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In the early morning of the previous two days, Wan Xiaoli posted his new song "You, Come and Dream for Me" on Weibo. As soon as wan zong's new song, which had not moved for a long time, was released, it attracted a number of friends to forward it. Among them, there are many old friends supported by Zhou Yunpeng and wild children, and the big brother old wolf who automatically forwards propaganda in the folk music circle system is also the first to bear the brunt. And Song Dongye, who is wan Xiaoli's chief brain-dead fan, is even more blunt: "He returned to the human world again and brought us a new round of good times!" ”
Don't know when you started listening to Wan Xiaoli? Is it after Li Jian sang his famous work "Gyro" on "Singer"? Or after Han Han used his version of "Daughter Love" in "Endless Period After the Meeting"? Or is it because of Song Dongye's sonorous and powerful evaluation on Zhihu: I am the chief brain residue fan of Wan Zong?
Whatever the reason, Wan Xiaoli's name should be no stranger to listeners who like folk songs. Wan Xiaoli was born in 1971 in Handan, Hebei Province, and like all the teenagers of that era, their life was to inherit their father's business and enter the factory and enter the organs. Like Dong Zijian in "Young Babylon", gags and jokes, he does not learn any tricks, but eventually he will enter his father's factory and be an "incomparably glorious" working class, day after day, year after year.
In 1992, the 20-year-old Wan Xiaoli finished junior college and returned to work at Cixian Distillery. In this year, he married a woman named Xia, who was also an employee of the distillery, and their daughter also came in this year. Day after day, Wan Xiaoli's restless heartbeat became faster and faster. In 1997, Wan Xiaoli quit his job and left his hometown to beijing, where he settled his wife and daughter in a modest cottage. He began a life of running bars on his bicycle, and his wife and daughter were always by his side and never abandoned.
A guitar, a harmonica, a corner of the space, a little glimmer, Wan Xiaoli can sing all the vicissitudes. He released his debut album "Come Over" in 2002, in which songs such as "Fox" and "Rogue" still sound quite playful.
The song "The Fox" sings: I finally woke up, there are no fairy tales in the forest, the rabbit is more cunning than the fox, and I ran away with my tail between my legs.
Wan Xiaoli sang "Fox" with a hippie smile, but he was not just talking about foxes. As music critic Li Wan said: "He has the characteristics of a young man from other provinces - to enter the cultural center of longing with his own efforts." He is a low-level character, or a small person, and "The Fox" is holding this kind of small character's characteristics, on the edge of the group, on the edge of culture, on the edge of wealth, on the edge of success. The little people are watching your big people performing, in various centers, and I am here to observe, to ridicule this kind of thing. ”
When the second album "All This Is Not As Bad as Imagined" was released, it received a lot of praise from the industry, and Sina Network bluntly said that Wan Xiaoli is a domestic folk idol who "subverts folk songs" and is a folk singer with rich humanistic colors. And that happened in 2006. Many people say that at that time, it was the golden age of Wan Xiaoli.
Among them, "Gyro", which was sung by Li Jian, is also included in this album, and he uses gyroes to compare the busyness of small people, and soothes those rough souls with a kind of compassionate care. "Turning in the fields, turning in the breeze... Turn in laughter, turn in tears... Turning and turning, you raise your whip high, and I gently close my eyes."
We are all little people, we all want to choke the throat of the authority, and in the end we die in silence. Wan Xiaoli's humanistic care has to be said to always be able to easily touch the heart. I think this is also what friends who are huddled in the livehouse and quietly listen to Wan Xiaoli's singing can feel.
"Bird Language" on this album has become a label for him, "He is the only person in the world who can understand bird language, and he has a wish in his heart to become a bird after death."
After this album was widely acclaimed, Wan Xiaoli did not move the new work for a long time. So much so that in the chief brain-dead fan Song Dongye's "Dream Of Youth", he wrote down the rather sad words "The only person in the world who understands bird language died in 2006".
Wan Xiaoli did not die in 2006, and he later published "The North of the North" and "The Sun Looks Round". Although these two albums are not as wide as the audience of "Everything Is Not As Bad as Imagined", their experimental nature, the jumping and withdrawal of Impressionism, and the strong humanistic color mean that their artistic value will be beyond the times.
In addition to Wan Xiaoli's music, it is worth mentioning his alcoholism. He was so fond of drinking that in the past few years, he had hardly been fully awake, and even because of his alcoholism, he had always fought with the People's Congress. Until the long-term alcoholism began to make his body look out of shape. He began to be completely enveloped in pain, during which time he also had to complete the production of an album because of a contract. The production was pushed and pushed, and he really couldn't push anymore, so he continued to do it hard.
However, his body, psychology, and nerves began to hurt, and symptoms such as cervical vertebrae pressing the brain to supply blood made him unable to live a normal life, let alone create music. Depression, irritability, struggling on the edges of the body, the feeling of dying or living, made him decide to quit drinking.
He said: "There is really no need to exaggerate the abstinence of alcohol into perseverance, awakening or something, that is, you don't know that you don't know that you don't have pain." ”
He said: "People say that creation requires wine to have inspiration, and inspiration is something that you can do as long as you focus on it." I didn't get any inspiration from wine. For the first seven days when I quit drinking, there was a liquor store around me, and they were drinking and smoking, and my body didn't react at all. ”
After quitting drinking, he gradually became clear, and began to understand where the problem occurred and what was the best solution. So he lived in seclusion in Hangzhou and began to see a psychologist.
He rented a small building with a courtyard in Laoyuhang and lived a life of isolation among the green mountains and rivers. He climbed mountains, meditated, practiced yoga, saw a psychiatrist, and the composition was also being carried out effectively, and the band he formed was methodically rehearsing, just as he sang: All this is not as bad as imagined!
He said alcoholism hurt his body, he said music made him feel dangerous, he said grumpiness would not be exchanged for peace, and he said climbing mountains could meet squirrels.
A lot of times, it's ourselves who murder ourselves. Many times, the only thing that can save us is ourselves. Wan Xiaoli pulled himself back from his irritability in time, jumped out of reality and walked into peace. What about you? What binds you? There's always a better way for you to untie the ropes.