"Listening to the boat singing at night, I miss Uncle Ho"

Among hundreds of musical works praising Uncle Ho, the song "Listening to the boat singing at night, remembering Uncle Ho" by musician An Thuyen is considered a song with strong Nghe Tinh folk melodies, touching the hearts of millions of music lovers:

“A deep folk song of the homeland/ Lam River night with tumultuous waves/ Echoing the ferry carrying simple human love/ Immense longing and lingering fragrance in life”.

Musician An Thuyen.

During his lifetime, musician An Thuyen said: In 1973, when he was only 24 years old, he was an officer of the Nghe An Department of Culture. During a trip to collect folk songs in Uncle Ho's hometown (Kim Lien, Nam Dan), he accidentally heard an old woman in Sen village say: "In the past, Uncle Ho also often went to listen to the fabric guild's singing." The image of the great Uncle Ho, a world cultural celebrity but extremely simple, loving his country and his homeland's traditional culture, inspired him to compose.

And, “Listening to the ferry boat singing at night, remembering Uncle Ho” was born in a night when An Thuyen wrote while shedding tears of longing for Uncle Ho: “Uncle Ho’s childhood has gone/ Throughout the length of the ferry boat/ Uncle Ho’s childhood has lived/ Throughout the breadth of the folk song/ And from then on, Uncle Ho sought a way to save the country”.

Through the "ferry song" to praise Uncle Ho, An Thuyen also included a vi verse, a dam song, making the work imbued with the traditional sound of the homeland. The song ends with the sentiments of the entire people grateful to Uncle Ho - the one who brought independence, freedom, happiness and preserved traditional cultural values ​​for the nation: "In the past, we followed the troupe to listen to singing/ Now Uncle has given us life/ Oh the song of independence and freedom/ That now all our people sing loudly/ The old wish/ Has come, oh so bright/ Now we sing the ferry song/ Seeing the immense beauty of life/ I miss Uncle Ho even more, I miss him deeply, my homeland".

Musician Nguyen An Thuyen (1949 - 2015), from Quynh Luu, Nghe An. He is a Major General, former Principal of the Military University of Culture and Arts; Permanent Vice President of the Vietnam Musicians' Association, 7th term. He is also famous for the songs "Heroic Vietnamese Mother", "I Chon Luong Nay", "Nine Levels of Love", "Neo Doi Ben Que"... Musician An Thuyen was honored to receive the State Prize for Literature and Arts in 2007 along with many noble awards from the Ministry of National Defense , the Vietnam Musicians' Association and other ministries, branches and localities.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/dem-nghe-hat-do-dua-nho-bac-702675.html