SLL93: No Need To Reply 不必回覆
A letter and song to remember past fathers
(Dear Reader, audio coming in the next day or two. - Nigel)
No Need To Reply
When the residence cleaners emptied his room, they found the usual things first: books, papers, conference folders, old cables, a few envelopes that had been opened and kept for no obvious reason. Under a folder on the desk was a printed letter with no stamp, no envelope, and no sign that it had ever been sent. At the top, it had only one name.
Nigel.
I have begun this several times, then deleted what I wrote, which is perhaps just as well. WORD and I have never been on the best of terms. That is my fault, I am sure. One cannot teach an old dog new tricks, or so they say. There is no need to reply to this, assuming I send it, which I probably shall not.
I trust that you are well. I am fine. There is nothing anyone can do. That is not entirely true, but it closes the subject. The evening sits beside the phone. The floor waits by the chair. I think of calling, then do not. I do not wish to be a burden. Old age is not for the faint-hearted. Walking has become more complicated than it ought to be, balance is uncertain, and the floor is harder than I remember floors being. I am comfortable sitting, reading, lying down, and working on the computer. Getting up to cross the room can be another matter. I have fallen, as you know. I was foolish about the life-line. There is no point pretending otherwise.
There were evenings when I wished the telephone would ring, not with anything important, merely news from Taiwan, a complaint about work, something about your daughter, a question about German or English or some old phrase. Anything ordinary would have done. Ordinary things are underrated until one has too few of them.
I was not always as present as I might have been. There is no point pretending otherwise. Work was a useful word. Perhaps too useful. I have wondered what memory amounts to. A name on the spine of a book no one opens? Perhaps one is remembered by children, then grandchildren. Then, as the Germans say, Es schweigt im Walde. “It becomes silent in the forest.” That sounds gloomy. It is not. It is merely realistic.
You may have become a better father than I was. That is not self-accusation, nor praise meant to embarrass you. It is simply an observation. I prefer observations to confessions. They are less theatrical. Still, I was proud of you. I loved you. I trusted you. I was proud of you. If I did not say it often enough, that is one more failure of expression from a man who spent his life with words. There is some irony in that. Perhaps too much.
Anyway, enough of this. Give my love to C.J. and Jaylla. Be well.
Love,
Dad
P.S. If this seems overly sentimental, feel free to ignore it. Shit happens.
Epilogue
In Taiwan, Father’s Day falls on August 8 because “8/8” in Mandarin sounds like 爸爸, or “Dad.” It is an appropriately simple wordplay, as fathers are often remembered through simple things: a phrase, a habit, a silence, an old chair. Or perhaps a phone that did not ring. This song is not a typical SLL story. It is a Father’s Day song lesson about wanting to be remembered, but not wanting to become a burden. It also happens that my father passed away at this time two years ago.
This lesson was partly inspired by the viral AI music phenomenon a few months ago around “When I’m Gone” and “After I’m Gone,” songs linked to the AI-generated “Michael Bennett” / “Mikhail Bennett” persona and fake America’s Got Talent-style videos. Forbes reported that the clips spread across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and beyond, sometimes drawing hundreds of thousands of views, and that Fremantle, the company behind AGT, confirmed that the video was AI-generated [1]. The related Spotify presence was also substantial, with one Mikhail Bennett artist page indexed at more than 647,000 monthly listeners [2]. The song worked because its twist was unusual: what first sounded like a rock love ballad became a father speaking to his children. In an era of disposable pop themes, this felt closer to older art-rock concerns with death, family, regret, and storytelling.
The viral song was powerful, and I listened to it several times because it touched a nerve in me, as it did with so many others. But I felt something was off. It felt too prosecutorial: the father were building a case against his children from beyond the grave. While emotionally impactful, it did not sound like the typical father who would not demand grief, not ask to be pitied, and not admit that he was lonely. So I made this song differently: first by creating a database of about eight years of my father’s last correspondences to capture his voice, tone, repeated phrases, and dry self-corrections; then by using ChatGPT to draft versions of a song from that material; and finally by using Suno with lyrics and music prompts inspired by music my father listened to in the 1970s, including rock songs with brass sections and Hammond keyboards. The result is a tribute to my father and all fathers. AI can create slop, but if used with intention and care, AI can help create deeply personal messages, experiences, and even understandings by helping us notice patterns we may have missed: the phrases people repeated, the feelings they avoided, and the love they expressed indirectly.
References
[1] Katz, L. (2026, March 2). America’s Got Talent fans fooled by AI-generated contestant’s sob story. Forbes.
[2] Spotify. (n.d.). Mikhail Bennett [Artist profile]. Retrieved August 8, 2026.
不必回覆
當養老院的清潔人員清理他的房間時，他們首先發現了常見的東西：書籍、文件、研討會資料夾、舊電線，以及幾封拆開後不知為何留下來的信封。在桌上一個資料夾下方，有一封列印出來的信，沒有郵票、沒有信封，也沒有任何寄出過的痕跡。信的頂端只有一個名字。
Nigel
這封信我動筆了好幾次，然後又把寫好的內容刪掉，不過這樣或許也好。我跟 WORD 這個軟體一直都不太合。我敢說這是我的問題。俗話說「老狗學不會新把戲」，大概就是這個意思吧。假設我真的寄出了這封信（雖然我大概不會寄），你也不必回覆。
希望你一切都好。我很好，反正誰也幫不上什麼忙。那不完全是真的，但這樣說就可以結束這個話題。夜晚守在電話旁，地板在椅子邊等待。我曾想打電話給你，但最後還是沒有。我不想成為負擔。衰老不是膽小的人受得了的。走路變得比想像中還要複雜，平衡感變得不太穩定，而地板也比我記憶中還要堅硬。我坐著、讀書、躺著和使用電腦時都很舒服，但要站起來走過房間又是另一回事了。如你所知，我跌倒過。我之前對緊急救援線的想法太傻了，沒必要假裝不是這樣。
有些晚上，我真希望電話會響起，不用是什麼大事，只要是來自台灣的近況、對工作的抱怨、關於你女兒的事，或是問一個德文、英文或某個古老片語的問題都好。任何平凡的小事都可以。平凡的事物總是容易被人忽視，直到你擁有的太少時才知道珍惜。
過去我可能沒有常常陪伴在你身邊，沒必要假裝不是這樣。「工作」是一個很好的藉口，也許太好用了。我一直在想，記憶究竟代表著什麼？是一本再也沒人翻開的書本脊背上的名字嗎？也許一個人先是被孩子記住，然後是孫子。接著，就像德國人說的：「Es schweigt im Walde」（森林裡陷入了沉默）。這聽起來很陰鬱，但其實不是，這只是現實罷了。
你也許已經成為了一個比我更好的父親。這不是自責，也不是為了讓你尷尬的稱讚，這只是一個客觀的觀察。比起告白，我更喜歡客觀的觀察，因為這樣比較不那麼戲劇化。儘管如此，我一直以你為榮。我愛你，我信任你，我真的為你感到自豪。如果我以前說得不夠多，這是一個用了一生文字的人，在表達上的又一次失敗。這確實有點諷刺，甚至有點過頭了。
總之，不說這些了。替我向 C.J. 和 Jaylla 問好。保重。
愛你的，
爸爸
又及：如果這封信看起來太感傷了，請隨意忽略它。人生就是這樣。
後記
在台灣，父親節是八月八日，因為「8/8」的中文發音聽起來像「爸爸」。這是一個簡單又貼切的諧音，因為人們常常透過微小的事物記住父親：一個片語、一個習慣、一段沉默、一張舊椅子，或者一通沒有響起的電話。這首歌不是傳統的語言學習故事，而是一堂關於渴望被記住、卻又不想成為負擔的父親節歌曲課程。巧合的是，我父親也在兩年前的這個時候過世了。
這首歌的靈感部分來自幾個月前爆紅的 AI 音樂現象，圍繞著《When I’m Gone》和《After I’m Gone》這幾首歌。這些歌曲與 AI 生成的角色「Michael Bennett」/「Mikhail Bennett」以及假的《美國達人秀》風格影片有關。《富比士》報導指出，這些短片在 YouTube、TikTok、Instagram 等平台上流傳，有時吸引數十萬次觀看，而《美國達人秀》背後的 Fremantle 公司也證實該影片是由 AI 生成的。其在 Spotify 上的影響力也相當大，其中一個 Mikhail Bennett 的藝人頁面顯示每月聽眾超過 64 萬人。這首歌之所以成功，是因為它的轉折很特別：原本聽起來像搖滾情歌，最後卻變成一位父親對孩子說的話。在這個流行主題快速被遺忘的時代，這感覺更接近早期藝術搖滾對死亡、家庭、遺憾和敘事的關懷。
那首爆紅的歌曲很有感染力，我也聽了好幾次，因為它觸動了我內心的心弦，就像觸動了許多其他人一樣。但我總覺得有些不對勁。它感覺太像在控訴，彷彿父親在陰間指責他的孩子。雖然情感衝擊力很強，但這聽起來不像典型的父親——典型的父親不會要求孩子悲傷、不會尋求憐憫，也不會承認自己的孤獨。因此，我用不同的方式製作了這首歌：首先建立了一個包含我父親最後八年間來往信件資料庫，以捕捉他的聲音、語氣、重複使用的片語和乾澀的自我修正；然後使用 ChatGPT 從這些素材中草擬歌曲版本；最後使用 Suno，並搭配受我父親在 1970 年代聆聽的音樂所啟發的歌詞與音樂提示詞，包括帶有管樂和漢蒙管風琴（Hammond keyboards）的搖滾歌曲。成果是一份獻給我父親以及所有父親的致敬。AI 可以產生垃圾內容，但如果用心且審慎地使用，AI 能幫助我們注意到可能忽略的模式：人們重複的話語、他們迴避的情感，以及他們間接表達的愛，從而幫助我們創造極具個人色彩的訊息、體驗，甚至是理解。
Vocabulary List
Father’s Day, 父親節 (fùqīnjié)
stoic, 堅忍不拔的 (jiānrěn bùbá de)
reserved, 內斂的 (nèi liǎn de)
undemonstrative, 不善於表達情感的 (bù shàn yú biǎodá qínggǎn de)
faint-hearted, 膽小的 (dǎnxiǎo de)
burden, 負擔 (fùdān)
reluctance, 不情願 (bù qíngyuàn)
correspondence, 來往信件 (láiwǎng xìnjiàn)
observation, 觀察 (guānchá)
prosecutorial, 控訴性的 (kòngsù xìng de)
tribute, 致敬 (zhìjìng)
sentimental, 感傷的 (gǎnshāng de)
ordinary, 平凡的 (píngfán de)
P.S. (postscript), 又及 (yòují)
give one’s love to, 向⋯問好 (xiàng... wènhǎo)
phenomenon, 現象 (xiànxiàng)
viral, 爆紅的 (bàohóng de)
substantial, 相當大的 (xiāngdāng dà de)
intention, 用心 (yòngxīn)
disposable, 一次性的 (yí cì xìng de)
slop (AI slop), 垃圾內容 (lējī nèiróng)
shit happens (that’s life), 人生就是這樣 (rénshēng jiùshì zhèyàng)
on the best of terms, 關係融洽 (guānxì róngqià)
teach an old dog new tricks, 讓老狗學新把戲 (ràng lǎo gǒu xué xīn bǎxì)
touch a nerve, 觸動心弦 (chùdòng xīnxián)
Chin-Glish song version
No Need to Reply 不必回覆
I have begun this several times,
then deleted what I wrote.
WORD and I have never been
on the best of terms.
That is my fault, I am sure.
One cannot teach an old dog
new tricks, or so they say.
寫了又刪，刪了又寫。
有些話，不容易說。
There is no need to reply,
assuming I send this,
which I probably shall not.
I trust that you are well.
不必回覆。
也許我根本不會寄出。
I am fine.
There is nothing anyone can do.
That is not entirely true,
but it closes the subject.
我很好。
那不完全是真的，
只是話題到此為止。
Old age is not for the faint-hearted.
Walking has become
more complicated than it ought to be.
Balance is uncertain.
Floors are harder
than I remember floors being.
I have fallen, as you know.
I was foolish about the life-line.
There is no point
pretending otherwise.
老年不是膽小的人受得了的。
我跌倒過，這你知道。
沒有必要假裝不是這樣。
I sometimes think of phoning you
and then do not.
The time difference is one reason.
Your life is another.
There were evenings
when I wished the telephone would ring.
Not with anything important.
News from Taiwan.
A complaint about work.
Something about your daughter.
A question about German,
or English, or some old phrase.
Anything ordinary.
我只是希望電話響起。
不是為了什麼大事。
只是幾句普通的話。
I am fine.
There is nothing anyone can do.
That is not entirely true,
but it closes the subject.
我很好。
只是話題到此為止。
I was not always as present
as I might have been.
There is no point
pretending otherwise.
Work was a useful word.
Perhaps too useful.
工作是一個有用的詞。
也許太有用了。
I have wondered
what memory amounts to.
A name on the spine
of a book no one opens?
Perhaps one is remembered
by children, then grandchildren,
and then, as the Germans say,
Es schweigt im Walde.
It becomes silent in the forest.
然後，森林裡沉默了。
That sounds gloomy.
It is not.
It is merely realistic.
不是陰鬱。
只是現實。
You may have become
a better father than I was.
That is not self-accusation,
nor praise meant to embarrass you.
It is simply an observation.
I prefer observations to confessions.
They are less theatrical.
Still, I was proud of you.
你也許成了一個
比我更好的父親。
這只是一個觀察。
I loved you.
I trusted you.
I was proud of you.
If I did not say it often enough,
that is one more failure of expression
from a man who spent his life with words.
我愛你。
我信任你。
我以你為傲。
一個用了一生文字的人，
最後還是不太會說。
Anyway, enough of this.
Give my love to C.J. and Jaylla.
Be well.
Love,
Dad.
愛你的，
爸爸。