Shidaiqu in Singapore’s Cantopop scene: Lisa Wong’s ‘Lovesick Tears’ (1972)

The term “Cantonese music” originally encompassed Cantonese opera music, traditional narrative singing such as Namyaam, and in its narrow sense, Chinese instrumental music originated from Guangdong province.¹ In a broader sense, however, it can refer to music from the Guangdong province of China — including Cantonese music, Teochew music and Hakka music.² When discussing instrumental music, the terms “Cantonese music” (yue yue 粤乐) and “Guangdong music” (Guangdong yinyue 广东音乐) are largely interchangeable.

Cantonese opera music, tunes (xiaoqu) and pop songs incorporated many popular shidaiqu — “songs of the era” which had originated in Shanghai from the 1930s to 1950s.³ A key example would be Lovesick Tears, a 1972 pop song by Singaporean singer Lisa Wong. Its melody came from Four Seasons of Lovesickness (1940), a shidaiqu sung by Zhou Xuan (1920–1957).⁴ The lyrics of Wong’s song were written by Malaysian singer Kok Peng Kin (1933–2015). They were direct and accessible, and made use of old Cantonese colloquialisms (“You left with no explanation for the betrayal…Why did you not write any letters?”) that gave it a flavour reminiscent of the earlier decades of the 20^th century.

From Four Seasons of Lovesickness to Lovesick Tears

Although the shidaiqu Four Seasons of Lovesickness was sung in Mandarin, the accompaniment featured mainly instruments that were commonly used in Cantonese music — including the stringed gaohu, and woodwinds such as houguan, dizi, and saxophone. The musicians also performed in the style of Cantonese music,⁵with the gaohu sounding like it could have been played by famous musician Lü Wencheng (1898–1981).⁶

In contrast, Wong’s Lovesick Tears used only Western instruments such as the electric guitar, electronic keyboard, and jazz drums. Wong did not employ the falsetto used in Cantonese opera or operatic songs, but chose to sing in the style of general pop songs. She also used vibrato, a technique popular among Taiwanese Chinese singers then, while sustaining long notes. Only her pronunciation and tone of voice were closer to Cantonese music.

Neither Kok, Cheng Kam Cheong (1941–2019), nor the numerous female singers who later covered Lovesick Tears had as far-reaching an impact as Wong did in her 1972 version.⁷

Nostalgia for the early 1900s

The Cantonese spoken by the Chinese community in Southeast Asia in the 1970s was similar to what was used two generations ago in Hong Kong, as heard in Cantonese movies from the 1940s and 1950s. Wong had learned her Cantonese lyrics using English phonetics,⁸ and her pronunciation was somewhat exaggerated and weepy in diction. Her accent, tone, and vocalisations, as well as Kok’s lyrics, created a Cantonese flavour that allowed listeners to reminisce and reimagine a soundscape of oldies — as well as an older form of spoken Cantonese — from two generations ago. It evoked memories of the early 1900s.

The success of Wong’s Lovesick Tears came after Singapore artiste Seong Koon Low Won’s (1922–2002) hit song Can’t Buy Me Love from the 1960s, whose melody came from the Beatles song of the same name. They are examples of Nanyang Cantonese pop songs which made waves in the Hong Kong music scene — reflecting how the Cantonese cultures of Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia were closely related and influenced one another after 1949 and into the early 1970s.