The mottled years condensed many stories. Those beautiful music carry our youth and memories. When I was cleaning and organizing my belongings, I accidentally discovered a Sanyo player that I bought in the early 1980s. I was overjoyed. I touched the machine and was transported ba

The mottled years have condensed many stories. Those beautiful music carry our youth and memories.

When I was cleaning and sorting out my belongings, I accidentally discovered a Sanyo player that I bought in the early 1980s. I was overjoyed. I touched the machine and was transported back to the green days.

In the late 1970s, I was working in the Youth League Committee of the neighborhood. A bulky turntable record player aroused my curiosity. The two tape turntables were as big as soup bowls. They played "Velvet Flower", "Sister Is in Tears for Brother" and "Goodbye". "Come on, Mom" ​​was so euphemistic and beautiful. From then on, I became very interested in the tape recorder.

In the early 1980s, someone in the alley was sitting in front of his house holding a Japanese Sanyo player and showing it off. Even though it looks like a brick or a rice box, the music it plays is much better than that turntable record player. I thought to myself, how great it would be for me to have a player like this one day. Therefore, I lived frugally, and even though my monthly salary at that time was only more than 30 yuan, I gritted my teeth and took out all my savings of more than 200 yuan, and asked many people to get a second-hand Sanyo player. This was my first "luxury item". It has no radio function, it can only play one cassette tape, and it uses batteries. I listened to many songs on this player, especially Teresa Teng, who I never tire of listening to. I have been used to listening to exciting marches since I was a child, and hearing such sweet sounds all of a sudden was a novelty that I had never experienced before. This unassuming single player also attracted many envious people in the alley. There was an endless stream of people of the same age who came to my house to listen to music. Some people even stood at the door of my house with their rice bowls and asked me to play "Sweet Honey" and "The Moon Represents My Heart". "Small Town Story", and "Country Road" and "Grandma's Penghu Bay" by Ye Jiaxiu, etc.

Not long after, the radio players were upgraded. First, radio cassette players with radio functions were launched. Later, there were dual-card and two-speaker radio cassette players that could rip tapes by themselves. Then, there were portable four-speaker radio cassette players. Who has such a radio cassette player? It's very "table-shaped". There are often fashionable young people on the street, with afro perms, long sideburns, and dark-colored "toad glasses." In order to show off that their glasses are imported, the hanging trademark blocks the view and is unwilling to tear them off. Lose. The top is a peak-collared lapel shirt or a floral shirt, and underneath are a pair of bell-bottom pants and rocket leather shoes. A Marlboro sponge-tipped cigarette is held in one hand, and a four-speaker cassette player is slung across the other hand. Turn the volume to the maximum and listen to the music. The rhythm is swaying on the road or in the alley, and from time to time there is a dance step. There are also trendy men who wear long windbreakers, comb their hair in an airplane style, turn their shirt collars inside out, carry a big four-speaker cassette player on their shoulders, and play Teresa Teng, Feng Feifei and Zhang Di as they walk, swaggering through the market. This kind of accent seems unbelievable today, but it was once the most fashionable style.

I still remember that Jiangsu Yancheng Radio Factory produced a dual-card cassette recorder called "Yanwu" brand. The advertisement occupied the prime time of CCTV. Thousands of households across the country were "Yanwu, Yanwu, every song brings love" deeply attracted by the advertisement. Even for this domestically produced phone, I have to queue up to buy it in the middle of the night. But I had a special liking for Sanyo's dual-SIM and dual-speaker radio recorders. One day, I finally made up my mind and asked my brothers, sisters, and colleagues to borrow banknotes. I scraped together 530 yuan, and used some of the "Cultural Revolution" stamps and stamps I had collected as a child. I exchanged more than 20 overseas remittance coupons, and finally picked up my favorite treasure at the Shanghai Overseas Chinese Store on Nanjing East Road. The shiny silver body and a row of red indicator lights that flash with the rhythm of the music are pleasing to the eye. Along the way, the envious looks from passers-by made me feel a little bit "wonderful". I asked my sister to go to the cloth store and buy red velvet, make a big cover, and take great care of it. In order to pay off the loan as quickly as possible, I worked on duty on the streets almost every day and night. In order to pay the duty fee of 70 cents, it took more than two years of frugality to pay it off.

There are also people in the alley who bought imported dual-card cassette recorders. Once anyone has new songs, especially movie songs, I will immediately bring TDK tapes to transcribe them. If anyone among my colleagues buys the singer’s original soundtrack, everyone will ask him to borrow it and copy it.In order to prevent someone from accidentally degaussing the tape, I used the tip of a pen to poke out the plastic piece with small holes on the bottom of the tape. This would prevent the songs from being erased. In order to protect the magnetic heads, alcohol must be used to clean them every now and then.

The mottled years condensed many stories. The imported radio cassette players of the past are no longer luxury goods, and most of those coveted brands have disappeared, but the beautiful music carries our youth and memories. (Chen Jianxing)