Tomorrow will be Better for What 明天會為甚麼更好

Recently I joined in a karaoke singing event organised by my friend @travelgirl, a bunch of us all sang the same song individually then she edited it and made it into a video. You can watch the video in her post here, and just a bit of warning, you will come across a nervous singer in a red T-shirt who sings really awful.😚

最近參加了 @travelgirl舉辦的大合唱線上活動。很多朋友分別自己唱"明天會更好"，然後她就剪接和整合視頻。 大家可以在她這個帖子看到我們的演出。聽到穿紅衣服，很緊張唱到很難聽那個就是我😚

The song we sang is called 明天會更好 which translates to "Tomorrow will be Better". The idea for the song was inspired by UK Band Aid's "Do they know its Christmas?" released in 1984 in aid of the Ethiopia famine, and the subsequent USA version "We are the World" released in March 1985 for similar purpose. If you haven't seen the original videos before, you should definitely check them out.

"明天會更好"是1985年一班台灣歌手發起的活動。 靈感源自1984年英國 Band Aid 為非洲埃索俄比亞饑荒籌款而發行的 "Do they know it's Christmas"。 幾個月之後，美國一班歌手同樣為非洲饑荒籌款發行 "We are the World"。如果你未聽過以上歌曲，推薦你去網上找視頻看看噢。

Anyway back to "Tomorrow will be Better". The original intention of making the song was supposed to be along the same lines as its UK and USA counterparts, to promote world peace. The organisers were some of the the most respected artist in the Taiwanese music industry and together they got over 60 other artists to take part in the project. The song was eventually released in November 1985 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the end of Japanese rule. In the mid eighties, copyright infringement was rife in the music industry so many people also said the song was to promote counterfeit music and hardly mentioned the commemoration purpose. Then the proceeds from the song, some NTD6m/over USD200k was donated to the Consumers' Foundation, an NGO founded to protect consumer rights. So as you can see, the purpose of making "Tomorrow will be Better" seems to be rather blurred.

"明天會更好"的原意也跟英美兩國一樣，為宣揚世界和平。 當時由台灣資深藝人張艾嘉，羅大佑等人發起，邀請了六十多位歌手參與。 歌曲在1985年11月紀念台灣光復節40週年時推出。 在80年代盜版活動猖獗，當時有說有些歌手是為反盜版而參與這活動，所以有不少人覺得這是一首反盜版的歌。"明天會更好"一曲最終籌得新臺幣600萬/美金20萬，捐給中華民國消費者文教基金會作公益之用。 從以上的簡單介紹，我們可以見到相比起英美的活動，"明天會更好"一曲的目的好像有點模糊。

After the song was released, it was an instant hit in both Taiwan and Hong Kong. It's a very catchy song with a great tune, though parts of the notes are quite high and can be difficult to sing. I had to practice so many times before the event and must have made about ten recordings before I eventually sent it over to @travelgirl. I think after you listen to yourself so many times, you get used to the awful sound and actually convince yourself that you're not such a bad singer after all 😚 Anyway, today it's still quite a very popular song often sang at karaokes and I think it was a good choice for our karaoke event. Here's the original music video, maybe you can see how well/bad we sang compared to the pros!

雖然如此，"明天會更好"推出後馬上在台灣及香港非常流行。歌曲韻律輕鬆易上口，雖然有部分較高音不好唱，但它經常是大家去KTV時點點的熱門歌曲。 這次的大合唱，我覺得是一個非常好的選擇。 大家如果沒有看過1985年的視頻，可以先看這個，然後再看我們的表演，看大家覺得如何。