1990: Starting from Baojia Street

In this situation, when the conversation turned to writing songs, Sam Hui agreed.

Zhou Yan was stunned for a moment when he heard Xu Guanjie agree so readily.

Who is Sam Hui? He is the originator of Cantonese pop songs. If he really wants to make a comeback, is he afraid that no one will write songs for him?

Besides, Sam Hui is a singer-songwriter. If he wants to make a comeback, he doesn’t need anyone else to write songs for him. He can write them himself.

Zhou Yan believes that creators like Sam Hui must have a lot of unreleased songs at home.

These songs may just have minor flaws and just need a little polishing before they can be released.

In other words, if Sam Hui wants to make a comeback, he doesn’t have to think too much, he just needs to review his previous songs.

Then again, does Sam Hui really want to make a comeback?

This was Zhou Yan’s first meeting with Sam Hui and she didn’t know much about his personality.

But he knows Xu Guanwen quite well. If Xu Guanjie and Xu Guanwen have similar personalities, then it is not particularly strange for him to say this.

Maybe Sam Hui just thought it was interesting to say this at this time and he didn't necessarily mean it seriously.

Zhou Yan just said that he wanted to write a song for Sam Hui. In fact, he also thought so, but he didn’t really want to write a song for Sam Hui. After all, he doesn’t need it at all.

Therefore, when Xu Guanjie said this, Zhou Yan found it a little difficult to respond.

At this time, Xu Guanwen smiled and said, "You two shake hands, and this matter is settled. When A Yan writes a song for Guan Jie, Guan Jie will make a comeback."

"That's right." Xu Guanjie listened to his elder brother and stretched out his hand in front of Zhou Yan. "After shaking hands, we have made an agreement."

Zhou Yan shook hands with Sam Hui, and then looked at Sam Hui next to him to make sure that the two of them were not joking.

Since Xu Guanjie really wanted a song, Zhou Yan laughed and said, "It's just a song. I'll write it for you now."

"Now?"

The Hui brothers and Carina Lau were all surprised. Xu Guanwen looked at the time and said, "Are you sure you want to write a song now? You'll be performing on stage in more than half an hour."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Half an hour is more than enough."

After saying that, Zhou Yan stood up and looked around. He wanted to find an electronic piano.

Although there are a lot of musical instruments backstage, there is no electronic keyboard at all. After all, they don’t need it in their performances.

I do have a synthesizer, but it's not very useful on its own for writing songs.

Zhou Yan searched around and finally found a guitar.

No one knew who put this broken guitar here. Zhou Yan tried it and found that the tone was quite accurate and basically did not need to be tuned.

After fine-tuning it twice, Zhou Yan smiled and said to Sam Hui while holding the guitar, "A melody suddenly came to my mind, and it seems to suit you. Let me try to show it to you."

After saying that, he didn't waste any time. He started with an Em chord and started singing along.

"Oh……"

The first paragraph has a very cheerful rhythm. Although there are no lyrics, it sounds very happy.

Following the second section, the rhythm becomes stronger and the atmosphere becomes more cheerful.

I don’t know if Zhou Yan did it on purpose, but the beginning of this song sounds very weird.

Carina Lau and Tony Leung looked at each other and saw shock in each other's eyes.

Although Carina Lau had met Zhou Yan many times and had heard countless times from people like Anita Mui about how talented Zhou Yan was, today was the first time she experienced this up close.

Is it so fast for these talented musicians to write songs?
Carina Lau imagined that writing songs could be done quickly, but she didn't expect it to be this fast.

Ordinary people, let alone being asked to write a song, would probably stutter and not speak fluently even if they were asked to organize a piece of language temporarily.

But just now Zhou Yan didn't hesitate at all. After getting the guitar, he didn't think much and just played and sang directly.

When humming, it is very smooth, just like humming an existing song.

The only thing that makes Carina Lau feel that Zhou Yan is more like a human being than a monster is that his singing level is average.

Although Zhou Yan didn't sing but just hummed, it can be heard that he is not very good at singing.

This is understandable. If Zhou Yan was a good singer, he wouldn't have not sung a song in all these years.

For such a prolific creator, if he can sing well, it is impossible for him to resist not singing a song.

The songs written by Zhou Yan are not extremely difficult to sing. Some of them are relatively easy to sing and anyone who can sing a little can sing them.

Many songwriters, even if they cannot sing well, will keep one or two songs for themselves to sing. Even if they do not keep them for themselves, there will always be opportunities for them to sing in public.

But Zhou Yan has never sung in public so far.

Tony Leung Chiu Wai believes that this song should have been written in advance, but he just hadn't decided who it would be given to. He happened to meet Sam Hui today, so he took it out.

As for why this song is so funny and very suitable for Sam Hui, it is probably because Zhou Yan has a large number of songs in stock and a wide variety of them, so he can come up with different types of songs at any time.

Otherwise, Tony Leung Chiu Wai really couldn't understand why a song could be written so quickly.

Sam Hui does not have the same doubts as Tony Leung. Of course, he cannot write songs as fast as Zhou Yan, but he understands Zhou Yan's speed, because many times a song can be improvised as long as he can think of a melody.

Sometimes, Sam Hui can also write some songs on the spot.

In addition, Sam Hui has come into contact with many talented musicians. The speed at which these people create is incredible, especially some who have studied classical music for many years. As long as they master the tricks of pop songs, writing pop songs is like writing children's songs.

After all, compared to classical music, pop music has very little variation.

Many things seem to be fantastic, but in fact they have traces and rules to follow.

At this moment, Sam Hui's attention was on the song itself. Listening to the whole song, one gets the feeling of "I want to go out and have fun".

Zhou Yan was in a good mood when he hummed the song himself. The rhythm of the song was indeed cheerful and could easily make people forget their worries.

The Chinese version of this song was later sung by Zhang Xueyou as "Song of Trouble".

Its original version is a Spanish song called "Irresistible", which means irresistible in Chinese.

The lyrics of "Irresistible" also express love very directly, and the general meaning is similar to the song "Love Is Not a Choice".

The original singer of "Irresistible" is Luis Fonsi, a Puerto Rican singer-songwriter.

Many people don't know this song by Luis Fonsi, but they have all heard of "Despacito" which he collaborated with Justin Bieber.

There is also an English version of this song, titled "Can't Fight The Feelin'", with lyrics similar to those of "Irresistible". In Zhou Yan's opinion, the Chinese version is better in terms of lyrics than the Spanish version or the English version.

Although the lyrics of "Song of Trouble" also talk about love, the main theme is not love, but life.

Zhou Yan believes that there are a few lines in the lyrics that can sum it up.

"Don't want anything, don't compare yourself with anyone, don't argue with anyone, don't overthink, don't worry about trivial things, don't worry about trivial things, everything is as light as a feather, only then can you eliminate troubles..."

The reason why Zhou Yan thinks that "Song of Trouble" is quite suitable for Sam Hui has a lot to do with the lyrics.

Although Sam Hui has acted in so many comedy movies, the impression he leaves on people is that of a carefree big boy who is good at making jokes, being witty and funny.

When he sang "Song of Trouble", it seemed quite convincing.

Before, Xu Guanwen was worried that more than half an hour would not be enough for Zhou Yan, but from the time Zhou Yan picked up the guitar to the time he finished playing and singing the whole song, more than three minutes had passed.

There is still more than half an hour before the concert starts.

After playing, Zhou Yan put down the guitar with a smile, "How is it, are you satisfied with this song?"

The other three looked at Sam Hui, who took a deep breath and clapped his hands. "It's a very good song. Do you have any thoughts on the lyrics of this song?"

"I have an idea. I'm going to call the song "Trouble Song"."

"The Worry Song." Sam Hui read the title of the song and couldn't help nodding his head. "This song title is quite good. The lyrics should be telling people not to worry and live happily."

"Yeah, that's right, that's probably what it means."

Sam Hui smiled, as if relieved.

He liked the song very much, but was a little worried that Zhou Yan's lyrics were not good.

Most of the lyrics Zhou Yan had written before, Xu Guanjie had also read them. It’s not that Zhou Yan’s lyrics were bad, but they were basically centered on love.

It is normal for pop song lyrics to focus on love, but Sam Hui still believes that songs should express other aspects besides love.

Therefore, he was relieved when he heard Zhou Yan say that the song was called "Song of Trouble".

The theme is not love, which is good.

"Are you sure you want to give me this song?" asked Sam Hui.

"Of course, if you want." Zhou Yan smiled, "Everyone present today is a witness. We have already shaken hands just now."

Carina Lau immediately smiled and said, "Yes, we are all witnesses. You have already shaken hands. You said that when A-Yan finishes writing a song for you, you will make a comeback. Now A-Yan has finished writing the song."

"Oh, I haven't finished writing it yet." Sam Hui said with a smile, "The lyrics will also be given to you."

If Zhou Yan had said just now that the theme of the song was love, Xu Guanjie would most likely have stopped writing the lyrics himself. Now that Zhou Yan had other ideas, Xu Guanjie decided not to interfere.

If conditions permit, it is best to let the composer write the lyrics himself.

Zhou Yan smiled and nodded, "No problem, I'll be in Hong Kong these few days, I'll find time to record a demo of this song."

Sam Hui said with a smile, "Don't bother looking for someone else to record the demo. I'll just record it with you. This way we can communicate in advance and solve any problems we encounter in advance."

"fair enough."

What Sam Hui said was right. Zhou Yan didn't have much time in Hong Kong, so there was no need to find someone to record a demo and give it to Sam Hui. He could just call Sam Hui to the recording studio directly, and the two of them could communicate face to face, and any problems could be solved on the spot.

If conditions permit, they can even record the entire song within a few days.

As for whether this matter can be accomplished, it mainly depends on Zhou Yan.

If you want to finally record a song, composing the music and writing the lyrics is naturally the first step, but after the first step, the creation is not over yet, and arranging the music is also a very important job.

Arranging pop music is actually a dirty, tiring and time-consuming job.

Although many composers have the ability to arrange music, they often find it troublesome and hand the work of arranging to others.

But usually, Zhou Yan would just do the composing work. He could do it very efficiently if he did it himself, and it would be a waste of time to let others do it.

If time was sufficient, Zhou Yan could drag Xu Guanjie to the recording studio and start recording. While recording for Xu Guanjie, he could easily complete the arrangement.

Of course, the prerequisite is that the conditions in the recording studio are sufficient.

If it were in Zhou Yan's own recording studio, things would become very simple. He would just have to take the people and the instruments to the big recording studio.

When Zhou Yan wanted to communicate further with Xu Guanjie, Fang Xiu knocked on the door and said, "Brother, the performance is about to begin. The host asked me to inform you that you should go backstage and prepare in five minutes.

"Okay, I understand. You go first."

Seeing Zhou Yan was about to prepare for the concert, Xu Guanjie smiled and said, "You go ahead and get busy. When you're done, we can talk about the new song."

Zhou Yan nodded, "No problem, then you guys go to the front first, I'll fix my hair."

"Haha, it's already so beautiful, there's no need to do anything else."

"Next time I'll learn from you and grow my hair long."

"It's not enough to have long hair, it's better to wear sparkly clothes to make it look right."

Xu Guanwen rolled his eyes and said, "If he wears this, the fans will think he has a mental problem. Let's go and stop disturbing him."

……

Several people walked out of the lounge. Sam Hui was still recalling the song they had just sung. The song was very simple and he had basically memorized it. If you gave him a guitar, he could already sing the general outline of it.

Carina Lau smiled and said, "Congratulations. When will you hold your comeback concert? We will go to see it then."

"Haha, there will definitely be a comeback, but there may not be a comeback concert."

"You must do it. I also want to hear you sing this song "Trouble Song" live. This song sounds very cheerful and is very suitable for singing at a concert."

Sam Hui nodded. What Carina Lau said was right. The song had a cheerful rhythm and an easy melody. It was very suitable for singing in concerts and it was very easy to lead the audience in a chorus. It was a song that could particularly create an atmosphere.

As they were talking, several people had already walked into the concert hall.

At this moment, audience members had started to come in to check their tickets, and quite a few people were already sitting in the first row. Cheung Kwok-wing and Anita Mui had also arrived.

Sam Hui and Zhang Guorong have a good relationship. He walked over with a smile and said, "You are already here, why didn't you go backstage to see Zhou Yan?"

"I just saw it yesterday, so let's forget about it today."

Zhang Guorong and the others knew that Zhou Yan must be very busy today, so he just discussed it with Anita Mui and the others and came in directly without looking for Zhou Yan. (End of this chapter)