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Chen Yiwen

A SHORELINE IS NOT A PROMISE

Famous for one wedding song she now cannot escape and did not write about love

style

  • mandopop
  • lush piano ballad
  • cinematic strings
  • controlled female vocal
  • wide reverb
  • emotional restraint then release
  • mandarin accent
  • tender and grand
  • mandarin accent
  • tender

the numbers

bpm
136
key
A# major
energy
0.69
dance
0.92
valence
0.47
vocal at
7.0s
length
3:39
language
Ma

lyrics

(hai an)

Wo xie de shi hai an, bu shi cheng nuo
I wrote a shoreline. They heard a promise. Same words.
Shui zong shi zou, an zong shi liu xia
The water always leaves. The shore is what stays and gets called faithful.

And they play it while two people say forever
And the song underneath is about a woman
Walking out to where the ground stops agreeing to hold her

A shoreline is not a promise, not a promise
It is only the place where leaving becomes visible
A shoreline is not a promise, not a promise
And four hundred couples have danced on that misunderstanding

Wo bu hui jie shi, yong yuan bu hui
I will not explain it. Not once. Not to anyone.
Ta men de si fen zhong bi wo de shi nian zhong yao
Their four minutes weigh more than my ten years

Wo ma ma zai ta zi ji de hun li shang ku le.
My mother cried at her own wedding when it played.
She knows. She has never said. We are a family of shorelines.

A shoreline is not a promise, not a promise
It is only the place where leaving becomes visible
A shoreline is not a promise, not a promise
And four hundred couples have danced on that misunderstanding

(hai an...)