Lyrics & Composition: Song Dongye (宋冬野)

She saw a lonely soul getting ready to depart,
So she whispered a prayer to the dusk.
Until night fell, she turned and heard
A sorrowful sobbing—

A kind-hearted woman
With long hair draped over her shoulders—
She had arrived along with the twilight.

Her emerald dress turned to ash
In the fireplace’s flame,
The fire rising and burning
All the way until dawn.

Until that woman
Opened the door and left,
Muttering to herself:

Far away from here,
There’s a beach.

And the lonely one is out at sea,
Holding up a sail.
If you see him
Return to the shore,
Please tell him your name—
And mine:
Lilian.

Author: Lao Zhu

Source: Zhihu (https://www.zhihu.com/question/21621837/answer/94318786)

All rights reserved by the original author. For commercial use, please contact the author for authorization. For non-commercial use, please credit the source.

Song Dongye once said that Lilian was written about a friend of his who had suffered from schizophrenia. This friend imagined a man in her mind and fell in love with him. Later, the man disappeared, and she missed him deeply. So, she imagined another woman and sent this woman to search for the man she loved.

I’ve transcribed Song Dongye’s original words from a music media interview. You can compare them to the lyrics:

“Lilian is a friend of mine. She had mental issues and ended up in a psychiatric hospital in Beijing. After she was discharged, she told me what her mind was like during the illness.

She said she was Woman A.
She felt she had become Woman A and Man A.
And these two people fell in love—deeply in love.
Then, one day, something extremely intense happened,
and she felt the man was gone.

He vanished.
But she missed him terribly,
and fell into deep depression.
Later, she felt she became Woman A and Woman B.
And she asked Woman B to help her find Man A.
She said, ‘If you find him, just tell him my name.’

So I polished this into a seaside scene and wrote this song.”
— [Music Afternoon Tea, 2014-09-11, 56.com]

With this background in mind, it becomes easier to interpret the surface meaning of the lyrics:
“She saw the lonely man getting ready to leave,So she prayed to the twilight.”
The man she loved was destined to not belong to her. He was going far away, chasing solitude. Lilian sensed this—but was powerless to stop it. All she could do was pray—pray for someone to appear who might help her win him back. But who would that person be?

“Until night fell, she turned and heard
Sorrowful sobbing—
A kind-hearted woman
With long hair draped over her shoulders—
She had arrived along with the twilight.”

From dusk until late at night, the person finally appeared. A woman, seemingly kind and gentle, weeping quietly. Her long hair draped over her shoulders, sadness written all over her face—she arrived with the nightfall.

“Her emerald dress
Turned to ash in the fireplace.
Flames rose and burned
All the way until dawn.
Until that woman
Opened the door and left—”

The woman threw her emerald green dress into the fireplace, burning it to ash. The fire roared, burning all through the night until dawn. Finally, the woman opened the door and left.

“She muttered to herself:
Far away from here,
There’s a beach.
The lonely man
Is out at sea,
Holding up a sail—”

As the woman was about to leave, Lilian began muttering to herself. She said, in a faraway place, there’s a beach. And the man she loved was out there, on the sea, sailing alone—immersed in his own solitude.

“If you see him
Return to the shore,
Please tell him your name—
My name—
Lilian.”

Lilian said to the woman in green, “You’re about to go on a journey. Please help me look for that man. If you happen to see him return to shore—just tell him your name. That is, tell him my name—Lilian.”

Interpretations (subjective, not definitive)

Why did the man leave?

The lyrics of Lilian are minimal and offer only one word to describe the man: “lonely.” This loneliness is clear from the very first line—he’s leaving. Later, through the woman’s “muttering,” we learn he’s now drifting on the sea near a distant beach. He may occasionally come ashore, or he might be endlessly drifting. The lyrics evoke a quote from Li Zhi’s Mr. Van Gogh:

“Someone’s lover left…We are born lonely. We are born alone.”
Indeed, human loneliness is inborn. Better to drift at sea than feel alone in a crowd. Maybe the man left Lilian in search of that very solitude.

Who is the woman in green?

She is another version of Lilian herself—a figure Lilian imagined. That’s why the song ends with “your name—my name.”

Lilian first created a lonely man in her mind and fell in love with him. Then he left, in search of solitude. This reflects her inner struggle: she longs for love, but also resists it. When she lost him completely, she couldn’t stop missing him. Yet she couldn’t take that step herself—so she created a second self to go and find him. That second self is the woman in green.

What does the green dress symbolize?

Green is an ancient literary motif. In The Book of Songs, the poem “Green Garment” is a mourning song for a deceased lover. The green dress carries the memory and love of someone lost:

“My heart is sorrowful—When will it ever end?”

The act of burning the green dress becomes a symbol: letting the past turn to ash, so a new life might spark from the fire. But does it really work? As the woman in green is about to leave, Lilian starts speaking again—not truly to herself, but as a desperate plea. Her heart is still not at peace.

The songwriter’s own interpretation (via Douban)

Inspiration: “A dream about schizophrenia.”

Details:“This is my friends’ favorite song, probably also the one with the strongest sense of melody. It was the first song I wrote and arranged for the album North of Anhe Bridge. If I were to give it to Yao Shisan Laoshi (a songwriter friend), it would be perfect. I really love the arrangement—especially the conversation between strings and guzheng in the interlude. There’s this rapid back-and-forth feeling, like left–right–left–right. The double bass has this classical, light texture that doesn’t steal the show, but brings the rhythm alive. The track used a full-length sample. Even though it’s still far from being true ambient music, it felt really good to me personally.”