Homeland of Nghe people far from home
(Baonghean)Songwriters always hope that many people will sing it. In this regard, I see the song "Khuc hat song que" by poet-musician Nguyen Trong Tao and poet Le Huy Mau as an example.
When my husband and I were building a house, I slept at the construction site at night. I lay down with a tiny radio. Late at night, I turned on the radio and suddenly heard singer Anh Tho singing like a ghost: "Do you still remember the place where we sat and waited for our mother/ The distant childhood of a penny worth of sesame rice paper"... I turned up the radio to listen to the intro, and heard the announcer introduce: "You are listening to the song "Song Que Song" by Nguyen Trong Tao and Le Huy Mau", I immediately jumped up like a madman, ran to call my wife: "Tam, Tam, come up and listen to Uncle Tao's new song, it's great". Because Nguyen Trong Tao was a very close friend of my family. My chest suddenly hit a wooden bar and it hurt terribly. I just realized that I was on the top floor, which had not yet built a railing, but was just using a wooden bar as a precaution. Whoops, I almost fell to the ground from a height of three stories!
Poet - Musician Nguyen Trong Tao.
Another time, this time with Mr. Tao. That night, artist Truong Be invited Mr. Tao, me and journalist Thanh Tu from Dien Anh Newspaper to his house in Hue Citadel for a drink. After looking at the new surrealist paintings of the owner, and clinking a few cups of country wine, Truong Be "ordered" now to the poetry and music section! Nguyen Trong Tao stood up, holding a cup of wine: "Tao would like to sing a new song called "Khuc hat song que", based on the poem of a friend named Le Huy Mau". Then Tao sang. Nguyen Trong Tao had a beautiful and warm voice. The more drunk he was, tapping the plate and bowl with chopsticks, the better Tao sang. After Tao finished singing, Thanh Tu jumped up: "Let me sing this song again". I didn't expect that the reporter from Dien Anh Newspaper, with a hot temper like Truong Phi, who spoke rudely, could sing so well. Tu's singing voice made the neighbors, the artists, sneak over to the door to listen. Then everyone sang in unison. I sang along. "Children bathing upstream / A clear green stream flows forever"... Late that night, after finishing the drinking party, I drove out onto the street, singing "The Song of the Hometown River", holding the throttle with my right hand while waving my left hand to the sky to keep up with the song. I drove so fast that Thanh Tu and Nguyen Trong Tao had to chase after me for fear that I would cause an accident! Luckily, it was late at night, and Hue people went to bed early, so the streets were very deserted!
But my wife and I's passion for singing "Khuc Hat Song Que" is nothing compared to that of my mother and brother-in-law. My mother-in-law is 81 years old this year. During Tet 2005, she called: "Tell Mr. Tao to give me a CD of "Khuc Hat Song Que" so I can sing along." Because Mr. Tao and I once went to visit my grandparents in Se village, Nghia Dong commune, so she knew. One time when we went to the countryside, I told her to sing "Khuc Hat Song Que". She spit the betel nut she was chewing into her palm and sang right away. Her voice is still very good. She also sang many ca tru songs for her son-in-law to listen to. I called, and a few days later Mr. Tao sent the CD right away. Since then, she has played "Khuc Hat Song Que" all day. When she weeded vegetables or planted corn in the garden, she also played "Khuc Hat Song Que". When old ladies and friends in the neighborhood came to visit, she would chew betel and play the CD for them to listen to "Khuc Hat Song Que". Even little Cun, the youngest son, only 4 years old, following behind her, sang, his voice still lisping: "more than half a life of wandering..." That's why in Se village now many people know that song by heart.
My wife's younger brother, Nguyen Thanh Tuan, is the Director of the Tan Ky District Political Education Center, also known as the District Party School. At home, he has a record player. He somehow rewinds it, but all day long the player just sings "Khuc Hat Song Que", and after finishing the song, it starts over again. Once, when he went to a meeting of Nghe An Party Schools, he also sang "Khuc Hat Song Que" and was classified as "Sao Mai Quan Quan". When teaching politics, he always spends the last few minutes of class singing "Khuc Hat Song Que" for his students, then invites them to sing along. His voice is strong, resonant, and sweet. He said: "A hundred of my lectures about the homeland and the country are not as good as singing Uncle Tao's songs by heart!" When teaching training classes for secretaries and commune chairmen at school, or when he goes to communes to talk about current events, he always sings "Khuc Hat Song Que". So much so that now all the party leaders and commune authorities in Tan Ky sing "Khuc Hat Song Que". Up to now, it seems like everyone in the district knows "Khuc Hat Song Que" by heart.
Hometown river. Photo: Bui Xuan Luong
In 2004, I attended a literary composition camp at the Vung Tau Composer's House and found out that not only my family but the whole country loved and were fascinated by the song "Khuc hat song que". I have known poet Le Huy Mau for a long time. I did not expect that "he" had such a good poem. Mau said that in 2002, Nguyen Trong Tao was in Vung Tau attending a music composition camp of the Vietnam Musicians Association. Mau sent Tao a chapter of the long poem THOI AN KHAC KHOAI to be published in Hanoi. Nguyen Trong Tao filtered out the good lines in it to put to music, creating an extremely good song. Mau said: "Thanks to Mr. Tao putting the poem to music, many more people know Mau. That is how I got the benefit of it". That is how modest Mau is. Without flour, how can we make glue! The sympathy of two souls from Nghe An living in exile created a wonderful song.
On the day of the creative camp's closing ceremony, when it came to the exchange program, poet Tung Bach went up to the microphone and said solemnly: "The Ba Ria-Vung Tau Literature and Arts Association would like to introduce a famous poet whose poem "The Song of the Homeland River" was composed by musician Nguyen Trong Tao. Please come up and read the poem again first, then I will sing it to serve the people later". Le Huy Mau was as shy as a daughter who had just come to her husband's house, blushing as she went up on stage to read her poem. Tung Bach sang the Song of the Homeland River quite well. Feeling the poet's blood boiling, even though I had read my poem before, I rushed up on stage. Then the two of us put our arms around each other and shouted: "Oh, my hometown river, my hometown river"... The atmosphere was so intense that the entire hall of fifty or sixty people stood up and sang in unison. Some leaned to one side, some leaned to the other, some sang this line, some knew that line, ecstatic, passionate, and entangled...
I thought only Nghe An, Central and Southern people were crazy about "Khuc hat song que". I recently learned that Northern people are also crazy about Nguyen Trong Tao. Mr. Tao told me that there was a leader of Tam Diep Town who was dozens of kilometers away from the town on Saturday night. However, when he heard his disciple calling to report that Mr. Nguyen Trong Tao from Hanoi had come by. So the boss immediately dropped everything and ordered the driver to drive back immediately. He came back just to shake hands, hug and kiss Nguyen Trong Tao and ask permission to "Sing for the author" the song "Khuc hat song que". That night, the singing ended almost 2am. At the end of 2007, I went back to Nam Dinh to visit. During a party with friends, they saw that I had to call Nguyen Trong Tao, so "Golden Businessman" Nguyen Ngoc Dat and three or four Nam Dinh brothers grabbed the phone and sang "Khuc hat song que" for Mr. Tao to "listen to for fun!"!
Not only Vietnamese people in the country sing "Khuc hat song que", every time Nguyen Trong Tao or Le Huy Mau go to America, Canada, Poland... wherever they go, "the two gentlemen of the river" are warmly welcomed and at the beginning, overseas Vietnamese people always sing "KHUC HAT SONG QUE" over and over again.
I know Mr. Tao has many good songs such as Doi Mat Do Ngang, Con De Buon... but when mentioning Nguyen Trong Tao, fans all know and remember his two "signature songs": "Lang Quan Ho Que Toi" and "Khuc Hat Song Que". Those are also two songs in the top ten today. This is the soul of Tao. A "left-handed" composer who has two songs that have such a widespread and long-lasting vitality is worth every penny!
Ngo Minh (Hue City)
