Bloodstained Glory

[Pannonian]

I've recently been obsessed with this song. I encountered it whilst looking for something else, but its story, and how it's been used, got my interest. It's a patriotic Chinese song, written to commemorate the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war, as strategically pointless a waste of human life as there's ever been. The lyrics are in the form of a letter from a soldier reassuring his lover that his death was a worthwhile sacrifice for the country.

AFAICS, this was the first performance of the song in 1987, a duet between a crippled soldier (possibly a veteran from that war) and a female singer. Also of interest is this (warning: graphic imagery), what seems to be a music video, although it seems rather bloody for MTV. The song later found an equally apt use in commemorating the dead of Tiananmen Square, as here.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Perhaps I'll bid farewell and never to return, can you comprehend? Do you understand?
Perhaps I will fall and never to rise again. Do you still want to wait forever?
If it's to be like this, don't you be sad, the flag of the Republic has our blood-stained glory.
If it's to be like this, don't you be sad, the flag of the Republic has our blood-stained glory.

Perhaps my eyes will shut and never open again, will you understand my sunken emotions?
Perhaps I will sleep forever, never able to wake up. Will you believe that I have been transformed into mountains?
If it's to be like this, don't you be sad, the soil of the Republic contains the love we have given.
If it's to be like this, don't you be sad, the soil of the Republic contains the love we have given.

If it's to be like this, don't you be sad, the flag of the Republic has our blood-stained glory.
If it's to be like this, don't you be sad, the flag of the Republic has our blood-stained glory. Blood-stained Glory.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Interesting. Hard to comment. It's not quite "Willy McBride" is it?