2005年NPR美国国家公共电台九月-Abigail Washburn: Chinese Lyrics, America

But when Abigail Washburn picks up her old time banjo and starts to sing, she often delivers her lyrics 1 in Chinese. It turns out she was speaking Chinese before she learned to play the banjo. In her early 20s, Abigail Washburn lived in the city of Chengdu. Her immersion 2 in Chinese culture inspired her to reconnect with the roots of American music. As part of the serious musicians in her own words, Washburn says she is not surprised when people are skeptical 3 of what she does.

If I saw somebody else who came out with an album that was part Chinese or part Japanese and there was this American you know that the Chinese said “lao wai”, foreigners you know, I will definitely get her go, who is she to be doing that?

At first I would say I was sort of laughed at and thought of as a bit of novelty for playing the banjo and singing in Chinese, you know, but it’s just me, it’s just me and there is no way around it.

I really enjoyed going to watch the Sichuan opera when I lived in Chengdu. There were the old folks, the retired 4 folks, generally were the audients makes during the call" ho ho ho", and there were people "ah~~~~~" you know like doing that. I, I don’t know what I am doing, obviously, but it was really a thrill. And there was, uh, compared to what I am used to, there was a really loose sense of rhythm, and it was all about emotive quality and had definitely affected 5 the way I thought about my music because I want the musical representation of the songs to be felt. Like the song “Red & Blazing”, it `s very much about a flow and the point is about swells 6— the emotional swells of grief .

The Lost Land was inspired by an experience I had when I was in Vermont, right before I moved to Nashville. I helped to teach English as a second language. And I worked with the seven Chinese guys in town, and all of these guys came to the States, thinking that they could make more money to send back to their families and eventually bring their families with them.

(在那遥远的故乡我失落了一个古老的梦。。。)

There’s one fellow. One night I had him over for dinner. He showed up and he really looked downtrodden and sad. And I said "what’s going on? 你怎么回事呢？” He said," Well, read this letter." He gave it to me and it was from his wife and she was saying, "you’ve been gone for four years now and I don’t know when you are coming back. I’m afraid I’m never going to see you again. So I think your daughter and I need to start a new life without you.” And I didn’t, how do you, what do you do with an experience like that? Using this imagery that you see a lot in, like classic Chinese poetry about missing your home, the ancient home, the true home. It’s just about being at the great stage of loneness really.