給缺席的人唱首歌 歌詞

黃偉文 wrote Jay Fung a song for the empty seat. English title: Song for the Absentees. Encore is over. Row forty is dark. He keeps singing so the person who left can still find him.

The title looks like a dedication. It is also a workaround: if they cannot sit down, the song still has to reach them.

Same lyrics player as 用背脊唱情歌 and 黑玻璃: Jyutping from Miteiru, English gloss, spacing, numbered or contour tones. Click a word to copy it.

Why the seats are empty

Wyman has said the fuse was a night he could not get into 鄭欣宜 Joyce Cheng’s concert. He was miserable, and that was enough to start a song about not being in the room. Then the melody in his hands was Jay’s, and Jay’s life at that moment was all absences: a grandmother who had just died, friends who had emigrated, a long-distance love. Wyman’s own note: it is not only about grandma. It is for anyone missing for a different reason — including himself.

Jay premiered it at Have a JAY Time 2022, his first solo shows (four nights, Star Hall at E-Max). The single dropped 2022-07-06, as soon as the run ended, later folded into Love & Loss. The lyric never leaves that hall. You are on stage after encore, counting phones, hunting row forty, and the person you want is already somewhere else.

That is why 2022 hears more than a breakup in it. 降落新空港, 地球另一面, 新居的花牀: someone has landed and is planting flowers. The person on stage is still looking at an empty stool. Both lives are allowed to continue. 分開了嗎 亦不等於 分開地過.

What the images are doing

The concert is not scenery. It is the whole machine.

• 偷望 / 台上張望 / 四十行. He is scanning the room while still singing. 四十行 is a seat row (hang4), not a walk. Someone used to sit there. The number is specific so the absence can be pointed at.
• 燈海. Phone lights. The cheap, modern way a crowd says we are here. 誰還未點起燈海: who still has not joined in — and, underneath, who is not even in the building.
• 點唱 / 為你點. Karaoke and dedications. 你錯過點唱 還是為你點: you did not request it. He put it on anyway. The song is doing the job of a person who cannot walk in.
• 耳筒𥚃. Headphones, the Hong Kong word (ji5 tung2), not Mandarin 耳機. If they are on the other side of the earth, this is how they attend: one song in one ear, 思念講穿.
• 空櫈 / 嘉賓 / 拍和. Empty stools, a full house in the chest, some of the crowd still clapping along. 拍和 is clap along (paak3 wo4), not peace. Loneliness, he says, is a 幻像 once you look at it straight.
• 這𥚃塌了 燈摔破 / 隨天花飛墮. After a show the rig comes down: lights smash, plaster falls. 天花 is ceiling plaster and also flowers of the sky. The hall is packing up. The city, if you want it to, is packing up too. He does not leave. 我依然在唱 讓你可 找到我.
• 來年若不忙 沿著歌謠 回家找我. Next year, if the new life is not too full, follow the tune home. The song is a breadcrumb, not a summons.

新空港 is a tell. Spoken Hong Kong says 機場. 空港 is the word you land in when the city is new — Japanese くうこう sitting in a Cantonese line — a new airport, a new country, Kai Tak’s ghost in 新機場 if you want that extra bruise. He does not name the city. He does not have to.

同行或獨活都不怯懦 is the moral he is willing to say out loud. Stay and walk together, or live the thing alone. Neither is cowardice. The last chorus upgrades the deal: 仍可 等某天一起過.

Language

• 𥚃 is Cantonese 裡, reading leoi5. Lyric sites flatten it to 裡 / 裏. Keep this character. Same for 麽 (question mo1) versus 嗎 on 分開了嗎 (maa3, not maa1 媽).
• 空櫈（hung1 dang3） is an empty stool. 花牀（faa1 cong4） is a flower bed you rebuild at the new house, not a mattress. 牀 is the older bed character; 床 is the one textbooks prefer.
• 四十行 = row forty, hang4. 同行 in the chorus is walk together: haang4. Same character, opposite job. Mix them and the hall becomes a hike.
• Encore / woo stay Latin. No Jyutping. They are the bits of a Canto pop night that were never going to be 安可.
• 經已（ging1 ji5） is already — written Canto for 已經. Same word as in 用背脊唱情歌. 窩心（wo1 sam1） is that HK chest-warmth: the line lands like the first time you heard it.
• 摔破 is sit3 po3, smash. Tokenizer offered seot1; the lamp is not tripping, it is coming down.
• 獨活 is live-solo, the pair of 同行. It is also the name of a herb. Wyman likes words that can do two jobs. You can take the herb or leave it.

Written 這 / 的 / 怎麼 stay on the page (ze2, dik1, zam2 mo1). Spoken you would reach for 呢 / 嘅 / 點樣. The ruby follows the characters.