Songs From Hualong
Click here to download Walton’s Song 1
Click here to download Walton’s Song 2
Walton recorded these songs in his hometown in Qinghai’s Hualong County in the winter of 2008. He said, “Recording these songs was a very difficult but interesting experience for me. The greatest difficulty I faced was getting the singers to sing in front of the recorder, because they had never seen a recorder before. I was only able to record them with much persuading.”
In this collection he selected two of his favorite songs. The first song is a festival song, sung by Pad ma don ‘grub who was born in February 1975, and learnt it from his grandfather, and expressed that “it was very difficult to learn it because I am illiterate and the lyrics are very long.” Another reason that Walton chose this song was the fact that it is sung at a locally famous archery competition; it describes the process of making an arrow, the arrow’s origin, and wishes that the arrow will succeed in the future.
The second song is also a festival song, sung by the same man, but very different and very special because: 1) apart from the singer, only his grandfather can sing it in the whole township, 2) it describes the process of making barley wine that all families in Tibetan agricultural places traditionally made and enjoyed drinking at celebratory gatherings. At such parties, it is only after this song is finished that people can start to drink wine.
