Twins
Julia Peng
Bubble
Composer: Julia Peng Lyrics: David Ke
Producer：Howe Arranger：Hsu Ping
Julia Peng
The inspiration for the song is Julia Peng’s twin daughters, who are frenemies that both depend on and fight against each other. Twins seem to have a natural rapport with one another and, at times, develop fierce competitiveness. The emotional shifts are sometimes hilarious to a bystander. But Peng thought she’d record the twins’ relationship with music.
When the team decided that David Ke would write the lyrics, Peng and Ke’s creativity surged as they collaborated. The song is underpinned by “femininity” and “difficulty”. David Ke made the song into a woman’s emotional game of observing her inner self, embedded with a profound dialogue of honesty.
The melody has a tango-ish cadence and an air of a musical chant. The producer Howe asked Peng, “Are you sure that you want it to be this complex? Won’t it feel …unlike you?” Peng replied, “We live in a time of endless experiments. If we don’t play with music, then music would think us dull. Do what you must, I support you!”
Thus, with an arrangement style that goes above and beyond Tango, the product was a song that gives off an eerie sense of floridness. The singing is also one of Peng’s most volatile and erratic performances, especially in terms of the coloratura soprano in the end. It is not only an immensely delicate challenge that can only be pulled off with skill but also unheard of in Mandopop.
Lyrics
When the world wears makeup excessively
To me, even simplicity seems like hypocrisy
Should I wake, or should I let loose
You say you don’t know how to choose
Am I an angel, or am I a devil?
I’m both your friend and your rival
It’s like there are always two paths to travel
When I go left, you do not follow
One moment we get along well
The next, we are like Heaven and Hell
You are me, sitting on the other side
You hate to lose, but without me, you cannot survive
Let the mutual torturing begin
What’s unbearable is harmony within
You are the ego who I hate to face
And yet, you are never to be erased
It’s as if you were my alternative life
As a bystander, I watch you lose your mind
You are the chains that tie me down
Yet, you have more freedom than I ever found
The shit you and I do
In order to know who’s who
I try to cut you off, but you are like glue
Perhaps there was never any me or you
One moment we get along well
The next, we are like Heaven and Hell
You are me, sitting on the other side
You hate to lose, but without me, you cannot survive
Let the mutual torturing begin
What’s unbearable is harmony within
You are the ego who I hate to face
And yet, you are never to be erased
A used facial mask
Like lenses upside-down, white-and-black
You are my soul, me on the other side
You don’t know me, but you are inside
Pause the torturing
Serious words leave a trace
You are the ego, who I must face
Without you, I’d be a lonely case
You are my soul, me on the other side
Without you, without you, I die a little inside
