i dedicated the song to you/ i gave him the microphone
Faye Wong - Cheng Ke (Passenger)
王菲 - 乘客
From Faye's 2003 album, "To Love"-- her cover of Sophie Zelmani's "Going Home."
The highway bridge has already passed,
but there are still many more intersections to go.
This journey isn't a winding one.
We'll be there in a blink of an eye. [1]
Sitting in the car you're driving,
listening to the songs you listen to,
we are so happy.
The first street lamp turned on.
What are you thinking?
"The singer sounds so happy."
"That singer got married." [2]
Sitting in the car you're driving,
listening to the songs you listen to,
I'm not unhappy.
The white clouds are pale white.
The blue sky is blue-gray.
We're almost at my house.
I am the first passenger
of this car.
I'm not unhappy.
The sky is blood red.
The stars are gray silver.
Where's your lover? [3]
Yes I'm going home.
I must hurry home,
Where your life goes on.
So I'm going home.
Going home alone.
And your life goes on
Find alternate translation and original Chinese here.
[1] To me, it sounds either like the driver of the car missed the first ramp onto the highway, but Faye is assuring them that there are still many more chances to get on the highway, or she's naming off landmarks en route to their destination-- "oh, there's the highway bridge. Don't worry, we have a lot more intersections to pass before we get there It's not complicated." But I didn't know if I was a) reading too much into it and b) how to convey that feeling without translating too loosely.
[2] None of the other translations have these lines as dialogue, and neither do the lyrics displayed on the MV, but it really does sound to me like "That singer sounds so happy" is in answer to "What are you thinking?" I should also note that when you listen to the song, it is very, very hard to hear the "not" of "unhappy". It actually sounds, at first glance, like she's saying, "I'm not happy." Something to chew over.
[3] The literal translation of this is "Your lover, hmm?" It's a fading off question, like, "Hey, your lover...." A better translation would be "What about your lover?", so that what exactly she's asking about is left up to her mysterious companion, but I didn't want to give the impression that Faye was somehow saying, "WHAT COLOR IS YOUR LOVER??" Part of me thinks she is asking that in a roundabout way, like "the sky is a blood red, what about your lover?" but everyone else has it translated as "Where is your lover," and yeah, that's probably closer to what she meant.
It amuses me to think that Sophie Zelmani's "Going Home" actually contains the line "I'm going home alone", but Wong Faye's is emphatically about going home with someone else. She did the same thing with the "Cold War" cover of "Silent All These Years", where Tori Amos sang about the fall out of the relationship whereas Wong Faye sang about the buildup to the end. In a way, I have a feeling Sophie is singing about what Faye's lovers are going to become in the years to come, when they are "too old to make a mess" and willing to let their life go on.
My favorite thing about "Cheng Ke (Passenger)", though, is how you think the couple is established, and then Wong Faye throws the curve ball of "What about your lover?" at you in the last Chinese stanza. I also adore the way the words fade in during the MV, and the way it has that unsure, halting quality, a dream-like starkness, that "Bu Liu (Leave Nothing)" shares.
Faye also did a Cantonese version of "Passenger" entitled "Withered Flower" (Hey, shouldn't that line actually be "Flower Season Is Over?").
You can find lyrics here and translations here-- I'm not doing them myself because I'm lazy and that translation is pretty much how I would do it too (Except for the line "I'm completely ignorant"; to me, it'd be "I don't know anything"). In feeling at least, "Flowering Season's Over" is a lot closer to Zelmani's. Actually, that's kind of a lie. It's far more bitter than Zelmani's. I love the double punch of "Let me thank you for giving me unfulfilled happiness" and "Because I've settled down, I'm weary of being harassed by happiness". Oh Wong Faye, never change.
王菲 - 乘客
From Faye's 2003 album, "To Love"-- her cover of Sophie Zelmani's "Going Home."
Click to viewThe highway bridge has already passed,
but there are still many more intersections to go.
This journey isn't a winding one.
We'll be there in a blink of an eye. [1]
Sitting in the car you're driving,
listening to the songs you listen to,
we are so happy.
The first street lamp turned on.
What are you thinking?
"The singer sounds so happy."
"That singer got married." [2]
Sitting in the car you're driving,
listening to the songs you listen to,
I'm not unhappy.
The white clouds are pale white.
The blue sky is blue-gray.
We're almost at my house.
I am the first passenger
of this car.
I'm not unhappy.
The sky is blood red.
The stars are gray silver.
Where's your lover? [3]
Yes I'm going home.
I must hurry home,
Where your life goes on.
So I'm going home.
Going home alone.
And your life goes on
Find alternate translation and original Chinese here.
[1] To me, it sounds either like the driver of the car missed the first ramp onto the highway, but Faye is assuring them that there are still many more chances to get on the highway, or she's naming off landmarks en route to their destination-- "oh, there's the highway bridge. Don't worry, we have a lot more intersections to pass before we get there It's not complicated." But I didn't know if I was a) reading too much into it and b) how to convey that feeling without translating too loosely.
[2] None of the other translations have these lines as dialogue, and neither do the lyrics displayed on the MV, but it really does sound to me like "That singer sounds so happy" is in answer to "What are you thinking?" I should also note that when you listen to the song, it is very, very hard to hear the "not" of "unhappy". It actually sounds, at first glance, like she's saying, "I'm not happy." Something to chew over.
[3] The literal translation of this is "Your lover, hmm?" It's a fading off question, like, "Hey, your lover...." A better translation would be "What about your lover?", so that what exactly she's asking about is left up to her mysterious companion, but I didn't want to give the impression that Faye was somehow saying, "WHAT COLOR IS YOUR LOVER??" Part of me thinks she is asking that in a roundabout way, like "the sky is a blood red, what about your lover?" but everyone else has it translated as "Where is your lover," and yeah, that's probably closer to what she meant.
It amuses me to think that Sophie Zelmani's "Going Home" actually contains the line "I'm going home alone", but Wong Faye's is emphatically about going home with someone else. She did the same thing with the "Cold War" cover of "Silent All These Years", where Tori Amos sang about the fall out of the relationship whereas Wong Faye sang about the buildup to the end. In a way, I have a feeling Sophie is singing about what Faye's lovers are going to become in the years to come, when they are "too old to make a mess" and willing to let their life go on.
My favorite thing about "Cheng Ke (Passenger)", though, is how you think the couple is established, and then Wong Faye throws the curve ball of "What about your lover?" at you in the last Chinese stanza. I also adore the way the words fade in during the MV, and the way it has that unsure, halting quality, a dream-like starkness, that "Bu Liu (Leave Nothing)" shares.
Faye also did a Cantonese version of "Passenger" entitled "Withered Flower" (Hey, shouldn't that line actually be "Flower Season Is Over?").
You can find lyrics here and translations here-- I'm not doing them myself because I'm lazy and that translation is pretty much how I would do it too (Except for the line "I'm completely ignorant"; to me, it'd be "I don't know anything"). In feeling at least, "Flowering Season's Over" is a lot closer to Zelmani's. Actually, that's kind of a lie. It's far more bitter than Zelmani's. I love the double punch of "Let me thank you for giving me unfulfilled happiness" and "Because I've settled down, I'm weary of being harassed by happiness". Oh Wong Faye, never change.