Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman

The story

"Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman", sometimes called "The Helmsman Sets the Ocean Course" in English, is a revolutionary song of the Chinese Communist Party. It was written in the spring of 1964 by two artists of the Harbin Opera House, the composer Wang Shuangyin and the lyricist Yu Wen (Li Yuwen), at a time of a nationwide campaign to study Mao Zedong's writings; its first title was "Making Revolution Depends on Mao Zedong Thought". Wang Shuangyin sang it at the second Harbin Summer music festival, where it caused a stir.

In June 1964 he sang it at an evening reception in Harbin for the North Korean leader Choe Yong-gon. Premier Zhou Enlai met him afterwards, praised the song and suggested syncopating a few notes, and the authors revised it accordingly. On the advice of Wang Jingzhi, deputy head of the arts department of Beijing Television (the forerunner of China Central Television), the song took its present title. Its melody closely resembles the first four lines of an earlier song, "I Dedicate Oil to My Motherland", composed by Qin Yongcheng with words by Xue Zhuguo; because of the charge of plagiarism, Wang Shuangyin apologised to Qin Yongcheng in person.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) the song was sung widely by the public, and especially by the Red Guards, in praise of Mao Zedong Thought and the party. Short and easy to sing, its single verse was usually repeated over and over. Its title phrase appeared on the cover of a junior middle school textbook on Mao Zedong Thought in the 1960s, and Lin Biao used the song's words in an inscription; according to Zhou Enlai, the title came from a slogan of Lin Biao. The song was also popular in the Third World.

Its success brought its composer office: Wang Shuangyin became a deputy to the National People's Congress, a member of the Heilongjiang provincial party committee, head of the province's model opera troupe and deputy director of its culture bureau, and was received by Jiang Qing. After the Gang of Four fell in 1976 he was detained for investigation, stripped of all his posts and expelled from the party, and questioned about his ties to Lin Biao and Jiang Qing; his membership was restored in 1987. On 24 October 1976, at a rally celebrating the fall of the Gang of Four, the new party chairman Hua Guofeng led the other leaders onto the Tiananmen rostrum to the song, which for a short while served to praise him and was used in newsreels and documentary films.

What it says

A short song in praise of Mao Zedong Thought and the Communist Party, presenting them as the helmsman that guides the revolution; brisk and confident.

The words

The words of this song are still in copyright, so they are not printed here. “What it says” above gives their theme in our own words, and the performance below lets you hear them.