Gene Lau

Gene Lau (Chinese: 劉卓輝, Lau Cheuk Fai; born 1960^[1]) is a Cantopop lyricist. From the late 1980s, has been writing lyrics for over 300 songs. He has written more than ten hit songs for the Rock band, Beyond, contributing much to the band’s reputation, with Lovers《情人》, The Great Wall 《長城》, The Earth 《大地》being some of the classics of the band. Thus, he was entitled as the Queen lyricist of Beyond^[2] for writing 23 songs for the band. Also, there were some collaboration between him and other famous artists such as Jacky Cheung, Eason Chan, Leon Lai and Danny Summer.

Early stage

Reading lots of biography of the political figures, he has an impression that the Chinese Communist Party is great.^[1] Besides, he had a habit of reading political magazines, watching western movies, listening to rock and roll music,^[3] and also developed some understanding in the history of modern China. In 1980s, he lived in the public housing estate in Hong Kong, facing imminent Handover of Hong Kong, which has much uncertainty. Feeling the sense of gloomy future, talent being underappreciated, and dreams filled with frustration, he became a bit cynical and critical to things around him.^[3]

Career in the music industry

After graduation from secondary school, he was the Editor of a music and movie magazine called Modern Teenage Weekly《現代青年人周報》.^[2] He once set up a music production company in Foshan and participated in the production in the songs Nothing《一無所有》and I Understand《不是我不明白》of Cui Jian, a Chinese Rock star.^[1]

In 1986, he participated in a Cantopop lyrics competition, held by the RTHK, since the famous Taiwanese producer Shou-Chuan Lee wants the Cantonese version of Michael Jackson’s This is it. With the title of The Unspeakable Future《說不出的未來》, Lau became the champion of the competition and that song was given to a rising star, Danny Summer.^[4] Shortly before that, he interviewed the band, Beyond, in 1983 after it had won in a band competition held by the Guitar Magazine《吉它雜誌》.^[5] Therefore, given his newly gained fame, he offered himself to write the first song for Beyond, which is Modern Stage《現代舞台》but without much popularity. Yet, the second song for the band, The Earth《大地》became a big hit and was conducive to the rising fame of the band. The song topped the chart of the RTHK and brought the band the 1st Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Award.^[6]

In 1990, since Lau was not satisfied as merely a lyricist, he founded a record company in China called Earth Records (大地唱片).^[7] He was passionately in his work and thus whenever discs were to release, he would take up the role of producer, coordinator, including selection of songs, writing lyrics, arranging songs, recording, and remixing. Soon enough, the songs of many famous singers in China were under his production line. Then, Folksongs in campus《校園民謠》was released in 1994 and set off a wave of folksongs in China.^[8]

In 2000s, due to the influx of capital in the music industry, there was not much room for small and medium enterprise to rum the business. Meanwhile, Lau did not want to co-operate with the big record companies and so he retired in Zhuhai for five years. Currently, he has been devising a website to prompt the development of music by the Internet.^[7]

Life as a lyricist

Lau said he wanted to be a rock guitarist when he was young but accidentally became a lyricist.^[8] Writing lyrics has given him a steady income over 20 years.^[9] Being a lyricist is just a part-time for Lau because this career is not steady and for each song, a lyricist can only receive from HKD$1500–5000. This is only for those who have taken the advance payment, meaning that taking $5000 before receiving the rest of royalties.^[1] He tried not to receive “advance” for two years but realized cannot sustain his life by writing a song for a few hundred dollars.^[2] Unlike famous singers, lyricists cannot count on the royalties of several classics while they have to produce a large number.^[1]

June 4 incident

The violent dispersing of the crowd of students in Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989 has made him entirely disappointed at China under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. Taking part in the 1.5 million demonstration in Hong Kong supporting the students in China before June 4, he felt a crushing defeat in their effort in reshaping the government and hence, lost faith in any gathering,^[1] which is to voice out to the government. Instead, he started writing more and more political songs. Therefore, many of his later works revolve around this theme including Time Flies《歲月無聲》、The Great Wall《長城》、Never Forget it——June 4《漆黑將不再面對》, etc. These songs are still sung during the June 4 gathering each year and even in the Anti-Moral and national education parade, Umbrella Revolution and so on.

Publication of his second book

   《輝常傷感》is a collection of his essays on his moments with Beyond, Cui Jian, He Yong, Lo Ta-yu, Su Rui, and Donnie Yen, etc. The book is with over 30 precious photos arousing our memory of those stars and also reveals some secrets of the interactions with them. It also remarks the life of being a lyricist and shows reflection on the in changes in this modern era and other social issues.[9]
   The book starts with how he views nature and role of being a lyricist. He mentions that he cannot write lyrics only for his own entertainment and quite often he has to compromise with producers of record company concerning the style and diction. Later on, when writing lyrics becoming part of his income, he has to struggle even more between his own thoughts and the market needs.[10] He frequently emphasizes, in the book, that he has little love experience and thus writing love is a challenge for him. Yet, he does have a few times of having a crush into some girls and so he managed to write a few songs for Jacky Cheung about it.
   The last session of the book is written by many other musical worker who talk about Lau, including the style of his lyrics, the supplementary information of being a lyricist, comparison between different lyricists, and Lau's contribution of bringing songs from prospective mainland singers.[11]

Style and influence

Due to his teenage experience and exposure, he cares much for society but developed a little sense of melancholy in his political view. This can be seen in most of his works and also leads to more criticisms on politics, show business, and life. As a result, there are relatively fewer collections for other topics, though he had a few well-noted love songs like Always Be There《只想一生跟你走》,Cantabile Years《歲月如歌》,My Darling《我的親愛》. This attitude or orientation has influenced Beyond a lot. Previously, Beyond wrote songs more about personal matter and their frustration on their music path and yet, Lau’s ideas have broadened their range of themes.^[4]

Lau says that love songs dominate the market of Hong Kong, with Albert Leung and Wyman Wong being two major lyricists after the 1990s. Therefore, the music world is homogenized by love songs, especially the lovesick ones.^[12] Despite his disagreement with this situation, he have no choice but to bow to the reality as a lyricist. Yet, except most of his rebellious and rock songs with Beyond, we can still trace his distinctive signature in his love songs such as Cantabile Years《歲月如歌》and I Come from Beijing《我來自北京》.^[12] He demonstrates his personal style by incorporating our cultural and political sense in these two songs respectively. In an interview with him, Lau admitted that he was not the kind of lyricist that he would write anything for singers as long as they wanted but what he wanted to convey.^[13]

Songs with his lyrics

References