His mother, now a single parent, put Chou through music school, where he studied piano and cello. His gratitude to his mother is so heartfelt there is none of the schmaltz typical of the ubiquitous Chinese paean to the mother figure: "Listen to your mom. Don't let her be hurt. Grow up fast and protect her. Beautiful gray hair blossoms in happiness."
Unlike some rock stars, he has never had a run-in with the authorities. He is the rare cool boy who is clean and good. No wonder teenagers are rarely discouraged from jumping on the Chou bandwagon.
A significant number of his songs are love ballads with the theme of abandonment. While conventional musically, these songs, on which he is the sole lyricist, sing of someone deserting him. On the surface, they are about the breakup of adolescent romances. But why doesn't he focus on other facets of a love affair, such as falling in love? Was he hurt romantically in his teenage years? Or, could these songs embody more than the oh-so-blue mood of a jilted lover, but abandonment, including rejection by a school of higher learning?
What stand out in the Chou canon are songs mostly penned by his long-time collaborator, Vincent Fang. Many of these numbers are mini-dramas with exotic settings - Istanbul, an Indian town in the old West, ancient Babylon, a Kyoto pub, a European castle evocative of Dracula, to name just a few. A school could build an entire course around the knowledge embedded in these situational vignettes. Fang's lyrics are rich in imagery and capture the moods of these locales. They are like National Geographic set pieces with an eye for detail.
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