Okay. So here goes. I’ve already half-written 2 drafts describing my first fortnight of school, and another 5 or so decrying recent example of John McCain’s bumbling (read: Georgia). But somehow haven’t been able to complete them.

Perhaps I’m just tired. The past few weeks have been simultaneously: elating, disappointing, draining, intellectually challenging… to just name a few. All this adds up to one confused and ultimately emo Joel.

Having just spent the entire morning working out how to plot a Markowitz Efficient Frontier in Excel – very successfully, if I may proudly add – and having a few hours to kill before I hop onto the subway to my evening class, I decided to take a break from my CFA readings to actually get a post done.

I read my girlfriend’s recent post about songs that move you, and was going to do a similar one in response, about my favourite band ever, L’Arc En Ciel. L’Arc En Ciel is a Japanese rock band whose success stems from their ballistic guitar riffs, outrageous costumes, powerful vocals and androgynous eternally youthful lead singer. I hardly understand Japanese outside of a phrase here and there, but L’Arc En Ciel’s songs have the very special ability to transcend language and culture. It’s pretty hard to think of an English-language band that parallels L’Arc En Ciel, but I think the best way to describe them would be a modernized, Japanese-rock version of Queen.

This post, however, is not about L’Arc En Ciel; it’s about a song that moves me. And the one song that moves me most, that makes me most emo whenever I hear it is… Jacky Cheung’s 一路上有你 / 分手總要在雨天 (loosely translated as “You Were There Along The Way / Breakups Happen on Rainy Days”; sounds a lot more poetic and less cheesy in Chinese). Okay, it really is two songs – a Mandarin and Cantonese song with the same tune. But both are sublime.

This, in my opinion, is Jacky Cheung’s best and most powerfully emotional song.

The Cantonese version, 分手總要在雨天, has more poetic, descriptive lyrics; it describes how the rain reminds you of the one fateful rainy day when you said goodbye to the person who meant the world to you, how every raindrop that falls is a painful reminder of a bittersweet past you can never forget.

分手總要在雨天

On the other hand, the Mandarin version, 一路上有你, has much simpler lyrics. I was at first unimpressed with them, until a few listenings revealed the simple poignancy and cruel irony of the song. 一路上有你 is a song about a love, or even a friendship, that was never meant to be, even though it would’ve been perfect in every way except for being doomed from the outset. The line “就算是为了分离与我相遇” captures the entire theme of the song in a few words; it means “The reason I met you… was to lose you”.

一路上有你

This version in particular makes me think of every single goodbye I’ve had to say to everyone that mattered to me, friend or foe, my army buddies and best friends and everyone else in between. It also makes me think of the goodbyes I never had the chance to say, the apologies that were left unspoken and the broken friendships that I never could mend. Which leaves me on this clear, crisp and sunny Wednesday afternoon listening to 一路上有你 on repeat, a thousand emotions and memories coursing through my mind.

There, I did it. A post that, while meandering, badly written and haphazardly done within the span of an hour and a half, is nonetheless complete and more importantly, felt right writing. I hope I didn’t lose you along the way of this piece, and wish whoever who took the time to read this a happy and peaceful week ahead with your friends and family.