Escape from Utopia (逃离乌托邦)

Single released on November 10, 2015. Be included in Hua Chenyu’s 2nd album “Aliens”.

1. About the song

“Escape from Utopia”, composed by Aurora Aksnes, the lyrics by Dai Yuedong. This Norwegian Light’s rising star has made her mark in the music scene with its illusory and deep, clear and emotional vocal lines, and her songs have been greatly appreciated by Katy Perry.

Although this song was written by a girl, its jumping, psychedelic style was very interesting, and matched Hua Chenyu’s style very well.

It was well known that Aurora Aksne normally put her songs into her own albums, not for others to cover, the team decided to give it try. After communicating on copyright, the team got this talented girl’s song, then this “Escape from Utopia” was born.

“Utopia” represents the beautiful world in the will of human mind, but the seemingly beautiful reality has a lot of constraints, the seemingly gorgeous has many holes, people want to escape. Just as the life of an idol, behind the spotlight is the life that has been edited.

After collaboration of seven songs, including the song We Are All Lonely of the first album and The Mayfly of the second album, the collaboration of Dai Yuedong and Hua Chenyu has become very tacit. Obviously, this time Dai Yuedong had a good grasp of the theme, named the song “Escape from utopia”, the lyrics wrote about the false hollow feeling of the urban people being pushed away by the secular rules, as if the life is written by the invisible pen, expressing the desire to break free from the secular frame, re-control of their own life. And this theme is very much in tune with Aurora Aksne’s psychedelic style.

The arranger Bernard Zheng, highlighted the intensity of the rhythm and the distinction of the tone, to build a different world from the reality, both beautiful pure, but also deep dark. The electronic music interspersed in the middle is extremely depressed, wanting to break through everything by the real roar of life, and to a large extent to let the emotions soothing. The whole song’s psychedelic tone and changing drum point collision, in which the rebellious, struggling, and self-talk, let the “book man” finally make the decision, by himself, to go out, escape from utopia, restore the appearance of life.

2. Lyrics Translation

Lyricist: Dai Yuedong
Compose: Aurora Aksnes、Martin Odd Skalnes, Magnus Skylstad
Arrange: Bernard Zheng

逃离乌托邦	Escape from Utopia
我仿佛掉进故事里面	I seem to have fallen into a story
身边一切全都如同虚构	Everything around me is like fiction
每一个人都在扮演	Everyone is playing a role
连路人都是为了配合我	Even the bystanders are acting with me
我就像一个书中人	I’m just like a character in a book
却拥有自己的情绪	But I have my own emotions
被无形之笔牵着走	Manipulated by an invisible pen
我活的多么不真实	My life feels unreal
我生活的世界	The world I live in
多么虚幻	How illusory
多么无聊	How boring
多么荒唐	And how absurd it is
想飞出这章节	I want to fly out of this chapter
重新再铺垫	And redevelop the plot
重新书写	To rewrite
全新的我	A whole new me
我讨厌这空洞华丽的梦	I despise this hollow and extravagant dream
不去管封面装订多漂亮	Despite how beautiful the cover or binding may seem
不愿被几百页困住一切	I don’t want to be trapped in hundreds of pages
哪怕畅销被连载成系列	Even if it becomes a best-selling series
我就像一个书中人	I’m just like a character in a book
却拥有自己的情绪	But I have my own emotions
被无形之笔牵着走	Manipulated by an invisible pen
我活的多么不真实	My life feels unreal
我生活的世界	The world I live in
多么虚幻	How illusory
多么无聊	How boring
多么荒唐	And how absurd it is
想飞出这章节	I want to fly out of this chapter
重新再铺垫	And redevelop the plot
重新书写	To rewrite
全新的我	A whole new me
哪怕故事线扑朔迷离	Even if the plot twists and turns
我早已感到身心疲倦	I have long grown weary
别再去刻意轻描淡写	Don’t understate it intentionally
不如给明天留点悬念	Why not leave a little suspense for tomorrow
我生活的世界	The world I live in
多么虚幻	How illusory
多么无聊	How boring
多么荒唐	And how absurd it is
想飞出这章节	I want to fly out of this chapter
重新再铺垫	And redevelop the plot
重新书写	To rewrite
全新的我	A whole new me