Leslie's Love for Life with Its Musical and Lyrical Stylizations

Abstract

This study chooses famous Hong Kong artist Leslie Cheung's song Love for Life for a detailed analysis of the musical and performance culture of that time. The song this study chooses has the style of Feng Yansi’s Song Poems Ye Jinmen, with a strong literati atmosphere, beautiful and colorful, euphemistic and implicit. Love for Life not only has good lyrics, but the music also exquisitely embodies the artistic conception of the lyrics. Through Leslie's singing, he sings such classical poetic lyrics in a monologue poet's voice. The live version of his 1988 concert, complete with medieval prince costumes, is quite Romeo style, reminiscent of Lam Yihua's words 'If there is a Romeo in the world, I think he is similar to you'. Apart from the analysis of Leslie, this study also draws some attention to the other contributors such as Zhong Xiaoyang. It is argued that through the cooperation of these artists, the song successfully represented the golden age of Hong Kong and one of the peaks of Cantonese culture.