Yaoyao Jiang: How to Mourn Liu Huan? Who Is "Start Over" Sung For?
Renowned musician Liu Huan passed away in Shanghai on September 25, 2025, at the age of 63. This article, compiled by the channel "China-US Benchmarking," reviews Liu Huan's artistic journey—from his overnight fame with "Snow City" and "Plainclothes Police," through his experience of being banned by CCTV, to the creation of era-defining songs like "Beijingers in New York," "Hero's Song," and "Start All Over Again." It also explores the plight of millions of laid-off state-owned enterprise workers behind "Start All Over Again" and Liu Huan's support for original music and young musicians in his later years.
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Hello everyone, I am Yaoyao Jiang, who loves to think and values logic. Liu Huan has passed away; this is sad and shocking news. The obituary released by his employer, the University of International Business and Economics, on September 26, stated that he passed away in Shanghai at 9:52 AM on September 25 at the age of 63. The university stated that, in accordance with his wishes, no funeral committee would be established, and no memorial service would be held.
For many, the first reaction upon hearing the news was to find one of his songs to listen to. Some clicked on "Hero's Song," others remembered "The Curved Moon," and I thought of the song "Start All Over Again." Back then, it was sung for those who were laid off and seeking re-employment during the reform of state-owned enterprises. He also left behind a question that sounds a bit difficult to answer today: When a person loses their livelihood, income, and former life due to a unilateral decision by the state-owned enterprise they work for, who has the right to tell them that it is fine to just start all over again?
Of course, Liu Huan was not the songwriter or composer of this song; he was merely the performer. Over the decades, in different eras, he was constantly invited to sing about the major events of the grand era, and his voice became the musical rings of different stages of the Reform and Opening-up. However, what he valued most himself was music that transcended the era, as well as those sincere and hardworking people living their lives outside of music.
These are familiar songs, likely from the TV series "Snow City." There was also "Plainclothes Police," which were considered overnight hits. Around the Spring Festival of 1988, two TV series were broadcast alternately on Beijing television screens: "Snow City" on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and "Plainclothes Police" on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. The theme songs for both dramas were sung by Liu Huan. He later recalled that this was how he became famous overnight, with his songs spreading across the country.
The first to approach him was the TV series "Snow City," which was about the massive return of educated youth to cities in 1979. However, although people returned, their jobs and future lives were not necessarily secured. Someone asked Liu Huan, since he had never been sent to the countryside, how could he sing with that kind of feeling? He said that at the time, almost every family in the city had someone who had been sent to the countryside, and the lives of those around him were right in front of him; he did not need to experience it personally. To sing "The Sun in My Heart," he even followed the crew at the Beijing Film Studio for over a month, watching the footage every day to find the right feeling.
"Snow City" was first broadcast in other regions, and it had not yet aired in Beijing at that time. While the crew of "Plainclothes Police" was filming on location in Tianjin, director Lin Ruwei saw "Snow City" and took a liking to the singing in it. Assistant director Zhao Baogang returned to Beijing, found Liu Huan, and after quite a bit of trouble, managed to reach him and invited him to record "Youthful Ambitions Do Not Fear Sorrow." By the time these two dramas were broadcast alternately in Beijing, the audience could hear the theme song he sang almost every day. When Zhao Baogang found him, he was actually busy with school anniversary celebrations. He later recalled that at that time, he was just an unknown young teacher.
Liu Huan was not trained as a professional singer. He studied French literature at the University of International Relations. He only touched a piano when he was nineteen and a sophomore, and his knowledge of musical instruments, music theory, and music history was mainly self-taught. In 1981, the University of International Relations only admitted five students in Tianjin, and eighteen-year-old Liu Huan was one of them. At that time, classical music was often played on the school radio, and Liu Huan's favorite thing to do was to stroll leisurely to the sound of the music. He had participated in English and French song competitions for universities in the capital and also sang foreign movie songs on television programs.
After graduating in 1985, he went to Ningxia to teach for a year. Later, some people called him an academic, but he asked himself, having never even attended a music conservatory, how could he be considered an academic? The University of International Relations where he was located had a piano. At noon, when everyone else went to rest, he would find the key and play until the afternoon class. In 1985, he participated in a French song competition, and the prize was a three-week free trip to France, so he even took a trip to France before graduation.
After graduation, he signed up to teach in Shizuishan, Ningxia. In winter, the school's boiler broke, and students could have a holiday, but the lecturer group had to stay. During that time, he wrote a few songs with a Northwest style, but when he returned to Beijing, he saw that the "Northwest Wind" style had already become popular. Fearing that it would look like he was just following the trend, he put the songs aside. When "Snow City" was being recorded, he went to the set to watch the footage, but "Plainclothes Police" was different. Many years after the drama aired, Liu Huan said he had never watched it. Later, when he worked on the songs for "A Beijing Native in New York" and "Empresses in the Palace," he would monitor the process from the early creative stage to the post-production, and this way of working was something he gradually formed.
Liu Huan later summarized his creative habits: a singer should try to sing as closely as possible to the characters in the drama, letting the music enter the story rather than stealing the show. He had not experienced the return of educated youth to the city, nor had he been a policeman. What he could do was first figure out who the song was being sung for, and then decide what kind of voice to use to shape the character. In 1989, Li Haiying asked him to sing "The Curved Moon," and the audience was already accustomed to him singing loudly. This time, he deliberately restrained his voice and improvised with falsetto, letting people hear another side of Liu Huan.
Years later, he once wanted to re-record "Youthful Ambitions Do Not Fear Sorrow," but after trying many times, he gave up. The reason was that although his technique was better than before, he could no longer sing the flavor of his twenties. Therefore, until now, the record still retains his previous recording. Subsequently, TV dramas, galas, and sports events kept coming to find Liu Huan, but just when he was most popular, he suddenly disappeared from the television screen.
In 1991, floods occurred in East China. Liu Huan and Wei Wei initiated a disaster relief performance by the Beijing literary and art circles, and CCTV also held a large-scale disaster relief gala. Both events were to raise funds for the flood, but they caused trouble for Liu Huan. CCTV's gala had originally arranged for Liu Huan to sing the song "The World Needs Warm Hearts," but before the live broadcast began, Liu Huan had not received any notification to attend. When the program reached that point, the host told the audience during the live broadcast that the next song should have been sung by Liu Huan, but he did not come. Liu Huan actually heard this sentence on TV and realized he was on the program list, so he immediately rushed to the scene to make up for the performance.
The next day, Liu Huan went to CCTV to demand an explanation. Since they did not notify him, why did they make the national audience think he had broken his promise during the live broadcast? Jin Zhaojun later recalled that he subsequently saw a red-headed document stating that Liu Huan was late and caused a scene at the venue, and it requested that he be banned. The document was quickly withdrawn. However, in the following years, Liu Huan's appearances on CCTV significantly decreased. As for why the notification was missed and how the two sides argued the next day, there is no complete record in public materials. At that time, there were no personal social media accounts to respond immediately. When the TV station said on live broadcast that the person did not come, it would take a long time for Liu Huan to convey his side of the story to the same number of viewers.
Liu Huan later described this incident as a moderate twist in his own life, without portraying himself as a suffering hero. However, for a singer who rose to fame through television dramas and TV galas, being unable to appear on the major platforms had visible consequences. His songs continued to circulate, but opportunities for new programs and live performances dwindled rapidly. In 1993, Zheng Xiaolong and Feng Xiaogang finished shooting the TV drama Beijingers in New York. The music had not yet been made, but the broadcast date was fast approaching.
So they thought of Liu Huan again. In the entire production crew, only this person responsible for writing the music had not yet been to New York, and this task, which had to be delivered on schedule, finally brought his work back to the television screen.
Liu Huan moved his home music equipment into the production team's quarters, staying at the Friendship Hotel in Beijing. The TV drama was originally scheduled to be broadcast in November, but the beverage sponsor thought this time was too late—the weather was already turning cold, so how could his soft drinks be sold? Therefore, the broadcast date was brought forward, which meant that only a little over a month was left for music production. In this month or so, Liu Huan had to finish writing and recording seven songs and over ninety pieces of incidental music.
The show was filmed in New York, but it told the story of people from Beijing. So Liu Huan tried rock and also tried funk. Now, funk originates from American Black music, and its most distinct characteristic is the strong rhythm of the drums and bass. In the end, he did not directly copy these styles into the TV drama; instead, he wanted the audience to hear New York without letting the music overpower the characters' situations in the show.
The lyrics, music, and vocals of the song that later became the most widely circulated, Millions of Questions, were all completed by himself. Seven complete songs were easy for the audience to remember, but over ninety pieces of incidental music took much more effort. Some pieces of music lasted only a few tens of seconds, yet they had to match the characters' movements and the transitions of the camera shots. In a little over a month, what he created was not just a music album, but the entire musical soundtrack of the TV drama.
Feng Xiaogang recalled that at the time, the production crew had little money, and Liu Huan received almost no composition pay. Yet he still repeatedly discussed things with Feng Xiaogang, sometimes working through the night. Previously, audiences only knew him as a singer, but with Beijingers in New York, he began to build the entire drama's music in the capacity of a composer. The TV drama sent him back to the screen and let more people know that Liu Huan could do more than just sing. The songs and incidental music of Beijingers in New York were broadcast, which did not mean Liu Huan himself could immediately return to the CCTV stage; his music had returned to CCTV, but it was not until the end of 1995 that he was invited again to participate in a CCTV live gala. In total, he was subjected to a soft ban for nearly five years.
In 1998, the CCTV version of Water Margin was broadcast, and the Good Brothers Song written by Zhao Jiping quickly spread across the country.
Liu Huan's recording of the Good Brothers Song was also somewhat accidental. Because when he entered the recording studio that day, he was originally supposed to sing another song. After recording that one, Zhao Jiping took out the Good Brothers Song and asked him if he wanted to try it. Liu Huan even asked, weren't the lyrics for this song still unapproved? The accompaniment was already finished, so he went into the booth and sang it once. Over a month later, the CCTV director came to look for him to record the New Year's Eve gala, specifically asking him to sing this Good Brothers Song. Only then did he learn that the production team had decided to use the version he had recorded initially. Today, it seems like an unavoidable representative work, but at the time it was just an uncertain trial recording.
The Good Brothers Song later became Liu Huan's label. Liu Huan later sang many other people's works and wrote complete sets of music for quite a few film and television dramas. Sometimes he was just a singer, and sometimes he also doubled as a creator. That same year, the public service advertisement Start Over Again was broadcast on CCTV, facing employees who lost their positions in state-owned enterprise reforms.
In the mid-to-late 1990s, Zhu Rongji's state-owned enterprise reforms entered a so-called phase of concentrated breakthroughs. Localities began to promote grasping the large and letting go of the small and streamlining staff for greater efficiency. A batch of loss-making state-owned enterprises were merged, closed down, or went bankrupt. Jobs previously known as iron rice bowls disappeared in large numbers, and being laid off became a reality that thousands of households had to face. State-owned enterprise reforms had to continue, yet the dissatisfaction and anxiety of laid-off workers needed to be placated. CCTV planned this series of public service ads with a clear intent: to explain re-employment policies to every household. The original jobs were not coming back, and workers had to put down the iron rice bowl. Thus, a new term emerged: laid-off re-employment.
In 1997, China Central Television began planning this series of public service ads for laid-off re-employment, and the song Start Over Again was born from this.
Broadcasting began in the summer of 1998, and those who participated in the filming received no compensation. CCTV spent more than two months just finding stars willing to take part. The song title was changed twice: the first draft was called "When the Rain Clears Up and the Sun Comes Out", but composer Wang Xiaofeng felt it was too soft; the second draft was called "Step Forward", but it was felt to be too hard. In the end, lyricist Chen Tao and Wang Xiaofeng picked four characters from the end of the lyrics and named the song "Start Anew". All three names were actually answering the same question: How do you converse with a worker who has just been laid off? It was neither to make light of the difficulties nor to push people too hard. The commercial featured old factory buildings and residential quarters in the rain, the honors a family had won in the past, and documentary footage of re-employment.
Wang Xiaofeng recalled later that when he and the deputy director of CCTV's advertising department went to invite Liu Huan, they directly stated that there was no compensation for singing a public service song, and Liu Huan was still very willing to sing it. Liu Huan was already famous by 1997 and had a stable teaching position at a public university. That round of state-owned enterprise layoffs would not affect his rice bowl; he did not take on the song to earn a performance fee, but as his own choice.
On May 13, 1998, the People’s Daily published a special survey. As of the end of 1997, a total of 12.74 million workers had been diverted and laid off from state-owned enterprises nationwide, among whom 6.34 million had still not achieved re-employment or other diversion and placement. The report also acknowledged that some localities and enterprises could not even guarantee the basic living expenses and social insurance costs for laid-off workers. "Start Anew" was not meant to cheer people up when the layoffs had just begun, but appeared only after millions of people had already lost their jobs.
Just before the commercial aired, in June 1998, the CCP Central Committee and the State Council issued the No. 10 Document concerning basic livelihood guarantees and re-employment for laid-off workers. The document referred to the massive layoffs of workers as an inevitable process in economic transition, acknowledged that it would bring temporary difficulties to some workers, but also stated that this served the long-term interests of the working class.
By the 1999 Spring Festival Gala, Huang Hong played a laid-off worker in the sketch "Cheering Up". He said that he entered the bicycle factory at the age of eighteen, joined the Youth League first and then the Communist Party, made the honor roll three times, and was just about to be promoted to deputy team leader when the leadership notified him that the unit was downsizing and merging factories. He immediately expressed his stance, saying that workers must think for the country: if I don't get laid off, who does? Near the end of the sketch, the two talked again about how people must look ahead. Huang Hong immediately followed up by saying, "Start Anew."
All three addressed the same matter. The document explained why layoffs were necessary, while the song sang of losing one's post as the heroic resolve to start anew; the sketch then had the laid-off workers themselves say they were willing to bear the cost of losing their jobs for the country, and the newspaper continuously reported on re-employment stars, telling people that as long as they were willing to endure hardship after being laid off, they could stand back up. For those without personal suffering, television had already presented a standard image: a worker who truly顾全大局 (considered the overall situation) should be proactive and optimistic, and quickly start anew. Meanwhile, those in reality who complained and went to the factory gates seeking explanations were instead easily viewed as lacking a broader perspective.
The skills once practiced in the workshop might not be needed by new employers. Children's schooling and elders' medical care would not be suspended just because the re-employment service center had a three-year limit. If a husband and wife had worked in the same factory, both might lose their income simultaneously. The newly coined term "laid off" sounded much milder than "unemployed," yet when it fell upon a family, such verbal nuances made no difference whatsoever.
At this point, "Start Anew" acquired a concrete age. Someone in their twenties might still be able to relearn a craft, but how could someone in their forties or fifties who had worked in the same factory for decades start anew? Later, director Wang Bing walked into the Tiexi District of Shenyang and filmed life before and after the factory ceased production. Some people worked their last shift, some chatted in empty workshops, and others took away things they could still bring home from the locker room. This footage later became the documentary Tiexi District. Wang Bing said that between 1998 and 1999, the changes in that generation were too immense, and he felt he had to leave a record.
Wang Bing did not arrange an uplifting ending for his subjects; his camera stayed with the workers in the workshops, bathhouses, and residential areas. The public service ad lasted only a few minutes and had to push the story toward re-employment. The documentary, however, filmed for a long time yet still could not answer where the people in the lens would go next. The same history through two different lenses: the public service ad encouraged workers to keep finding a way out, while Wang Bing's camera recorded those days where no way out was in sight.
The commercial "Start Anew" compressed a systematic institutional change into whether an individual could stand back up again. Such a narrative could certainly be questioned, but Liu Huan was not a decision-maker in the reform, nor was he the lyricist or composer; one cannot pin the entire responsibility for a public service ad heavy with propaganda on a single singer. The comfort the song provided objectively existed, just as the ad's high-and-mighty detachment—pumping people full of adrenaline while preaching from a position of ease—was equally obvious.
When talking about pop music in 2008, Liu Huan once said that many works from the 1980s were filled with habitual grandiose rhetoric, but by the 1990s, songs began to care more about concrete individuals, which he considered a good thing. This was not a targeted critique of the song "Start Anew" (《从头再来》), nor could it be taken as Liu Huan's personal self-reflection. However, these words showed that he knew singing a high-sounding phrase with passionate fervor was entirely different from using one's voice to convey the real situations and states of mind of those people.
In 2019, Liu Huan candidly said: "When I was young, I didn't have the courage to refuse, and I took on quite a few grand anthems that I didn't actually like," though he did not name anyone specifically. The phrase "start anew" at least indicates that he was unwilling to spend his whole life being someone who only plucked strings and sang for the policies of the era.
In 2003, Liu Huan released the album "Born in the Sixties" (《六十年代生人》), rearranging and re-recording old songs he had heard in his childhood, such as "Flowers of the Mountain" (《映山红》), "Remembering Comrades" (《怀念战友》), "Asia, Africa and Latin America" (《亚非拉》), and even "Feeding Chickens" (《喂鸡》), which he used to sing for fun as a kid. Some were arranged into symphonies, some adapted into rock, and others incorporated electronic music. Instead of putting together another greatest-hits collection of television theme songs that were already popular, he picked a batch of old songs bearing the distinct imprint of the times. Liu Huan was unwilling to simply call this album a nostalgic record. He wrote in the album notes: for the older generation, the sixties might be a family disaster and a national ordeal; for the next generation, it was merely history; but for his own generation, it still left behind tin mugs, fruit drops, and the melodies from the radio.
Remembering these sounds does not equate to denying the hardships of that era. He rearranged "Asia, Africa and Latin America" into rock music because, as he heard it, the voices of that generation of young people were not lukewarm. He invited musicians like San Bao to rearrange it; the old lyrics remained unchanged, and the original political context of the songs did not disappear just because the drum beats changed. What they changed were the tempo, the instruments, and the placement of the vocals.
This album was not an attempt to overturn the verdict on the sixties, but rather a way for Liu Huan to take the music he heard in his childhood, hand it over to his adult self, and redo it and resing it. Liu Huan had already become popular by 1987, yet he did not release his first personal album, "Remembering Liu Huan" (《记住刘欢》), until 1997, and another six years passed before his second album, "Born in the Sixties". When he signed with a record company in 1997, the original plan was to release four records within three years, and the next one was even half-jokingly titled "Forget Liu Huan" (《忘记刘欢》), but in the end, it still was not completed according to plan. His career pace was never like that of a pop singer running on a promotional cycle.
In the spring of the following year, Liu Huan held his first large-scale solo concert. The performance was originally scheduled for 2003, but was postponed to March 19, 2004, due to SARS. For a singer who had been a household name since 1988, this solo concert came very late. He and music director San Bao first screened forty or fifty songs before deciding what to sing on stage and how to arrange them. In the past, he usually took on one song for a drama or a gala; this time, he participated in deciding the entire setlist and order of the concert. On the evening of March 19, 18,000 spectators filled the Capital Indoor Stadium. Liu Huan opened with "Good Brothers" (《好汉歌》) and "A Young Man's Ambition Knows No Barriers" (《少年壮志不言愁》), backed by the China Philharmonic Orchestra and an electric band.
Before singing "Start Anew", he told the audience that in order for everyone to sing along, the band had specifically lowered the key by a half-step. This song had left public service advertisements for six years, and the live audience included both white-haired seniors and children under ten, with the entire venue singing along with him. The setlist also contained a piece of history that only he and his family fully understood: at the end of 1987, Hunan Television host Lu Lu invited Liu Huan to Beijing to participate in the New Year's Eve gala. After the recording, because the group could not buy return tickets, they stayed in Hunan for a few more days and went to Zhangjiajie together. Liu Huan and Lu Lu had known each other for nine days before deciding to get married.
Liu Huan's parents initially could not accept it, and to ease the tension at home, he even wrote Lu Lu a non-binding farewell letter, but immediately afterwards he sent a telegram telling her not to take it seriously. Later, when he became a father himself and looked back at the worries his elders had back then, he felt he could understand them. Lu Lu came to Beijing from Hunan, while Liu Huan continued to perform, write songs, and teach classes, and the two of them also had to deal with family, work, and income issues.
"People all say, how did I have a whirlwind marriage with that Liu Huan after just nine days? They say at that time I thought he was ugly, but since he still had talent, I might as well just marry him." He said this was a shameless rumor. He said that actually, Hua-ge back then was a handsome guy, definitely a handsome guy, definitely part of the idol faction. The most personal song of that night was called "Lulu" (《露露》), written for his wife Lulu. Liu Huan had been writing songs for sixteen years and did not publicly perform this one for the first time until this concert. As he sang, he choked up and shed tears, while Lulu was right there in the audience.
In a joint interview, two people talked about their marriage. Liu Huan admitted that he was not always considerate; when Lu Lu needed attention, he sometimes had his mind on other things. After they had a daughter, he could no longer arrange his work purely around his musical ideals, because for a period of time the family relied primarily on him to make a living. If he turned down half a year of work, the family's expenses could run into trouble. On stage he could decide how a song should be sung, but back home he still had to face mundane issues like income and spending time with his family that ordinary people must confront. When it came to being a father, he did not force his daughter to follow his path. When his daughter was young, he taught her the piano for a while, but stopped later on because she started living at school.
When the child grew up and wanted to learn again, the family hired another teacher. Liu Huan said: When children grow up, they should have their own choices.
On August 8, 2008, at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Liu Huan stood on the globe rising in the center of the Bird's Nest to sing "You and Me" with British singer Sarah Brightman. The song was composed by Chen Qigang, with Liu Huan responsible for the vocals. Some people had initially expected the Olympic theme song to be an increasingly fast, loud, and high-pitched anthem that the whole stadium would shout together. When Liu Huan first heard "You and Me," he was also very surprised. After the opening ceremony, he explained that he later understood this quiet choice, because it was about people coming closer to one another and living in peace. Therefore, behind those few calm minutes in the Bird's Nest lay dozens of recordings and adjustments.
Comparing his performance trajectory over the past decade, ten years earlier he had used a very loud voice to sing about laid-off workers standing back up, whereas ten years later he lowered his volume to sing to global audiences about the distance between people. But being chosen by the times did not mean he loved every song he had sung. Many of those major songs of the past were not his personal favorites, separating the Liu Huan on stage from the Liu Huan who listened to and wrote music in private. Later on, he became increasingly concerned with selecting works and whether he could participate in their production from start to finish.
In 2012, "Empresses in the Palace" became a massive hit. Many people re-listening to Liu Huan heard not just his voice, but the music he created for the entire series. His friendship with director Zheng Xiaolong began with "A Beijing Native in New York." Liu Huan had not accepted the musical scoring for an entire television drama for many years, but this time, because an old friend came looking for him, he agreed. Some interludes had to be written before filming so actors could lip-sync, while other music had to wait until the rough cut, fine cut, and final version were all determined, then inserted section by section into the more than seventy episodes of television footage. The entire process took nearly five months, while the actual concentrated writing only lasted about ten days or so.
Liu Huan once left regrets behind when writing music for television dramas because he did not participate in the final editing. Some melodies were written, but placed in inappropriate positions upon broadcast. After submitting their work, musicians often had no right to make further revisions. This time, however, he followed the process from the rough cut all the way to the final draft, handling decisions on-site whenever possible regarding which scenes used which piece of music, when it should start playing, and when it should stop. In the show, characters played the guqin and blew the flute, and the camera work was already completed; the music had to connect with both instruments without conflicting with the actors' hand movements. Liu Huan went to the shooting site for this reason; the audience might only hear a few seconds of music, but behind it lay a frame-by-frame and action-by-action verification.
Liu Huan once did the math: actors' pay keeps rising, while the money allocated for a production's overall music score is very small. Taking on "Empresses in the Palace," he said, was because of friendship and because the show was worth it. What made him even more anxious was that television stations sometimes cut the opening and ending credits to save time, and online video players could directly skip the songs. Back in the day, Liu Huan was discovered by audiences through the opening theme of the TV drama "Snow City." Over twenty years later, even if young musicians wrote a good song, they might not have the opportunity to let audiences finish listening to it. What worried him was no longer whether he still had works, but where the next generation of musicians' works could still be heard.
Do you hope to win the title of King of Singers? In my heart, there are only songs, not kings. When "Sing My Song" aired in 2014, many music talent shows had contestants cover famous songs, whereas Liu Huan pushed the show to specifically seek out people who could write songs. He asked the production team: old songs are modified over and over, and singers keep getting better at performing, but where are the new songs? Before the first round of recording, he had no certainty in his heart either. Mentors could not meet the contestants in advance; before turning their chairs, no one knew whether the entries sent from across the country could sustain a show.
Yet halfway through listening, Liu Huan finally felt relieved, because people were indeed writing their own songs. Zhao Lei went on stage to sing "Painting," and what moved Liu Huan first was actually the lyrics, followed by the person singing. Liu Huan later specifically mentioned that he had chosen that song by himself. After the show aired, he did more than just act as a mentor on screen; he also produced records for sixteen-year-old Xu Yijia. Entering the recording studio, he demanded as little pitch correction as possible, allowing mistakes to be re-recorded. If computers smoothed away everyone's voice, the original sense of vitality would also disappear with it.
The producers were initially worried that if the mentors talked about musical modes, harmony, and songwriting methods on stage, ordinary viewers might not understand. However, when it actually aired, the segments where they seriously discussed music actually saw ratings climb. This is because viewers might not always buy into the constant probing for contestants' family stories. This made Liu Huan believe even more that television does not need to oversimplify music; the audience has the patience to listen to professionals explain things clearly. On stage, we need more of this.
How interesting it is! Your music is interesting—well, this isn't about being competitive; music has to be done in an interesting way, it has to be good, brother. A show certainly cannot release records for all the contestants. Liu Huan was very practical: producing music costs money, and records don't actually sell many copies. The production team is not a record label; he can only help one kid finish one record, but he cannot solve the problems of the entire industry just by being a mentor. True, the reality he revealed was actually closer to the days young musicians truly face than the moment a genius is discovered on television.
Liu Huan began teaching at the University of International Relations in 1987 and transferred to the University of International Business and Economics in 1991, where he lectured on the history of Western music. He retired in 2023. He has said that compared to being called a singer, he prefers people to call him a musician or a teacher. In 2009, he suspended his teaching due to illness. In 2011, he returned to the school, and a classroom that could seat over three hundred people was full again.
He first set rules for his students: do not ask him to sing in the classroom. When he stands there, he is a teacher. During class, he first talks about the era in which the composer lived, then plays the work, letting students use their ears to listen to the melody rather than just listening to him tell stories. This course is open to all students in the university; he is not trying to train professional singers. The young people sitting in the classroom study international trade, finance, or foreign languages, and they can listen to music all the way from Bach to the twentieth century. Outside, Liu Huan is a household-name singer, but back at school, he still teaches according to the curriculum, plays records, and completes a university elective course.
In the obituary, the school first wrote "retired teacher." This is not a polite title, but the job he truly did for over thirty years. He lectured on Beethoven and Ravel, and he himself listens to jazz, electronic music, and heavy metal. For a period of time, he found that whenever he put his hands on the piano, the same familiar patterns came out, so he deliberately played randomly for half a year, even feeling at one point that he might never be able to write songs again. However, once he broke his old habits, he was able to find new ways again and rediscover the joy of music.
He is afraid of repeating himself, so he would rather break down the techniques he is familiar with first and shatter his former self. In 2019, the show "Singer" invited Liu Huan again. He was initially unwilling to join. The show's producer went to see him, and Lu Lu also persuaded him; in the end, Liu Huan agreed. He wanted to use the stage with its vast audience to let more types of music be heard by everyone.
One of the conditions he proposed for cooperation was the establishment of a public welfare fund to support original music. In 2019, he donated over 20 million yuan in his own name and co-initiated a project with the Mango V Fund, planning to provide 1 million yuan annually to fund an unknown musician. This was not a reward announced temporarily on the show, but a cause to be continued after the show ended. In the first episode, he did not sing "Hero Song" first, nor did he use "Starting Over" to evoke memories; instead, he sang his newly written work "Night." The song is about a night of insomnia, drinking a little wine, flipping through one record after another, and one piece of music leading him to the next.
What the national audience is familiar with is Liu Huan on the big stage, but what he taught first was Liu Huan listening to records at home alone. On the show, he talked repeatedly about the types of music; if ten thousand people only listen to one type of music, even if the number is large, it is not the musical prosperity he understands. When he participated in the competition, he sang his own composition "Night" and turned a condition of cooperation into a public welfare fund—all to give more types of musical writing and more types of musical voices a chance to be heard by everyone.
During the Spring Festival of the same year, another group of young people heard "Wandering Earth" in the cinema, which he wrote and sang for the movie "The Wandering Earth." Director Guo Fan responded that they only invited Liu Huan when the film was almost finished, and the two thought about the theme song together. Liu Huan said he likes science fiction, and his daughter is a reader of Liu Cixin, so he took on the film. Guo Fan had been busy with the film for several years, and in the post-production stage, he was still worried about whether this domestic science fiction world could stand on its own. He later described that after Liu Huan joined, the film seemed to come alive. Liu Huan did not just record his own lead vocals; he also invited the chorus singer Zheng Chuxin to record with him.
The voices of adults and children mingled together, catching the story in the movie of two generations taking the Earth and leaving. By 2019, those who first heard Liu Huan on TV already had children; young viewers might not know "Snow City", but they would hear the song he wrote for the first time from The Wandering Earth. Later, when The Wandering Earth 2 was released, he also wrote and performed the ending song "I Am Here"; he didn't just rely on old songs to grow old together with his original audience.
Liu Huan eventually won the championship of that season of Singer, but what better explained why he participated in the first place was that in January of the following year, the first grant from that foundation was actually disbursed. Liu Huan eventually won the championship of that season of Singer, but what better explained why he originally participated was that in January of the following year, the first grant from the charity fund was actually disbursed. The recipient was a singer-songwriter born in 1997, Qin Fanqi, and Liu Huan himself went specifically to Chengdu to bring the grant in person to Qin Fanqi. A year later, Qin Fanqi passed the baton to another young musician, Qiu De.
This method of the previous year's winner going to meet the next year's winner has continued this way until this January, when the foundation announced the seventh winner, Yang Ge, and the certificate even featured eight characters written by Liu Huan: breaking the mold, forming one's own style. After Liu Huan passed away, the management stated that the charity fund will continue to operate in accordance with his authorization during his lifetime. We will never hear new songs from Liu Huan again, but what we can still hear are the songs he sang across different eras—his youth when singing "Snow City", the hustle and bustle when writing Beijingers in New York, the restraint when standing on the Olympic stage, and the quietness when singing of the night many years later.
Later, he experienced business failures and setbacks in entrepreneurship, and would also use his past song "Starting Over" to cheer himself up. "Starting Over" became an enduring inspirational classic. Some people heard strength in this song, while others thought of those difficult days because of it. Both memories exist. Throughout his life, Liu Huan often sang for the era, and these songs became the generational memories of several generations of Chinese people. Later, he began to choose the music he wanted to sing himself, and left opportunities for young people to write songs.
Today, bidding him farewell with the song "Starting Over" is to remember the person who sang, as well as the laid-off workers abandoned by the era and the system. Remembering Liu Huan through his singing, and also remembering the suffering of the people in those eras through his singing, is the best tribute to Liu Huan. Teacher Liu Huan, rest in peace. That is all we will chat about today.