wrote on Jones's mandolin. The mandolin alone makes the song unique in the band's catalogue, and Plant's Tolkienesque lyrics add to the medieval atmosphere. The song is a duet between Plant and folk singer Sandy Denny, another unique feature of the song, as it
is the only time the band featured a guest vocalist. While this song doesn't have quite the classic status of the two that precede it (or the one that comes after it), it is a solid album track and gives the album greater variety.

Stairway to Heaven: What hasn't already been said about this song? The features of it that appeal to me are the same that appeal to many others - its slow build up from gentle folk tune to powerhouse rock song, the musical variety encompassed in its eight minutes of playing time, the vague yet appealing poetry of the lyrics, and the impressive performance by the band. As it was for some many
others (to the point that the movie Wayne's World made a joke out of it), its opening was one of the first things I learned to play on the guitar (I got to the point where I could play the whole song, though not with any great facility and without any soloing, but now I just remember the beginning and a few bits here and there through the remainder of the song). It is still one of my favorite
Led Zeppelin songs, though nowadays I'd have to say I like "Kashmir", "Over the Hills and Far Away", "Houses of the Holy" and a few others about as much. As for the question that recently has been debated widely in the media and the courts, i.e., did Zeppelin and Page in particular rip off the tune "Taurus" by the band Spirit and its guitarist Randy California? I have to say that the jury probably made the right choice in denying the claim (though apparently the decision is being appealed). There is unquestionably a close resemblance between the opening bars of "Taurus" and "Stairway", and I have no doubt Page was, consciously or unconsiously, influenced by the Spirit track. But even the opening bit is not completely identical, and the progression is a rather obvious one that had been used many times before in the past, as was pointed out in Zeppelin's defense, meaning that while Page's "composition" wasn't entirely original, but then neither was Randy California's. As for the rest of the song, it is completely different. So this is not a case where Zeppelin should be forced to share credit, unlike "Dazed and Confused" or "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You". The fact that the iconic opening is not as original as many fans thought does puncture somewhat the song's aura of near sacredness, but then no song, however good, deserves to be treated like it's a holy relic, and anyone who knows music history well knows that complete originality is virtually impossible, at least in any song that has mass appeal.
Misty Mountain Hop: While this song isn't played quite as often as some of the others on the album, I've always been quite fond of it, and its a contender for my favorite track on side two, though "Going to California" in particular is hard to beat. This one is a pretty straight forward rocker with a nice groove to it, and some fun, California hippy inspired lyrics by Plant.

Four Sticks: This is another solid track, and one I enjoy when I'm actually listening to it, but for some reason I've never found it quite as memorable as the rest of the album. Still, most heavy rock bands would no doubt be thrilled to have something as good in their catalogs.

Going to California: A folk ballad inspired by Joni Mitchell is pretty far from most people's idea of a typical Led Zeppelin song, but that's exactly what this is, and it's a great piece of work. Page demonstrates his acoustic guitar chops and Plant shows his versatility as a vocalist. This song is regarded by many as one of the band's best, and with good reason.

When the Levee Breaks: Another song generally regarded as a classic, with Bonham's crashing drums in particular inspiring a generation of drummers and ending up widely sampled in hip hop. I tend to prefer "Going to California" or even "Misty Mountain Hop" from this side of the album, but it's a pretty close call. Notably, this song harkens back to the band's first two albums in that it is a total rewrite of an old blues song, in this case one from the 1920s originally written and performed by the husband and wife team of Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. Zeppelin co-credited Memphis Minnie on their original release (unlike some other recordings where they failed to credit the original writers of the songs they redid, though in many cases probably through ignorance of the song's origins). But as with similar tracks on earlier albums, the band drastically transformed the song, making it into something quite different from the original song.

Old Taiwanese Pop Music Collection (Part 1)

I've enjoyed putting together compilations of various types since I first really got into listening to music back in college. My first compliations were done on cassette tape, so they were basically what were called "mix tapes", though I didn't know the term at the time. In one of the first entries on this blog I talked about one of the best ones I did in college, my compilation of music from the psychedelic rock era. After I came to Taiwan, I eventually started listening to the local pop music, and a friend (one who I later started dating and eventually married) gave me a mix tape of some of the pop music she liked, mostly by singer-songwriters as opposed to pop idols. Through her and my own listening, I eventually got to know enough Taiwanese pop music to start thinking about
making my own Taiwanese pop music compilations.  In fact it was in part my attempts to put together compilations in approximate chronological order and featuring the original recorded versions of the songs that impelled me to begin doing my own research and start collecting the original records with the recordings I wanted. My first Taiwanese pop music compilation I did on cassette tape, but not long after I switched to CD. I did two compilations on CD, with the second being by far the lengthier and more comprehensive, though now I can't help but feel it is missing a lot. After all it's been something like 20 years since I put together, so even for the period it covers (approximately 1973 to 1995) I have since acquired a lot of music which would be worthy of inclusion in an updated compilation (and in at least one case, the song "美麗島" ("Formosa") on the first CD, I would now put on the earlier but never formally released recording by Yang Zujun and Hu Defu, which is vastly superior to the one by Yang Zujun alone). There are also some minor chronological issues, such as the placement of the song "Pitiful Luckless Man", which was actually released in 1981. Nevertheless, I thought it might be interesting to post some of it here. To start with, I'm just posting the tracklists for the first four CDs out of the 18 that make up the complete set. I'll post the others at some point in the future. I should note that while I have including the romanizations of the vocalists' names, I haven't included translations of all the song titles, as I haven't had the time to translate all of them.

第一集 Volume 1 (1973-1979)
1愛之旅Love's Travels    洪小喬Hong Xiaoqiao    3:18
2不要告別Don't Say Farewell    李金鈴Li Jinling    3:13
3我的歌My Song    洪小喬Hong Xiaoqiao    2:19
4雲河River of Clouds    黃鶯鶯Huang Yingying    3:11
5民歌手Folk Singer   楊弦Yang Xian （女聲Female Voice：徐可欣Xu Kexin）   3:51
6迴旋曲Rondo   楊弦Yang Xian    4:21
7歌Song    張艾嘉Zhang Aijia （男聲Male Voice：劉文正Liu Wenzheng）    2:55
8小雨打在我身上The Rain Falls on Me    劉文正Liu Wenzheng    3:42
9我是一片雲I Am a Cloud    鳳飛飛Feng Feifei    3:40
10好了歌Won Done Song    吳楚楚Wu Chuchu    2:43
11美麗島Formosa    楊祖珺Yang Zujun    2:54
12如果If    邰肇玫Tai Zhaomei&施碧梧Shi Biwu    2:41
13惜別Reluctant Parting    張艾嘉Zhang Aijia    3:21
14牛背上的小孩Child on Ox Back    胡德夫Hu Defu    2:47
15再別康橋Farewell Cambridge    范廣慧Fan Guanghui    3:18
16小雨中的回憶Memories in the Rain    劉宗立Liu Zongli、曾佩媛Zeng Peiyuan、陳淑惠Chen Shuhui    3:38
17姑娘的酒窩The Girl's Dimples    高凌風Gao Lingfeng    3:03
18閃亮的日子Brilliant Days    劉文正Liu Wenzheng    3:44
19橄欖樹Olive Tree    齊豫Qi Yu    3:46
20鄉間的小路Little Road in the Country    葉佳修Ye Jiaxiu    3:19
21歡顏Joyful Countenance    齊豫Qi Yu    3:49
22走在雨中Walking in the Rain    齊豫Qi Yu    3:46

第二集 Volume 2 (1979-1981)
1風兒輕輕吹The Wind Blows Gently    劉文正Liu Wenzheng    3:12
2廟會Temple Festival     王夢麟Wang Menglin    3:03
3雨中即景Scenes in the Rain     王夢麟Wang Menglin    3:09
4情奔 Rush of Passion   劉文正Liu Wenzheng    3:42
5恰似你的溫柔Like Your Tenderness    蔡琴Cai Qin    4:01
6曠野寄情Wilderness Abandonment    李建復Li Jianfu    3:31
7歸去來兮    李建復Li Jianfu    3:58
8出塞曲    蔡琴Cai Qin    2:57
9抉擇Decision    蔡琴Cai Qin    3:30
10也許Maybe    張艾嘉Zhang Aijia    4:01
11我們曾經年輕We Were Once Young    張艾嘉Zhang Aijia    2:01
12今山古道    黃大城Huang Dacheng    2:56
13偈    王海玲Wang Hailing    3:29
14童年Childhood    張艾嘉Zhang Aijia    3:41
15光陰的故事The Story of Time    張艾嘉Zhang Aijia    3:01
16月琴Yueqin    鄭怡Zheng Yi    3:57
17秋蟬Autumn Cicada    楊芳儀Yang Fangyi、徐曉菁Xu Xiaoqing    3:44
18拜訪春天Paying a Visit to Springtime    施孝榮Shi Xiaorong    3:15
19柴拉可汗Chaila Khan    李建復Li Jianfu    4:11
20變色的長城    費玉清Fei Yuqing   4:16
21一千個春天A Thousand Springs    蔡琴Cai Qin、李建復Li Jianfu    4:13

第三集 Volume 3 (1982-1983)
1鹿港小鎮Little Town of Lugang    羅大佑Luo Dayou    4:45
2戀曲1980Love Song 1980    羅大佑Luo Dayou    3:22
3就在今夜Tonight's the Night    丘丘合唱團Qiuqiu Band    3:08
4為何夢見他Why Do I Dream of Him    丘丘合唱團Qiuqiu Band    3:40
5之乎者也Pedantry    羅大佑Luo Dayou    4:06
6將進酒    羅大佑Luo Dayou    4:23
7天天天藍Blue Skies Every Day    潘越雲Pan Yueyun    3:37
8守著陽光守著你    潘越雲Pan Yueyun    4:50
9心事誰人知Who Understands My Heart    沈文程Shen Wencheng    3:28
10可憐的落魄人 Pitiful Luckless Man   陳明仁Chen Mingren    3:21
11散場電影   木吉他合唱團Wooden Guitars    3:56
12但願人長久    鄧麗君Deng Lijun    4:06
13思君    鄧麗君Deng Lijun    3:46
14心情    潘越雲Pan Yueyun    3:26
15野白合也有春天Spring Comes to the Wild Lily    潘越雲Pan Yueyun    3:16
16你是我所有的回憶You Are All I Recall    齊豫Qi Yu    5:12
17三月的風March Wind    齊豫Qi Yu    4:25
18小雨來得正是時候When The Rain Comes Is the Time    鄭怡Zheng Yi    3:20
19結束Ending    鄭怡Zheng Yi & 李宗盛Li Zongsheng    3:53

 第四集 Volume 4 (1983-1984)
1一樣的月光The Same Moonlight    蘇芮Su Rui    5:46
2是否Is It True Or Not    蘇芮Su Rui    3:36
3告別Farewell  唐曉詩 & 李泰祥    5:31
4酒干倘賣無Any Old Bottles For Sale?    蘇芮Su Rui    4:39
5變Changes    蘇芮Su Rui    4:45
6亞細亞的孤兒The Orphan of Asia    羅大佑Luo Dayou    5:52
7現象七十二變72 Phenomena    羅大佑Luo Dayou    3:53
8愛的箴言Admonitions of Love    潘越雲Pan Yueyun    3:58
9未來的主人翁Masters of the Future    羅大佑Luo Dayou    7:32
10海洋之歌Song of the Ocean    陳淑樺Chen Shuhua    3:21
11無言的歌Song of No Words    潘越雲Pan Yueyun    4:45
12只有分離    黃鶯鶯Huang Yingying    5:12
13夢駝鈴    費玉清Fei Yuqing    3:39
14天使之戀Romance of the Angels    黃鶯鶯Huang Yingying    6:16
15搖滾舞台Rock Stage    薛岳Xue Yue    3:21

Aboriginal Music Exhibition

Once again I haven't found time to write any new essays/posts on music, though I do have some fairly good excuses, and music-related ones at that. My weekly radio show has continued to take up a fair amount of my time. I did a talk/show in Changbin north of Taidong just a few days ago similar to the others I've done in the past, i.e. I talked about and played aboriginal music records and recordings from the latter half of the 20th century. I was down in the Taidong area for several days before and after the show, and spent quite a bit of time talking about music with various singers and musicians. Finally, over the early part of the month I was helping to prepare for an exhibition of aboriginal music, mostly featuring my own collection, that is opening on February 9 at the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung. This exhibition had to be put together in a fairly short time frame, so there will no doubt be things left out that shouldn't have been, and in any case it isn't as comprehensive as I might prefer - though I'll also admit to a certain reluctance to surrender too much of my collection to be exhibited for over a year in any case. Nevertheless, I think it will provide a good introduction to a neglected aspect of music in Taiwan to those who go to check it out. I may post more about it once it opens.

Some Thoughts on Great Album Tracks

It's very difficult for even the most talented music artists to consistently put out great material. Music history is filled with one-hit wonders, and even quite successful artists have released singles that flop or had hits that despite their commercial success were at best unmemorable. And for most artists their singles are their best material. In the early days of rock and roll, albums were mostly filler, artistically secondary to the singles which were the artist's most important releases. Even in later days, many artists' only really essential songs are their hits. However, for many other artists this is not at all the case. The best artists were (or are) able to produce albums where most or all the songs are excellent. In some cases, regardless of how consistent the artist's material is overall, album tracks may be superior to singles from the same album. In the 1970s, the era of album oriented rock, many artists didn't even bother with singles, a famous example being Led Zeppelin (they only released a few singles in the US, and their most famous song, "Stairway to Heaven", was never released as a single), and for many that did, singles were secondary in the same way that albums had been in the early rock and roll era had been, Pink Floyd being a good example of this. But even for artists who had mostly excellent singles that were promoted fairly heavily, such as Elton John, the Eagles or the Rolling Stones, there are examples of album tracks that are as good as or even better than many of their hit singles. I would rank Elton John's "Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding" and the Eagles' "The Last Resort" among those artists' best five songs, but neither was a single.

I have thought about doing a series of articles on excellent album tracks by different favorite artists. A similar but slightly different approach would be to focus on songs that are genuinely obscure parts of the artist's catalogue, as songs that are technically album tracks, like the abovementioned "Stairway to Heaven", nevertheless have just as high a profile as any single release. Of course I would be more or less forced to mainly focus on artists whose catalogue I am exceptionally familiar with. There are many artists whose work I enjoy a great deal without knowing much beyond their hits, and others for whom my collection is limited to only one or two albums. This is a source of some regret, as I know that in many cases even the most comprehensive compilation can hardly do justice to the artist's career. But since both my time and my money is limited (not to mention the space I have available to keep all these albums in), there are always going to be gaps like this in both my collection and my musical knowledge. Anyway, getting back to the point, there are only a few arists for whom I could do a proper review of their album tracks, B sides, or otherwise less well known material. One obvious example is the Beatles. But in their case the sheer volume of good songs becomes an issue. If we're talking about the early albums, the problem is less pronounced. For instance, on the first album, Please Please Me, "I Saw Her Standing There" is an obvious example of a superior album track, one that in my opinion not only outshines all the other album tracks (even the excellent cover of "Twist and Shout", though not by much) but also the single "Love Me Do", with only "Please Please Me" itself being more or less its equal. A similar example on With the Beatles is "All My Loving" - though one could also argue that while this and "I Saw Her Standing There" are technically album tracks, neither is exactly obscure. In any case, while the quality of the material varied noticeably on some of the early albums, when it comes to albums like Revolver, every track is excellent, even though only two appeared as a single, and none of the songs on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were singles, making the entire album a collection of good to great album tracks. While I wouldn't rate all the songs on these albums or on the White Album, Abbey Road, etc. equally, it is still pretty much impossible to pick just one or two songs as outstanding album tracks.

Another possibility is the Police, though in their case they generally did a very good job picking their singles, so that there are only a few album tracks that compare with the singles from their respective albums. The same is mostly true of Sting, with a few exceptions, mostly on particularly strong albums like Ten Summoner's Tales. For Genesis, the biggest issue is that in the 1970s, they were very much an AOR band, with singles largely remaining an afterthought. It was only beginning in the 1980s (well, actually from 1978's And Then There Were Three) that there was a notable contrast between the high profile singles and the less well known album tracks. In this era there are certainly a number of prime examples of great album tracks that were the equal of or even superior to the singles, including "Dodo/Lurker", "Home By the Sea", "Silver Rainbow", "Domino", "Driving the Last Spike" and more, not to mention some excellent B-sides that never even made it onto an album. But while I may indeed write something specifically focusing on these and other frequently overlooked Genesis tracks from the latter half of their career, there are other ways of covering such material; in fact some of it is referred to in my articles on the various individual members of the band and in my reviews of the compilation R-Kive (available here and here.

Perhaps the best target for an article about excellent album tracks is Queen. They generally made very good choices for singles, and for a few albums in the mid to late 1970s they present a problem similar to that for the Beatles, i.e., most of the album tracks are also very good. Still, for many of their albums there are certainly songs that I consider to stand out even among otherwise good material on their respective albums and in some cases to even be marginally superior to the singles from the album. One prime example from late in their career is "Was It All Worth It", which is probably my favorite track on The Miracle and indeed one of the band's best songs from that period. But whether I ever get around to exploring standout album tracks by Queen or anyone else in detail, one thing all of the above examples serve to show is that if it all possible we should avoid judging any major artist solely by their singles, as many if not most of them will have at least a few less played album tracks that are equal to and sometimes better than the hits.

Old Article: Taiwanese Popular Music from the End of World War II through the 1960s

As I hinted at in the introduction to a previous post, the link to my article "Taiwanese Popular Music from the End of World War II through the 1960s" on the Taiwan Culture Portal seems to be dead (indeed, the Taiwan Culture Portal doesn't seem to exist anymore, at least not in its original format - the original web address now appears to be that of the main website for the Ministry of Culture, though I didn't explore it in any depth). Since I was far to busy to write anything new for November (in fact this post was backdated a few days to ensure I had something online for that month, as I didn't really post it until a few days into December), this seemed like a good time to post the original article here, though with the caveat that it is now over ten years old, and could use some serious updating in light of things I've learned since. I did make a few minor changes, but not as many as I would have if I had more time.

Sixty years ago, Taiwan's music scene was dramatically different from what it is today. In the years immediately after World War II, the music industry hit a commercial low point beside which today's moribund industry seems prosperous. Of course, the reasons for the industry's problems in the late 1940s and early 1950s were completely different from those of today. The primary problem was simply that Taiwan, its infrastructure damaged and its economy severly disrupted by the war, was very poor. The few records that were produced were of much lower quality than those that had been released in the 1930s, due to material shortages and the need to keep costs down. Since there were few records and relatively few could afford stereo equipment anyway, live performances were a major source of music for many people. The chief venues for music were what were known as geting (歌廳), which translates as music hall. In the first few years after the war, there were open-air geting along the riverside in Taipei, though soon these were replaced by cabaret-style venues, which remained popular into the 1970s. Larger scale performances were occasionally held in the large hall which had recently been renamed Zhongshan Hall (中山堂). Performances here or in the more expensive music halls were by big bands, of which there were several prominent in the 1950s. On the opposite end of the scale, in the streets there were itinerant musicians of all sorts. Another source of music was radio broadcasts. Many of the prominent musicians, composers and performers of the time did shows on the radio or worked full time for radio stations. Another opportunity for performing was at shows put on by the military for entertaining soldiers.

Though relatively few records were produced in the first decade or so after the war, quite a few songs that are now considered classics were released in this period. A few of them were recorded in this era, though others seem not to have been released record until some years later. One of the most prominent composers of the late 1940s and 1950s was Yang Sanlang (楊三郎), who was also founder and leader of the Black Cat Big Band (黑貓歌舞團). Working with lyricists like Nakano (那卡諾), who also played drums in the Black Cat Big Band, and Zhou Tianweng (周添旺), who had written lyrics for many classics of the Japanese era, Yang wrote "Hoping You Come Home Soon" (望你早歸), "Song of Bitter Romance" (苦戀歌), "Love's Lonely Flower" (孤戀花), "A Rainy Night at the Port" (港都夜雨), "Autumn Wind on a Rainy Night" (秋風夜雨) and many more. Another composer and bandleader in this era was Xu Shi (許石), who also established one of the first postwar record companies. His best-known songs included "Anping Nostalgic Melody [Remembering Anping]" (安平追想曲) and "When the Gong Is Sounded" (鑼聲若響). Other classics from the first decade or so after the war included two songs by Zhang Qiu Dongsong (張邱冬松), "Old Glass Bottles" (收酒矸) and "Hot Rice Dumplings" (燒肉粽); "Mending a Broken Net" (補破網), written by lyricist Li Linqiu (李臨秋) and composer Wang Yunfeng (王雲峰), both of whom were prominent songwriters in the Japanese era; and "You Can't Raise Goldfish In a Wineglass (Bottoms Up)" (杯底不可飼金魚) by classical-trained composer Lu Quansheng (呂泉生). These songs vividly reflected the times in which they were written, as did songs like "Miss Lottery Ticket" (獎券小姐), which referred to a very popular government lottery of the 1950s.

All of the abovementioned songs were in Hoklo (also called Minnan or Taiwanese), the language of Taiwan's largest ethnic group. Though Mandarin speakers began coming to Taiwan after 1945 and there was a huge influx of them in 1949 when China fell to the Communists and the KMT moved its government and what remained of its army to Taiwan, performance catering to this group consisted almost entirely of older Mandarin songs from Shanghai like "Night Blossom [Tuberose]" (夜來香) or new Mandarin hits produced in Hong Kong (where most of the Shanghai entertainment industry moved after 1949). Performances and records of such songs were popular throughout the 1950s and 1960s (and even in more recent decades). Many singers who made a name for themselves performing in music halls in Taiwan did so singing oldies from Shanghai and even English songs. Some of these early singers included Gao Manli (高曼麗), the sisters Shuanghua (霜華) and Xuehua (雪華), Ziwei (紫薇), and Painana (派娜娜) [Note: Painana was a Taiwanese aborigine from the Alishan area, the daughter of Gao Yisheng (高一生), an intellectual, composer, local leader and victim of the White Terror, in which many intellectuals and dissidents were arrested and executed by the KMT government]. While cover songs predominated, however, there were two Mandarin songs of note which came out of Taiwan in the first decade after the war. The first of these was the aboriginal-flavored "High Green Mountain" (高山青) from the first movie produced in Taiwan after the war, The Transformation of Alishan (阿里山風雲). The second was "Green Island Serenade" (綠島小夜曲), which will be discussed below.

By the late 1950s, records were becoming more common, as were Taiwanese films, which often included new songs in their soundtracks or were inspired by and named after classic songs or recent hits. On the negative side, however, many record companies prefered to keep costs down by copying foreign songs (international copyrights were not an issue in those days) and having Hoklo lyrics added to them, thus avoiding having to pay local songwriters to write original melodies (in many cases, even the arrangements were copied). The vast majority of the foreign songs copied in Taiwan in this period were from Japan, since, having grown up under the Japanese, many Taiwanese had a taste for Japanese melodies, particularly for the melancholy Japanese song form called enka. These Japanese songs with Hoklo lyrics were known as "mixed-blood" or "translated" songs. One of the most popular singers of the late 1950s and 1960s was Wen Xia (文夏), the vocalist on well-known songs such as "Hometown At Dusk" (黃昏的故鄉), "Mama, Please Take Care of Yourself" (媽媽請你也保重), and "The Stars Understand My Heart" (星星知我心), which were songs which he directly translated from Japanese. Among the many other popular songs of this type were "Dusk on the Mountain Range" (黃昏嶺), sung by Ji Luxia (紀露霞), one of the most popular singers of the era; "The Orphan's Wish" (孤女的願望) and "Happily Going Sailing" (快樂的出帆), sung by Chen Fenlan (陳芬蘭), a child star who continued her singing career into adulthood; "Handsome Guy on the Mountain Top" (山頂的黑狗兄) and "Pitiful Flower, Goodbye" (可憐戀花!再會吧), sung by Hong Yifeng (洪一峰); "Village Boy" (田庄兄哥), sung by Huang Xitain (黃西田); and "Sulan's Getting Married" (素蘭小姐要出嫁), sung by Huang Sanyuan (黃三元). The lyricist on many of these songs was Ye Junlin (葉俊麟), who wrote thousands of lyrics for Japanese melodies in this period.

Songs adapted from Japanese did not completely dominate the Hoklo music scene. The aforementioned Hong Yifeng, one of the most popular singers of the era, composed a number of very popular songs with lyrics by Ye Junlin, including "Memories of an Old Love" (舊情綿綿), "Twilight in Danshui" (淡水暮色), "The One I Miss" (思慕的人) and "Formosa Mambo" (寶島曼波), all of which were released in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Another successful singer-songwriter was Wu Jinhuai (吳晉淮), who had spent many years performing in Japan before returning to Taiwan. His biggest hits were "Gloomy Moon" (暗淡的月) and "Guan-a-nia Romance" (關仔嶺之戀). Guo Dacheng (郭大誠) was a singer-songwriter who emerged a few years after Hong and Wu. Many of his songs, some of which had original melodies and others of which were adaptations of Japanese songs, were humourous, with titles like "The Muddled Tailor" (糊塗裁縫師), "The Wandering Medicine Man" (流浪拳頭師), and "Pitiful Wino" (可憐燒酒仙). He also wrote the lyrics for "Going to the Graveyard" (墓仔埔也敢去), a song originally popularized by Ye Qitian (葉啟田) and more recently by rocker Wu Bai, as well as "The Oyster Picker's Wife" (青蚵仔嫂), which has also been covered by many artists (the melodies for these songs were originally Japanese and a folk song from Hengchun in south Taiwan, respectively).

Despite the efforts of people like Hong Yifeng, Wu Jinhuai, Guo Dacheng and others, Hoklo songs saw a steep decline in the 1960s. One reason for this was the previously mentioned preference among record companies for using Japanese songs, which eventually forced many local songwriters to turn to other jobs to make a living. But another reason was government policy and changes in the society. In the 1960s, the government began heavily promoting the use of Mandarin over local languages like Hoklo. Among the steps they took was severely restricting the number of "dialect" (i.e., non-Mandarin) songs that could be played on the radio. Also, in 1962, Taiwan's first television station, Taiwan Television (TTV), began broadcasting. This soon became one of the main vehicles for promoting new songs, as more and more Taiwanese watched the numerous variety shows which were shown. But, as with radio, the broadcast of Hoklo songs on television was heavily restricted. So by the mid-1960s, the main way in which Hoklo songs could be promoted was through movies. Even these began to decline in number, and by the end of the 1960s, Mandarin songs completely dominated the popular music scene.

As mentioned above, there were very few original Mandarin songs written in Taiwan in the decade after the war. The man most responsible for changing that was composer and arranger Zhou Lanping (周藍萍). Zhou, originally from Hunan in China, came to Taiwan in the late 1940s (he worked on the film The Transformation of Alishan as music director and may have helped write "High Green Mountain", though the film's director is usually credited with the melody for the song). In the early 1950s, he composed the music for "Green Island Serenade", which was recorded by Ziwei, the first truly popular singer of Mandarin songs in Taiwan. Actually, "Green Island Serenade" was not popular when it was first released. However, it slowly spread among the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, gradually growing in popularity, and after several years became a hit back in Taiwan itself, where it is now considered a classic. Zhou composed music for a number of other original Mandarin songs which appeared in movie soundtracks in the late 1950s, often working with the lyricist Zhuang Nu (莊奴), who would go on to write lyrics for many hit songs. However, it was "Recalling the Past" (回想曲), recorded in 1961 by Ziwei (紫薇) with both music and lyrics by Zhou, that many consider the first really big Mandarin hit in Taiwan (even "Green Island Serenade" supposedly only peaked in popularity in its wake). Zhou also wrote a number of other well-known songs such as "Beautiful Formosa" (美麗的寶島) and "Bilan Village Girl" (碧蘭村的姑娘); even more successfully, he composed the music for the huangmei opera film The Love Eterne (梁山伯與祝英台), which shattered box office records in Taiwan in 1963.

Unfortunately, Zhou moved to Hong Kong to work on movies, depriving Taiwan of its premier composer of Mandarin songs. So instead, record companies producing Mandarin records did the same thing that those producing Hoklo records did -- they used songs from Japan and other foreign countries. "Unforgettable Memory" (意難忘), recorded in 1963 by Meidai (美黛), was a massively popular Mandarin hit, perhaps the first to successfully outsell the Hoklo songs of the time. This song was a Japanese melody to which lyricist Shenzhi (慎芝) added Mandarin lyrics, as was "I'm Beside You" (我在你左右), another hit for Meidai, and "Heartless Person" (負心的人), a big hit for Yao Surong (姚蘇蓉) which was later banned because it was onsidered "unhealthy". Shenzhi also wrote lyrics to an old Taiwanese song for "A Glass Full of Bitter Brew" (苦酒滿杯), popularized by Xie Lei (謝雷), and to a Korean song for "Crying Flower" (淚的小花), popularized by Qing Shan (青山). However, new composers of Mandarin songs did finally begin to emerge in the late 1960s. The most successful of these was Zuo Hongyuan (左宏元), who worked frequently with Zhuang Nu. Together they wrote a number of hits for Yao Surong and others. Zuo also wrote the music for Yao's huge hit "I'm Not Going Home Today" (今天不回家), another song that was later banned (in fact many of Yao's hits were banned), and for "Jingjing" (晶晶), a theme song which was an early hit for Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; also known as Teresa Teng).

Though first Hoklo and then Mandarin songs dominated Taiwan's mainstream popular music scene in the 1950s and 1960s, Taiwan's other ethnic groups, the Hakka and the various aboriginal peoples, still had their own music in this period. Hakka music was still mostly traditional music such as "mountain songs", but singers like Lai Bixia (賴碧霞) and Lu Jinshou (呂金守), who recorded under the name Minglang (明朗), did record some popular songs in Hakka. However, these were primarily adaptations of songs that had been hits in other languages. As for aboriginal songs, Puyuma songwriters Baliwakes (陸森寶; Lu Senbao) and PangTer (陳實; Chen Shi) wrote a number of original songs in this period, including Lu's "Beautiful Rice Grains" (美麗的稻穗) and "Praising The Ancestors" (頌祭祖先) and Chen's "Ocean" (海洋). Many records of aboriginal songs were released in the 1960s, mostly by Ring Ring Records (鈴鈴唱片; pinyin: Lingling), which also released numerous Hakka records as well as Mandarin and Hoklo ones. It was also in the 1960s that Amis singer Lu Jingzi (盧靜子), the first aboriginal star, emerged. Though she wasn't well known among Han Chinese listeners, she was popular in all the aboriginal communities and even performed overseas in Japan and Southeast Asia. She performed many songs that were extremely popular among aboriginal audiences; her versions of the songs are still often the ones aboriginal people are most familiar with, even when she wasn't the original vocalist. Most of these songs were however virtually unknown among non-aboriginal audiences, one exception being "Malan Romance" (馬蘭之戀), which was turned into a hit song in Mandarin and Hoklo and was covered by many popular singers, with Lai Bixia even doing a Hakka version.

Still, for most music listeners in Taiwan, by the end of the 1960s, Taiwan's music scene was dominated by Mandarin songs popularized on television (a second station, China Television [CTV] began broadcasting in 1969). Some of these songs were composed by local songwriters, but many were still adaptations of foreign hits. Lyrically, many were overly sentimental and shallow love songs which had limited appeal for the educated youth of the time, who turned instead to Western music (see box). It was this background which set the scene for the transformation of Taiwan's music scene in the 1970s.