Chinese red songs set lyrics praising the Party, the motherland and its leaders over melodies drawn from regional folk music. They range from soaring solos in the Chinese 'national' singing style, as performed by Guo Lanying, to mass unison singing. Arrangements typically combine a Western orchestra with folk instruments such as the erhu and the bamboo flute (dizi).

In 1942 Mao Zedong's Yan'an Talks declared that art must serve the people and politics, and the practice of setting revolutionary lyrics to folk melodies was organised systematically. 'The East Is Red', which put words praising Mao onto a folk tune from northern Shaanxi, is the emblem of this; it spread from the liberated areas across the country. After 1949 the genre was institutionalised as the music of state occasions.

Because the melodies are rooted in real regional folk songs, an earthy, approachable contour survives in them. The combination of the bright, taut high register of the national singing style with the thick harmony of a Western orchestra is distinctive. Lyrics tend to paint the motherland's mountains and rivers concretely rather than reciting abstract slogans.

Guo Lanying's 'My Motherland' (Wo de Zuguo, 1956), a much-loved film theme, is the standard starting point. For a song by an ethnic-minority singer, hear Tseten Dolma's 'Singing a Mountain Song for the Party' (1963).

In 1970 'The East Is Red' was carried aboard China's first satellite, which broadcast the melody from orbit. A revolutionary song literally circled the Earth.