I.    Lyrics (translated from Chinese)

Girls always wear flowers. Young men always ride horses.
Girls wear flowers and wait to get married. Young men ride horses and visit parents of their future wives.
Ai…Flowers always wither. Horses always cross bridge.
Withered flowers are buried anywhere. Horses are not looking back after crossing the bridge….
When you sing my song.
My heart is disheartened. My horse is tired.
And at the time, the night has fallen and I am running out liquors….

Lyrics written by Cheng Chou-Yu (鄭愁予)

那有姑娘不戴花 那有少年不馳馬
姑娘戴花等出嫁 少年馳馬訪親家
哎 那有花兒不殘凋 那有馬兒不過橋
殘凋的花兒呀隨地葬 過橋的馬兒呀不回頭……
當你唱起我這支歌的時候
我地心懶了 我地馬累了
那時 黃昏已重了 酒囊已盡了……

Audio
Li Tai-Hsiang (李泰祥)

Chi Yu (齊豫)


II.    About this Song

Exposition of the music:
This music was composed from Cheng Chou-Yu’s poem. The melody has blended modern pentatonic scale; continuous arpeggiando is utilized to describe horse’s galloping sound, and special percussion instrument is used to embellish the whole music. Teacher Li completed the song with its unique arrangement and writing technique; he presented different tableau and story from the music naturally.

III.    Manuscript

Handwritten manuscript of “Shepherd Girl” for Chinese flute (1982)	Handwritten manuscript of “Shepherd Girl” for oboe (1982)

      

To view the story of Li Tai-Hsiang, please go to Li Tai-Hsiang, the Native Musician of Taiwan.
Text and images are provided by The Native Musician of Taiwan－Tai-Hsiang Li Digital Archive, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan