Hakka folk songs are similar to folk songs and poems in terms of genre. They can be divided into four types: lyrical, narrative, allegorical, humorous and miscellaneous songs. Most of these folk songs are in prose style, usually with four sentences each. For example:

I bought a new lamp with a glass tube, and studied with my husband under the lamp;

Open a book to learn about culture, and I will always love my husband and his sister.

The narrative usually consists of one poem with four sentences, and there are also multiple poems, each one mainly telling a story. Allegorical and ridiculing folk songs include:

My elder brother is quite handsome, but his head looks like a winter cabbage poppy;

The round body looks like a washbasin, and the teeth look like bullpen stems.

Miscellaneous songs include guessing tunes, Xuxuan songs, Lafan songs, etc.

Shanghang Hakka folk songs also pay great attention to the relationship between oblique and oblique sounds, which are very similar to the seven-character quatrains in poetry. However, Hakka folk songs usually have rhymes at the end of the first, second and fourth lines, and rarely use oblique rhymes. , like the two songs above. However, Hakka folk songs do not pay much attention to the strict relationship between levels and obliques in each sentence, which is different from poetry.

There are also situations where additional words appear in the folk song variations, such as:

When wearing a shirt, you should wear a Shilin foreign cloth shirt.

The more you wash it, the more you rub it, the more you wear it. Easy to wear;

To eat wine, you must eat Jiangxi, Hunan, Zhejiang and Shaoxing wine.

If you love your sister, you must love seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-one, two-three.

These lyrics with added words show the vividness and dexterity of folk literature. At the same time, the combination of flat and oblique and the rhythm and style caused by the added words are very interesting. They are the most popular among Shanghang Hakka folk songs. treasure.

Shanghang Hakka folk songs also pay attention to various rhetorical techniques. Such as "Xing", "rhyme" and so on. "Xing" means "rising". "Qixing" is like the opening of a play. If "Qixing" is used well, it can play a preemptive role and attract the attention of the other party or the audience. Therefore, "Qixing" must not only become a song, but also be closely related to the following theme. For example:

The seeds of the tea tree jingle, and it is easy to talk under the tea tree;

If someone comes to ask, the two pretend to pick up tea seeds.

The first sentence starts with "the seeds of the tea tree jingle, jingle, jingle," and it quickly connects to the relationship between men and women. This is a very common thing. The Shanghang Hakka area is rich in camellia oleifera trees. In the crisp autumn weather, young men and women fall in love under the tea trees. It is the right time and the right place.

Rumpon is the use of "repetition" in the structure and layout of lyrics. Refrains have the function of emphasizing content, emotion and strengthening the rhythm of music, such as:

Hakka folk songs are the most famous, and Tiaotiao folk songs have sister names;

Tiaotiao folk songs have sister identities, and one No sister can't sing.

There is also a kind of folk song with overlapping words, such as:

The valleys in the mountains rise from the slopes, and there are many trees and mountains in front of the mountains and behind the mountains;

The mountains and fields shade the mountains and rivers, and the mountain people Sing folk songs on the mountain.

These overlapping and connected folk songs once again show the vividness and wisdom of folk literature, and are very similar to the pattern of fish biting its tail in folk music.

In addition to paying attention to these formal beauties, Shanghang Hakka folk songs also pay attention to content and artistic conception. For example, "Lotus Blossoms on the Lotus Tree in Pitou" (see Example 5):

The newly built tea pavilion has green bamboo leaves, and my elder brother is sifting the tea and dare not accept it.

Pouring the tea with both hands, taking it with one hand. If you pick it up with one hand, you will probably get a thunderous response in the future.

The cups are sifting through the round jingle of tea, and my sister has a tea tray to carry with both hands.

My hands are sifting tea and I dare not take it. My sister has never put arsenic in it.

The lotus trees in Pitou are blooming, and the strong wind blows all over the ground.

I only need chopsticks for three meals, and there is no room for pork with rice.

This folk song does not directly express the inner love for the sweetheart, but expresses the inner hesitation and fear of rejection by using the fact that each other does not know how to accept the tea and does not dare to accept it. Mixed emotions. The last two sentences also borrow "three meals with only chopsticks, and pork can't be eaten with rice." to express the eager longing for the sweetheart, without thinking about the tea, and the rice is tasteless. Another example is "Lang is a thousand-year-old tree in the mountain" (see example 2):

Lang is a thousand-year-old tree in the mountain, and sister is a ten-year-old vine in the mountain.

The dead vines entangle the tree to death. , Trees and vines are clinging to death.

Lang is a long-lasting tree in the mountains, and my sister is a vine growing beside the tree.

The tree grows vines that will never leave them, and the vines grow and trees grow for thousands of years.

When a Hakka girl has identified her sweetheart, she devotes herself wholeheartedly to love, and the love is lingering, persistent, and life-and-death. This song can be said to be a classic folk song. It is warm, simple, and even a little wild, expressing the commitment and pursuit of undying love throughout life and death.

The content of Shanghang Hakka folk songs, in addition to praising the rivers and mountains and reflecting working life, is also important to express loyal love and praise the party and the revolution. This is an issue worth thinking about. During the migration of the Hakka people, they came to the remote mountainous western Fujian from the Central Plains and Jianghuai River. After migrating here, they did not get rid of the shackles of Confucianism at that time. On the contrary, in such mountainous areas, the environment is closed and a single farming economy has been implemented for a long time, which is the most suitable soil for the growth and development of Confucianism. In the Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucianism emerged in Fujian. Zhu Xi's ancestral home was in the northern Fujian area adjacent to western Fujian. A large number of important scholars came from northwest Fujian, making it a center of Neo-Confucianism. Neo-Confucianism pushed the feudal Three Guidelines and Five Constant Theory to the extreme, reaching the extreme in suppressing human nature and suppressing women's status and rights.

Under the oppression, restraint and destruction of these two ideas, coupled with poverty and backwardness in the feudal era, sweet love and happy marriage are often just a luxury wish for Hakka men and women. A variety of backward, deformed and barbaric marriage forms are popular in the Hakka area, such as "child bride", "waiting for a married woman", "marrying across the mountain", "second marriage", "washing marriage" and so on. For various reasons, Hakka men and women can only express their inner pain and their desire and pursuit of beautiful love through folk songs that are not restricted by etiquette, patriarchal laws, or have less restrictions.

During China's Agrarian Revolutionary War in the 1920s and 1930s, "the red flag jumped over the Tingjiang River and went straight down Longyan to Shanghang..." Zhu Mao's Red Army led the Hakka people in the Shanghang area to protect their homes and save the country. In the resolution of the famous Gutian Conference, Mao Zedong personally advocated the collection of folk songs as teaching materials for the Red Army to inspire the army and people to actively participate in the revolution. Later, during the expansion of the Red Army movement, Caixi Township, known as the "Ninth Army and Eighteen Divisions", used folk songs to encourage relatives to join the Red Army and to encourage production in the rear areas. Many revolutionary folk songs emerged. Most of the revolutionary folk songs are modified from the melodies of folk songs that were originally popular among the people, either by adjusting the melody and rhythm, or directly filling in the lyrics. This is to take advantage of the ambiguous characteristics of folk songs, apply people's favorite folk song melodies to the revolution, and mobilize the people's revolutionary enthusiasm through spiritual and ideological infection. Therefore, under the influence of this social change, many excellent revolutionary folk songs have been left in the Hakka folk songs of Shanghang, such as "Persevere in guerrilla warfare and not be afraid of hunger", "Folk songs come to cause trouble again and again", "Investigation of Caixi Township Shining Golden Light" , "The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army Arrives in Gutian" and so on.

As long as the original ecology of folk songs exists, of course there are very excellent treasures, and there are also some that are not so excellent, and there are even some dross. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct sorting and research.