Trinh Cong Son and Joining Hands

The song “Joining Hands” was played when the people of Saigon welcomed the liberation army after the Ho Chi Minh Campaign achieved complete victory on April 30, 1975. Photo: Document

Desire for peace

The works in the collection Da Vang Songs not only reflect the pain of the times, but also express the passionate desire for peace, harmony and healing the wounds left by war.

Through the language of music, Trinh Cong Son quietly entered into everyday moments, thereby evoking the depth of emotions and human thoughts. For him, war was not only a confrontation between two sides but also a painful cut on each human destiny, especially the innocent people without weapons.

In the song "Mother O Ly", Trinh Cong Son depicts the image of a mother from the Central region with a simple yet haunting voice:

One morning on the road
Mom goes to the back garden
Ask about the green pumpkin on the trellis

It is a true story, about an old mother in Quang Tri in 1972, who walked 120km to Hue with only a pumpkin in her hand - the only property left in the midst of the chaotic war. The song is short, with few words but touches the heart. It shows the extraordinary inner strength of small people - women who shoulder both the pain of loss and the fragile belief in the day of reunion.

Similarly, in the song “Mother's Folk Song”, Trinh Cong Son let the mother's lullaby become the sad echo of a generation living amidst falling bombs and exploding bullets:

Mother sits and rocks her baby in a hammock, sad as the years pass by, her age wears away.
Mother looks at her homeland and hears her child's sad tears of repentance.
Tears of repentance bring me back to the mortal world to suffer humiliation for life
A river flows forever to the uncertain sky of human fate

That lullaby is not just for a child, but for the entire nation during the time of division. In that lullaby, there are feelings, tears, and the pure and lasting love of a mother for her homeland.

It is this love, throughout Trinh Cong Son's music, that has become the foundation for him to convey the message of peace. Peace, for him, does not begin with negotiations or slogans, but begins with the human heart - where there is still love, concern and pain for the suffering of fellow human beings.

Big bracelet

And also from the desire for peace and unification, Trinh Cong Son wrote the song “Joining Hands in a Big Circle”. The song was born in 1968, when the country was still divided and the war showed no signs of ending.

Musician Trinh Cong Son. Photo: Document

The song’s melody is hearty, and the lyrics repeat the verb “connect” like an urgent plea. Trinh Cong Son wished not only to connect the earth with the sky, not only to connect the North with the South, but also to connect people and hearts that seemed unable to beat together, closer together. Peace in him was a full embrace, a Vietnam connected from the South to the North:

Mountains and forests reach out to connect with the distant sea
We go hand in hand forever to connect the country

Each verse is a layer of meaning. Connecting from the flag to the drop of blood. Connecting the city to the countryside. Connecting the living to the dead. It is the peace of humanity, of tolerance, of memory and the future blending together.

Peace is not only on paper or maps, but is the peace that exists in every act of altruism, every sympathetic handshake, every tear of empathy between people of the same blood. It is a peace that begins with forgiveness and remembering each other as parts of a common home - the Fatherland.

Trinh Cong Son’s aspiration later became a reality. On the afternoon of April 30, 1975, musician Trinh Cong Son appeared at Saigon Radio and sang “Joining Hands”. It was not an ordinary performance, but a moment when art and history merged. Amidst the overwhelming joy of millions of people, the song was sung like a vow for the future: to move forward together, without hatred, only with hope.

After the country was completely unified, Trinh Cong Son’s “Joining Hands” quickly became a cultural symbol that spread throughout the country. The song resounded in schoolyards, in art exchanges, in community programs - like a yeast that connected people’s hearts.

Even today, after so many changes, it is still not old. Because peace is never obvious. Peace is a journey maintained by intelligence, by emotion, by tolerance and by relentless effort.

Music cannot stop bombs from falling, but it can awaken human conscience. And where there is compassion, there is a chance for peace to flourish.

The legacy that Trinh Cong Son left behind is not only immortal love songs. He is a musician of love, of pain and of dreams that have not yet taken shape. But above all, he is a musician of peace - the kind of peace that starts from the heart, spreads through melody, and continues to be preserved by large arms linked together through many generations.

Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/trinh-cong-son-va-noi-vong-tay-lon-3153758.html