After writing about
舊情綿綿, 車站, 雙人枕頭, 雪中紅,
離別的月台票, and 星夜的離別, I recently came across another old song that immediately caught my attention:
最後的火車站. It made me realize that these seven songs, although they were written and recorded in different periods and in somewhat different musical styles, can be listened to as a small collection of songs about love, separation, memories, and the passing of time.
What I find particularly interesting is that so many of them use very ordinary things to express deep emotions. A double pillow (雙人枕頭) is simply something two people share at night. A railway station is simply a place where trains arrive and leave. A platform ticket (月台票) is only a small ticket for entering the platform. Yet in these songs, such ordinary things become symbols of love and loss. 雪中紅 turns a red flower standing in the snow into an image of love that refuses to disappear, while the stars in 星夜的離別 become silent witnesses to the parting of two people.
The railway songs are especially fascinating when we put them together. In 車站, some people arrive happily to welcome their loved ones, while the singer is there to watch someone she loves leave. In 離別的月台票, a woman reaches the station too late and can only watch the departing train disappear. In 最後的火車站, the story moves one step further: the train has already carried the woman away, and she is left wondering where the final station will be. The railway station is therefore no longer simply a physical place. It becomes a symbol of a relationship whose destination is uncertain.
There is also an interesting musical journey behind these songs. Some were written by Taiwanese composers and lyricists and grew directly out of Taiwanese life, while others were adapted from Japanese songs and given new lyrics in Taiwanese or Mandarin. 離別的月台票 and 最後的火車站, for example, remind us of the close musical connections between Japan and Taiwan during the early decades of postwar popular music. 星夜的離別 shows how a Japanese melody could cross languages and borders and acquire different stories in different places.
What I appreciate most, however, is that these songs are not really about trains, stations, pillows, snow, or stars. These are simply the images they use to talk about something much more universal. 舊情綿綿 looks back at a love that has ended but cannot be forgotten. 雙人枕頭 reminds us of the emptiness left when the person who once shared our everyday life is no longer there. 雪中紅 suggests that love can remain alive even in the coldest circumstances. 星夜的離別 accepts separation while still wishing happiness for the person who has gone away.
Perhaps this is why these old songs continue to touch people even though the world in which they were created has changed so much. Railway stations look different today, and 月台票 has long disappeared from ordinary life. We can send a message instantly to someone on the other side of the world instead of waiting for a letter or wondering when a train will arrive. Yet the emotions expressed in these songs have not become outdated.
We still remember people we once loved. We still regret words that were left unsaid. We still wonder what might have happened if we had arrived a little earlier, spoken a little more honestly, or chosen a different path.
That may be one reason I enjoy practicing these songs on my viola. I am not simply playing melodies from an earlier generation. In a small way, I feel that I am bringing their memories into the present. The melodies may be old, but the feelings within them are not.
Seven songs, seven different stories—and yet, when I listen to them together, I sometimes feel that they are telling us essentially the same thing: people come into our lives, people leave, and the years keep moving forward. What remains are the memories we carry with us.
And perhaps that is what makes 最後的火車站 such a fitting song with which to end this little musical journey. We may never know exactly where the journey will take us, or where the final station will be. But the songs we have heard along the way can remain with us long after the train has disappeared into the night.
