In a Singapore newspaper report, which can be read under the News/ Gossip section of this webpage, Tracy Huang describes the concept of this album as one of danger and the sense of insecurity. This single theme forms the foundation of the album, right from a heavily made-up Tracy Huang on the cover, shrouded in in eerie shades of black and gray contrasting with the shocking screams of jagged, bright orange Chinese characters, to the layers of loss and despair that lies at the heart of many of the songs in the album.
The title track WO MEN AH WO MEN (WE AH WE) begins like an ordinary ballad. However, as the melody enters the chorus the singing suddenly becomes jagged and broken, as if conveying an imminent danger. The lyrics revolves around love, but the sense of loss and confusion is palpable, this viewing of love with a cold eye, not willing to risk getting hurt, but at the same time knowing that there is no love without risk.
AI SHANG LE YIN (LOVE LIKE AN ADDICTION) sounds not like love but more like half crazed, drunken obsession, with it vacillations between passion and confusion, wild happiness and mad anger. AI SHANG YI GE MO SHENG DE REN (LOVING A STRANGER) depicts a rain-swept city, the wind exposing the desolation of modern living, and the hypocrisies of city dwellers like an impenetrable mask of make up (a subtle reference to Tracy's own 'mask' in the cover picture?). Incidentally, this song reminds me of the same desolation and fear in SOUND OF SILENCE, the fear of "people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening".
In TIAN TANG TAI YUAN (HEAVEN IS TOO FAR AWAY), the hopelessness of love is again revealed, like a drop of water trying to quench an ocean of thirst and desires. Heaven, with its connotations of permanence and the after-life, together with the image of weeping and praying angels, suggest how far away redemption is for mortal souls.
This same restlessness and endless searching for the elusive elixir of love and happiness which will ultimately lead to emptiness, is poignantly captured in MING LIAO (UNDERSTANDING): "On the left of love is pain, on the right, loneliness, everyone is running ceaselessly from one side to the other, in search of happiness". GAN BU GAN (DO YOU DARE) speaks of hesitancy and indecision, the inability to commit oneself to a relationship.
The above exploration of the various songs is an attempt to show the deeply profound and most intense sorrow that has seeped into the very grain of the album. There is an almost existentialist feel in the lyrics, as if depicting the sheer haphazardness of life, where cause and effect is absent, and where things and events collide randomly without reason or meaning. And when our conventional notion that there is an answer to life's sufferings is stripped away, all that is left is despair. Seen in this light, WE AH WE may be one of the most intensely personal of all the albums Tracy Huang has released so far. No longer content with just exploring the different facets of love, in this gem of an album she has taken a step further by exploring the basic human condition itself. As such, to me, it is one of her most profound and serious works.
The album would not be complete without the innovative spirit displayed in both writing and arranging the music. Tracy has even decided to go technotronic in HEAVEN IS TOO FAR AWAY, with its dark and brooding music with jagged and rusty edges melting into the purity of Tracy singing to the music of a lone piano. Impressive guitar work is displayed in LOVING A STRANGER, and the warm, acoustic feel in SUAN. TIAN (BITTERSWEET) enhances the mood of recollecting and reminiscing.
Without doubt this album is Tracy's best offering to date.
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