Lay Zhang’s story behind “外婆” – Healing and Mourning through music

The Grand Line world tour of 2019 has finally come to an end tonight in Shenzhen. In these last few lively days of December, we have heard the song that boss wrote for his grandma inside the arena with all the fans who came to the concerts.

This feeling is quite hard to describe all at once:

We have already decided to play “Grandma” MV on the last concert of 2019 for a while. This would also be the only time that we play any footage of boss’s grandma. Most of the staffs has seen and been there with boss during the whole filming process. We even saw the footage that his grandma cheered for him much earlier than himself. We thought that all of us wouldn’t have any big ups and downs in our emotion, but at the moment when grandma’s voice and boss’s singing was heard, everyone was crying. At the backstage, in the dressing room, and behind the cameras, anywhere that singing voice could be heard, we were all tearing up.

Jun 6th this year, Lay Zhang’s Grand Line Concert started in Shanghai.

A month before that, grandma has already been very ill. Her family was very emotional when they heard ‘be prepared’ at the first time, but after a while they became rational and calm. All of us kept grandma’s condition from boss, and he never asked. But he frequently came back to Changsha after that. He often stayed at the ward for a whole night. He and his grandma had this heartrending harmony – You don’t talk, I don’t ask. You’re sick, then I’ll be here.

Half a month before Grand Line Shanghai, grandma really wanted to attend his concert. Although we all knew her physical condition didn’t allow this weariness of travel, none of us tried to stop her. Lay left home at 17 and had his own solo concert at 27. We all know hard and harder he worked, but how did he spend this ten years exactly, what did he went through along this way – no one knew better than his grandma, who raised him and stayed with him. So all the team, the organizer, the hospital, and her family all tried their best to plan the most suitable route, the most perfect medical support, and other measures to deal with any emergency.

But her condition was getting worse and worse. At last, she still couldn’t make it to the concert in Shanghai.

The first time we’ve ever saw the cheer up video from grandma was in the backstage of Shanghai concert. Boss was in the makeup room on the other side of wall. However, no one was able to show him this video before he went on stage, because none of us knew what kind of reactions and what fluctuations in feeling he would have. We thought that we should show him later, so we waited, for a perfect timing.

The wait ended at the end of July when grandma passed away.

Boss went back to Changsha the very night. There were concerts before and right after. He followed the regular schedule, practicing, rehearsing, working out, writing songs, and calling us to have dinner together like he used to. He still practiced for hours, still worked, studied, and flew all over the place. The worst reaction he had was that he didn’t go to the after party. He said he was tired and wanted to have a rest, he paid for the party and hoped everyone enjoy it. He returned to the hotel alone , leaving all the bustle and shining lights behind.

Later on, we thought he probably has gone through the most difficult time. Until one day, he sent us a song, and mentioned lightly that it’s called Grandma.

In the music video, there was the road he steps on everyday from home to school; streets and alleys grandma bikes him through while taking him home; there were buses that they waited for everyday, and the utmost familiar days and nights of his hometown. When we were fiming the music video, the camera man was observing boss from far away before the camera started rolling. We asked him what he was looking at, he went silent for a good minute, and told us, that he saw Lay when he. was writing this song: He sat in the passenger seat of a car parked by the road side. We were all off the car to get food, but I went back to get something that I forgot. The moment when I opened the car door, I saw him crying while writing the song.

At that moment, we truly felt this saying, it might be old, but we are understading it more and more as we grow up: “At that moment, there’s a tsunami happening in his heart, but it was so quiet, only he himself knows. “

Many things seem to have passed, but it also seems that they will never be truly gone.

December 15, 2019, Shenzhen. The last stop of Lay’s Grand Line concert tour. “Grandma” was the last song in the encore session. Finally, Lay brought grandma to the concert with his own way, and let her witness how he stands on the stage where spotlights shine.

2019, we witnessed Lay Zhang’s loss, when we haven’t really experienced real losses ourselves. So we understood, growing up is made of endless losses, one after another. However, all the losses will combine and become new gains: People who love you will always be by your side, in different ways, in different stories.

We cannot retrieve what’s lost, so let’s cherish what we have. Hopefully after listening to “Grandma”, you will give those people a hug: those who love you deeply, but might have became more nagging and boring in your mind as you grow up. Because of them, hometown will forever be hometown, and you will always be in their hearts.

10a.m. tomorrow, we’ll see you at the hometown.

Text by Lay Zhang Studio

Translation by XingTweetTrans