The China Youth Corps EP

About 25 years ago, I struck up a conversation with an older couple who were selling sheet music and a small number of records, at a vintage music sale in Union, IL. I had found a few things of great interest to me among their records, and we bonded over a love of The Weavers. It turned out that the couple lived fairly near to my home, and I was invited to come over and look through their records, and buy whatever I was interested in.

Records were everywhere! In boxes in the basement, loose in closets, on shelves in the spare bedroom. (Come to think of it, that’s what my house looks like now.) I spent at least three Saturdays there, looking through records while the lady of the house gave piano lessons. I  ended up spending a couple hundred dollars on the records I chose, and it was probably the first time in my young life that I’d really gone through a huge number of records in that way and splurged on a big stack o’ wax.

At this point, I’d be hard pressed to tell you which of the records in my overabundant collection came from these nice folks. I know there was a late-era Limeliters album I’d been searching for (and which I found completely disappointing), but that’s about it, except for today’s selection. Among the predictable 78’s, 45’s and albums, and quite a few obscurities that nonetheless fit into recognizable genres, I came across a record that seemed completely out of place, a seven inch, 33 1/3 EP by the China Youth Corps.

This record has always held a fascination for me, and just the site of it reminds me of those day-long searches through the stacks and boxes of records in that little bungalow. How DID this record come to be in that couple's collection? On the first listen, I found it unnerving and otherworldly, not only because of the general sound of the thing, but also because its combination of what I perceived as Western song styles and structures with Asian scales, melodies and other flavorings.

Since then, I’ve heard other examples of Chinese records, and know it’s not the unique melding of styles I once thought it was. But I still find a couple of these tracks haunting and endlessly fascinating, specifically the first track, and even more so the third track on the EP. And I find the singing style on the fourth track is quite curious. Also, I'm fairly sure that, whoever was recording these songs, he or she thought that track two was over at the halfway point, and turned down the mikes, then turned them back up again as the music continued. See what you think.

I have no idea what the titles or lyrics of these songs might be, and if anyone wants to translate the titles and/or summarize the lyrics, by all means, do!

1.) China Youth Corps - Track One

2.) China Youth Corps - Track Two

3.) China Youth Corps - Track Three

4.) China Youth Corps - Track Four

5.) China Youth Corps - Track Five

 

EP Label - Side One

EP Label - Side Two

Comments

[Colin The Culture Hunter]

WOW! My work colleagues are going to love this!

I will try and get a translation to you in next few days Bob

[Larry]

It IS a fascinating little record. I would probably date it as a product of the Cultural Revolution. I have seen a similar record to this one and it's jacket, which had a photo of Tienanmen Square with several hundred members of a youth organization standing in formation beneath a huge portrait of Chairman Mao.

I really would be interested in hearing an English translation of the lyrics too.......

[peter]

wow this is fantastic, thanks for sharing!
here are the song titles with translation:
1. 恭禧大家新年好 "Congratulations Everyone, Happy New Year!"
2. 勝利就在明朝 "Victory in the Ming Dynasty"
3. 在那遥遠的地方 "In a Far Away Land"
4. 綉荷包 "Embroidered Pouch"
5. 丟丟冬 which is think is something like "Lost Winter"?
the band is just 中國青年反共救國團總團部 "China Youth Corps".. side one is 恭賀新禧 "Happy New Year" and side 2 is 耶誕快樂 "Merry Christmas".. kind of strange.. none of the songs are explicitly Christmas songs..?

[Colin The Culture Hunter]

I have found out that this record is actually Taiwanese and is a collection of very old songs some are traditional. This will not go down very well on the mainland.

Track 2 brought a big confused smile to my colleagues face.

Victory in the Ming Dynasty is more accurately- Victory is coming soon.

With lyrics like

"The flag is flying"
"You hear the drums"
"For country , for revoltion ,for victory"
"Lets go back and attack the mainland"
"Victory is coming soon"

More to come in the next day or two when my friends can stop laughing.

[peter]

yeah that's interesting... for track 2, the phrase 明朝 can mean both "Ming Dynasty", or "tomorrow"!
definitely interesting that this from Taiwan... here's a wiki page for the group: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Youth_Corps

[peter]

oh, and can your friends get a better translation of the last track?

[Stu]

I especially would love to read the lyrics for "embroidered pouch"....

[peter]

here are the lyrics, in chinese.. run them through your favourite online translator!

[Colin The Culture Hunter]

The last track? I will see what they have to say.

[david b]

I have a copy of this same record! I did a week long dig in Taipei this spring and put together this internet mixtape:

http://www.nicesnacks.com/Taiwan/tw.html

It's mainly stuff from Taiwan with a few things from Singapore.
Most of the posted stuff is more on the western end in terms of back beat, but still has that amazing eastern sense of melody/harmony.
Amazingly enough, no record store guys or music nuts that I met in Taiwan had much of sense of anything that may have come out of Mainland China during the 50's 60's or 70's.

[Colin The Culture Hunter]

Number 5 is very difficult for my friends- its in a Southern Chinese Dialect- probably Fu-Jian province (they are still laughing)

[Bob Purse]

Many thanks for all of the comments and translations! It's great to have more information on this favorite little oddity!

Bob

[Fred Huang]

明朝 is not Ming Dynasty at all, it means "tomorrow morning"

朝 means morning, 朝夕 means morning and afternoon.

tomorrow night is 明夜.

[Fred Huang]

number 5 is a famous Taiwan folk song , it has nothing to do with the winter, any Taiwanese over 50 can sing it.

[Sam]

I've got this record as well but with the cover that was mentioned above (the one with hundreds lined up in Tienamen square.) The back of the record has it dated at 1982 which seems odd cause it sounds a bit older than that.