“DMBJ•Zhang Qiling•Immortal”

Lyrics: Finale
Composition: HONGSEO/K-JIN
Vocal: 音频怪物(AudioFreak)
Arrangement: AudioFreak
Mixer: 丢子
Record Label: Nan Pai Entertainment

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YouTube link here.
Lyrics here.

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Background

“Immortal” was first released in 2010 and remastered in 2019. It was included in the 817 Rice Festival special album, “Songs of the Rain Break”. 

Inscription

He may know all, but he will never know himself.

Remastered Inscription

The snow buried the bones in the cold wind,
Three days of sorrow and joy left him with a life of silence.
Time has not etched a single trace on his face,
But fate polished his soul into immortality.

In a similar vein, a song that has been sung for so many years will also be everlasting.
May this story be as immortal as everyone’s soul.

Remastered Remark

“DMBJ · Zhang Qiling · Immortal” is a song dedicated to Zhang Qiling. It’s also an imprint in the memories of all Rice⁽¹⁾. Today, it finally and truly belongs to all of us.

In fact, the idea of buying the rights to “Immortal” has been moot for a long time, but for a variety of reasons we were unable to do so. What really confirmed our decision to obtain the rights is something that happened at last year’s Rice Festival.

Because of copyright issues, we couldn’t arrange “Immortal” at last year’s Rice Music Festival. But when we were busy cleaning up backstage after the concert ended, we heard a sound coming from outside the venue. It was all the Rice initiating and singing “Immortal” themselves while exiting the venue. We were all very touched when we saw everyone waving their light sticks in tears and singing the melody and lyrics by heart. 

So, we set a goal for ourselves that we would make the Rice’s dream come true by this year. A lot of fans asked us why “Immortal” wasn’t performed on stage, but we have to say that performing this song is difficult (not only because of its copyright issues). First of all, the copyrights of the composition belong to Korea while the copyrights of the lyrics belong to online songwriters. With AudioFreak and He Tu’s help, we got in contact with Finale and first obtained the copyright of the lyrics. Later, we made various inquiries and we spent several months getting in touch with the music company in South Korea. They were willing to sell the song to Nan Pan Entertainment, however, the song we received was only a .wav file without sheet music because the song was written too long ago. 

Without MIDI, it’s very difficult to re-record the song. First, the sound quality can’t be changed; second, we can’t completely split the Korean harmony track in the old version, which will surely affect the quality of the song. In order to restore the original version and improve the quality of the music, we had to ask the composer for a hard copy of the sheet music and a professional audio mixer to help us to record the song again. After all of this, we finally completed a remastered version of “Immortal”.

Now, time has polished the song to shine even brighter and become even more valuable. Thanks to all the staff involved in the song production and singing. And thank you, Rice, for supporting and loving the song. Because of you, the song will be immortal in everyone’s memory, just like DMBJ.

<“Restart: Sound of the Providence” OST Lyrics><Table of Contents><“DMBJ•Ten Years in Life”>

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TN Notes:

(1) Remember, the nickname of Daomu Biji fans is “Daomi”, which means “rice” in Chinese. It’s a play on words since Daomi can also be interpreted as a word short for fans (“Mi” in Chinese) of Daomu Biji—> Daomi.

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Yvette’s Notes: The above info comes from baidu. The 2000s in China was an era of online singers and songwriters. When everyone was upgrading their cassette and disc players to mp3 and phones, musicians also started posting their own songs and remixes online for free downloads. While working as an audio editor, AudioFreak frequently posted his arrangements, remixes, and original music online and gained some popularity. As a senior and talented DMBJ fan, AudioFreak is involved many DMBJ music and almost all of them are great hits. You might know him from The Mystic Nine drama’s ending theme song. Finale is one of the most famous lyrics writers from MoMingQiMiao, an indie traditional Chinese music group that started in 2007 (the group grew a lot bigger and is now the most prestigious team today). The two collaborated and produced a stunning doujin song, “Immortal”, in 2010, which has become the most epic battle song of DMBJ and the most respected piece of this IP. Because the composition was borrowed from a Korean song, “Immortal” could not be commercialized or performed on stage due to copyright issues. But a birthday without “Happy Birthday to You” is definitely not complete. After several years, a remastered version of “Immortal” was finally completed. Nan Pai Entertainment helped Rice obtain all the copyrights in 2019, and the song can finally be performed on stage. First performance on August 17, 2019 (Fancam 1 is here and Fancam 2 is here). I don’t know everyone’s background… so if you find the above information is repetitive, I apologize in advance.

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