Katie Lee (lyricist)


Katie Lee is the identity that poet Hsia Yu uses to write lyrics. She also has other pen names including Talung Tung and Fei Lee. Since the release of her first song “Gau Bie 告別”, Lee launched her career as a lyricist, alongside with her career as the renowned writer and poet Hsia Yu.

Early life

Lee graduated from National Taiwan University of Arts with a film studies degree, and had a few part-time jobs in publishing and TV broadcasting companies. She never joined any poetry clubs nor worked with any mainstream publishers. Lee started her contemporary poetry writing at the age of 19 when her work began to receive praise and recognition. Living off the royalties from the lyrics she has written and the sales of her self-funded poetry publications, lyricist Lee and poet Hsia Yu travel around for inspirations. She had lived in the suburbs of Southern France, returned to Taiwan, and then have been living in both Taipei and Paris.

Career

Early career

The first song Lee has written was Tai Hsiang Lee's “Gau Bie 告別”. There's a story behind the creation of this song that started with an IP dispute between different record companies. Then, Chung-tan Tuan from Rock Records advised to rewrite the lyrics, and contacted the poet Hsia Yu. With the pronunciation of her English name plus Tai Hsiang Lee's surname, Hsia Yu gave herself another name for writing lyrics: “Katie Lee”. The new lyrics was soon completed in one afternoon; however, it could not match the melodies from the original song. Despite of that, Tai Hsiang Lee decided to rewrite the melody and create a completely new song. The song “Gau Bie告別” was then completed and it marked the start of Lee's lyricist career. She has then continued to contribute more of her works by various names including “Talung Tung” and “Fei Lee”.

Songwriter

Since her debut as a lyricist in 1984, Lee has accumulated works over 200 songs, including many classic hits like ‎“I'm Not Good Looking But I'm Very Gentle 我很醜，可是我很溫柔” by Chief Chao, “Ni Zai Fan Nao Xie She Me Ne? Qin Ai De 你在煩惱些什麼呢？親愛的” and “Impulsiveness 情不自禁” by Simon Hsueh, “Feng De Tan Xi 風的嘆息” by Mavis Hee, “Ni Shi Wu Wo Shi Jiu Guan 你是霧我是酒館” by Joey Wong, “Ta De Xin Shi Ge Ju Da Ting Che Chang 她的心是個巨大停車場” by Sylvia Chang, “Zhuang Man Wo, Ni De Yan Jing 裝滿我，你的眼睛” by Pauline Lan, “Ai Cing Du Zhu 愛情賭注” by Michelle Pan, “Ni Shi Tian Shang Zui Yuan De Na Ke Xing Xing 你是天上最遠的那顆星星” and “Can Ku De Wen Rou 殘酷的溫柔” by Chyi Chin, “Woman & The Child 女人與小孩” by Yu Chyi, “Mei Ge Ren Dou You Zi Ji De Bang Yao Hun 每個人都有自己的幫要混” by Bobby Chen, etc.
Many of the songs Lee has written have helped several singers rise to prominence. For example, Chief Chao instantly received his career success as a new artist with the song ‎“I'm Not Good Looking But I'm Very Gentle 我很醜，可是我很溫柔”, the song chosen by the producer Kay Huang. On the other hand, on top of songs like “Impulsiveness 情不自禁” and “Ni Zai Fan Nao Xie She Me Ne? Qin Ai De 你在煩惱些什麼呢？親愛的”, Simon Hsueh had also collaborated with Lee in his very last album in 1990, “Life 生老病死”. The songs included “Alone or Together 一個人、兩個人”, “A Lonely Island 一座孤獨的島” and “Bloody Mary 血腥瑪麗”, in which Simon's voice expressed his love of life and his audacious attitude.
Over the years, Lee has created many unique works with impact, such as Sandee Chan's “Leaving on a Jet Plane乘噴射機離去”, Jolin Tsai's “Play我呸”, Waa Wei's “You Lovely Bastard 還是要相信愛情啊混蛋們”, etc. The lyrics and the singers themselves both have very strong personalities that allow both parties to inspire each other. The unique genre of lyrics also created new possibilities for the singer to elevate her performance and in turn contribute to the well-roundedness of the song. For example, “Play我呸” has served as a significant work in Jolin's music career. In the lyrics, Lee played with a lot of ironies that describe the surreal yet real social phenomena. She wrote and explained the conflicts between two sides of the spectrum, like elite and commoners, cultural and commercial, and literates and celebrities, etc. Through these juxtaposes, she demonstrated the society's behaviors of criticizing while at the same time indulging in these scenarios.“Play我呸” has received many awards globally and paved new ways for Jolin Tsai's performing career.
The more recent lyrics by Lee include Cheer Chen's “A Box of Rain 雨水一盒”, Hebe Tien's “A Better Rival in Love 請你給我好一點的情敵”, Jam Hsiao “Golden Love 純金打造”, Chris Lee “Cun Zai Gan 存在感”, Shin “煉金術 Alchemy”, and songs she collaborated with Greeny Wu “As a Monster作為怪物” and “Ah! Muo Qi 啊！默契”, etc.  Some of the terms in her lyrics have also become new slangs that have been widely used, such as “cool”, “happy while in pain”, “play”, and “everyone has their gang to hang”, etc. She's also written the lyrics for three of Jimmy's musicals.

Voice appearances

In 2002, Lee released an album with the name “Hsia Yu’s Yue Hun Band 夏宇愈混樂隊”. In the album, she compiled 13 of the lyrics that were not shortlisted by record companies, and invited producer Rou Zheng Chen to write and produce the songs. These songs were performed by many indie artists, including Faye, the former vocal of F.I.R. Lee also personally narrated for the album in the name of Hsia Yu. In 2016, Lee and sound artist Jun Yan together published “7 Poems and Some Tinnitus七首詩和一些耳鳴”, an experimental sound artwork with seven tracks of Lee's narration along with Yan's music arrangement.
Other than this album, Lee's has also made a few occasional appearances in other artists’ works; mostly through narration of poems in the name of Hsia Yu. Such albums include Sandee Chan's song “Ni Zai Fan Nao Xie She Me Ne? Qin Ai De 你在煩惱些什麼呢？親愛的”, Hello Nico “Wo Men Ku Nan De Ma Xi Ban我們苦難的馬戲班”, Waa Wei's “Gou Yin勾引”, Sodagreen's “Spring 春．日光” album, and Chiu Pi's “Zheng Ye Da Yu整夜大雨”, etc.

Poet Hsia Yu

When she's a poet, Lee adopts the name of “Hsia Yu”. “Bei Wang Lu 備忘錄”, the poetry collection she published in 1984, was a self-funded publication which Hsia Yu managed to take care of the editing, formatting, and design all by herself. There were only 500 copies in the first edition and another 500 all ran out of stock the next year. The illegal copies of “Bei Wang Lu 備忘錄” are still being reproduced and circulated till this day. Hsia Yu has expressed that she is not satisfied nor feel comfortable about the style of “Bei Wang Lu 備忘錄” anymore now. She thinks it's her “teenage work” and not worthy of further editions.
Hsia Yu then self-funded her second publication, “Ventriloquy 腹語術”, which was commented by Chi Cheng Luo 羅智成as “a book that’s against realities”. Her third publication was “Mo Ca · Wu Yi Ming Zhuang 摩擦·無以名狀”, which was actually produced by cutting out words from the original printing book of “Ventriloquy 腹語術”, and compiling the words into a new piece of literary artwork. It's this unconventional way of writing and challenging the boundaries that make Hsia Yu and her poetry extraordinary and interesting.
Her fourth publication is “Salsa”, in which she incorporated many details in people's daily lives. The color of the sheep on the cover changes in every different print. The fifth publication “Pink Noise” was published in 2007. It was compiled by translating English words Hsia Yu found from surfing the internet, creating 33 poems. The pages presenting the black English words and pink Chinese words were made from celluloid sheets. She sets the key of the first edition to be C Major, and when the second edition was published in 2008, the pink color was brightened by 15%, and the key became D Major. The second edition also included another 22 sheets for the translation of “Wen Shi 問詩”. Due to expensive costs of printing, this book also went out of stock soon after. Till this day, the edition of E Major has not yet been published.
In 2010, the new publications “This Zebra 這隻斑馬” and “That Zebra 那隻斑馬” was first sold in the 3rd Simple Life Festival where Hsia Yu sold her books happily while giving autographs and hugging the readers. “This Zebra 這隻斑馬” has a rigid black and white design, with contents neatly formatted. At the end of the book, the readers can see the interaction between L and H. On the other hand, “That Zebra 那隻斑馬” has a colorful, fun design and includes only lyrics. The book is cut horizontally to represent the short life span of pop music lyrics. The book also went out of stock and is not likely to have future prints, as Hsia Yu said “The printing process was way too expensive and time consuming. It’s time consuming to the extent that every worker would sigh upon receiving the work, and my name is almost synonymous with notorious.”
In 2011, “Poetry Sixty 詩六十首” is published. The entire book from the cover to the back is printed with poems and concealed with texture of scratcher lotteries. The readers could reveal the texts hidden underneath upon numerous touches of the book as time goes by.
Hsia Yu compiled another anthology in 2013 named “88 Shou Zi Syuan 88首自選”. It's very simply formatted and designed. She deliberately used the same industrial paper for both the cover and the pages inside. There's only a single font throughout with dozens of pictures randomly scattered. The second and third editions were published in the following two years, with a different selection of poems. In 2017, the fourth edition was published, including a few of her newer poems and several new photographs. She hopes this series can continue to grow to the eighth edition, and revolutionize the concept of “anthology”.
In 2016, “First Person 第一人稱”, a work combining 301 lines of poetry and over 400 pictures was published. All of the pictures were taken in 2014, and paired with poetry written by Hsia Yu. The design of the book is like a black cassette, resembling a movie theater. The poem lines in every picture serves like subtitles in the movies. Hsia Yu organized three sessions of press releases for this new book at Woolloomooloo Café, and an additional autograph event.
In 2017, Hsia Yu was invited to six stage performances combining poetry and music by FICEP at the event “Nuit de la literature 文學之夜”, located in Villa Belleville in Paris.
In the summer of 2018, Hsia Yu joined the Poetry Night event at National Chengchi University. As soon as a wine bottle is opened, her voice and thoughts flew freely. There were countless people in line for her autograph after the event. In July, Hsia Yu's poetry was presented in the exhibition “Dream Makers｜Riverbed Theatre’s 20 Anniversary 造夢者：潛意識劇場－河床劇團20年” in the section of “Desire for Words 渴望詞語”, where she used ink to cover 19 of her poems. In September the same year, Subjam and Hsia Yu published an anthology in Simplified Chinese, incorporating five of her previous publications: “Ventriloquy 腹語術”, “Mo Ca · Wu Yi Ming Zhuang 摩擦·無以名狀”, “Salsa”, “Pink Noise”, and “Poetry Sixty 詩六十首”. At the end of the year, she participated in the exhibition “Re-Base: When Experiments Become Attitude 再基地”.
Published in July 2019, “Luo Man Shi Zuo Wei Dun Wu 羅曼史作為頓悟” is Hsia Yu's newest work, compiling 19 poems written after the publication of “First Person 第一人稱”. Following the printing style of her previous work, Hsia Yu published "Ji Zhui Zhi Zhou 脊椎之軸" in 2020.
Currently, Hsia Yu remains to publish individually for her determination of executing every detail and presenting the artwork in the exact way she wants it.

Artistry

Critique

Being the producer of “I'm Not Good Looking But I'm Very Gentle 我很醜，可是我很溫柔” and “Nan Hai Kan Jian Ye Mei Gui 男孩看見野玫瑰”, Kay Huang once expressed her thoughts of working with Lee: “as Lee’s words are not limited to the framework of pop music, rhyming, and stanzas, her lyrics are very unique. They allow songwriters to explore new possibilities from different perspectives.” Renowned music critic Shi Fang Ma has commented, “I adore Katie Lee. She can’t be copied for she’s too smart and sharp for industry standards. There are two personalities in lyricist Katie Lee and poet Hsia Yu, and they each hold different missions. I think you can feel this warmth that embraces the world mortals in Lee’s works. She can write songs like “告別Gau Bie” and also “Play我呸”. How good can she get?”
In the world of literature, the Nobel laureate in Literature, Xingjian Gao has commented on Hsia Yu’s work: “This anthology defeats all misty poems. This girl defeats the whole misty poetry genre.”

Writing style and mindset

Adopting a different work process from Chinese pop music productions, Lee usually writes the lyrics first and then hand it to someone to write the melody. In her earlier career, she also likes to submit the handwritten drafts directly. Lee would also meet with the singer to get more understanding of the person, so she could feel the personality of the singer and be inspired to write lyrics that are suitable for him/her. Occasionally, she'll also fill in the lyrics according to the melody, such songs include the collaboration with Jian Min Jiang “Happy While In Pain痛並快樂著”, many songs in 2019's collaboration with Shin's “Alchemy 煉金術” album, including “Alchemy 煉金術” and “Ran Liao 燃料”, and “醒”.
Lee is relatively more low-profile as she doesn't want to become a public figure nor does she want to be defined or tagged. Lee wants to feel free, and also wants her readers to read her works freely with absolutely no interference from her personal affairs or behaviors. Sometimes she feels poetry writing is a lonely process, because you never know if anyone will read it. Writing a song, on the other hand, makes her feel a stronger connection with the world, so she also sees writing lyrics as the more mainstream part of herself. Lee thinks writing poems and lyrics are equally important to her and they are mutually dependent on each other. Because of writing poems, Lee can write lyrics that create impressions; and because of writing lyrics, she can write poems with rhythms.

Lyrics works

Listing a few representative works:
歌名歌手
告別Tai Hsiang Lee
他的心是一個巨大的修車廠、一個失戀男子的告白Sylvia Chang
酷Lee Yaming
我很醜，可是我很溫柔Chief Chao
女人與小孩Yu Chyi
我想我應該走了、生日的清晨Augustine Yeh
孤獨的需要Harlem Yu
梳子與刮鬍刀、城市英雄、薔薇女子Lily Lee
愛情賭注Michelle Pan
你在我靈魂的邊緣Tracy Huang
你在煩惱些什麼呢？親愛的、情不自禁、血腥瑪麗Simon Hsueh
乘噴射機離去Sandee Chan
失明前我想記得的四十七件事、雨水一盒Cheer Chen
雨中的操場、被雨傷透Sodagreen “Turn Left Turn Right Musical”
請你給我好一點的情敵、影子的影子、烏托邦Hebe Tien
還是要相信愛情啊混蛋們、勾引Waa Wei
Play我呸Jolin Tsai
純金打造Jam Hsiao
關於我Yoga Lin
想睡的戀人噢Rainie Yang

Publications