The original song of Dongfanghong

The original song of Dongfanghong was sung by Li Youyuan.

Li Youyuan's family has been farmers in Jiaxian County, northern Shaanxi Province for generations, making a living by farming for landlords. Although his family was poor, Li Youyuan was still eager to go to school, so his loving mother borrowed a bucket of Gu Mi, a liter of mung beans, a catty of sesame oil and a pack of matches from her son and sent him to study in a winter study room in grandma's village in Liujiagou.

Li Youyuan works hard. That winter, he read books such as Hundred Family Names, Thousand-character Works and Three-character Classics, and learned a lot of words. At that time, he was only thirteen years old. But after that winter, Li Youyuan couldn't study, so he had to go to the town to collect dung. When he heard the sound of reading at school, he was very envious.

He took the initiative to do some chores for the school, such as boiling water, sweeping the yard, screening ashes and so on. Finally, I won an opportunity as an auditor. Li Youyuan is very studious. When he sees a piece of paper with words written on it, he will pick it up and read it. If there are words he doesn't know, he will write first, and then ask the teacher for advice. He also likes painting, playing banhu and sanxian, especially singing and composing folk songs.

Creation background

The tune of "Dongfanghong" was originally a folk song "Riding a White Horse" in northern Shaanxi. /kloc-in the winter of 0/943, Li Youyuan, a farmer singer in Jiaxian County, Shaanxi Province, wrote a folk song "Song of Immigrants" with more than ten lyrics according to the tune of "Riding a White Horse". Song of Immigrants has both narrative elements and lyrical elements, expressing the happiness of poor farmers in their pursuit of a happy life.

After the song was compiled, Li Zengzheng, Li Youyuan's nephew and farmer singer, sang at folk and mass gatherings many times, which was very popular with people. Subsequently, Yan 'an literary and art workers sorted out and edited the immigrant songs, wrote three lyrics, renamed them Dongfanghong, and published them in 1944 Liberation Daily.

After liberation, in order to adapt to the performance of professional chorus, many composers adapted it into a chorus. The popular chorus "Dongfanghong" was composed by the famous composer Li Huanzhi.