Recently, the popularity of the video game “Black Myth: Wukong” has brought back attention to the opening theme song for the 1986 classic Chinese TV series “Journey to the West.”
According to Beijing Daily, "Yun Gong Jin Yin" composed by musician Xu Jingqing is known as the "origin of electronic music" for Chinese film music, and has become one of the most familiar film soundtracks for many generations of Chinese audiences.
Musician Hua Jingqing officially joined the crew of the 1986 version of “Journey to the West” in 1984. He was 42 years old that year.
During his 4-5 years in the film crew, he composed a total of 15 songs and more than 100 pieces of music for "Journey to the West 1986". Among them, he liked the opening song "Van Cung Tan Am" the most, because he thought it was the main and most emotional song.
In 1983, director Yang Jie contacted seven famous composers whose works had made a splash to compose the opening theme for "Journey to the West," but she did not like any of them.
Through an introduction, the director met Hua Jingqing. At that time, he had been working in a film studio for nearly 20 years, with his main job being filming agricultural science and education.
Some people were worried that Hua Jingqing was just an unknown musician, but director Yang Jie still chose him and said: "Whether famous or unknown, the important thing is whether the music meets the requirements or not."
After joining the film crew, Xu Jingqing was assigned by director Yang Jie to write the opening music, which was exactly 2 minutes and 40 seconds long. When asked if he had any requirements regarding the content, the director told Xu Jingqing to write whatever he wanted, without any framework.
This made the musician even more confused, because not everyone can compose attractive music related to mythology. For 2-3 days, he could not write a single line and was extremely frustrated.
After several nights of racking his brain, one afternoon, Hua Jingqing accidentally saw 2-3 workers passing by his window, holding lunch boxes while tapping spoons and humming.
He didn't know what they were singing, it just sounded like a country tune, a little bit mischievous. Suddenly, inspiration struck, Hua Jingqing jumped up and wrote down the first notes "ten ten ten ten".
One evening, as he lay in bed staring at the ceiling, a melody that sounded like an alien sound suddenly rang in his head. Then, Xu Jingqing invited a clear and elegant soprano voice to perform the "ah.." refrain.
In an interview on CCTV6, Xu Jingqing shared that what he was most satisfied with was the use of electronic drums in the song, making the classic melody of "Journey to the West" seem to soar into the sky.
Xu Jingqing recounted that he was worried about how to use music to depict the feeling of Sun Wukong flying up to the sky and riding on the clouds.
One day, when he happened to go to a music store and saw someone plugging in an electronic drum, the sound immediately inspired the musician's creativity.
He was the first to use electronic music for Chinese film music.
When "Journey to the West 1986" first aired, Xu Jingqing's songs were criticized for using Western electronic music, which was not widely known at the time. However, director Yang Jie felt that only Xu Jingqing could compose good soundtracks for "Journey to the West", so she wrote a letter to the station's leadership, determined to fight to keep Xu Jingqing.
