The Wandering Songstress

It was composed by He Luting based on an older Suzhou ballad, with lyrics by Tian Han.

"Tianya Genü" has been translated in various English sources as "The Wandering Songstress",[6][7] "Singing Girl",[8] "The Songstress of the World",[9] "The Wandering Singer",[10] "Singer at the Sky Edge",[11] and "Singing Girl at the Edge of the World".

"Tianya" (Chinese: 天涯) literally means "sky horizon" that carries the meaning of "at the end of the world", but within the context of the song it also has the figurative meanings of "someone separated by a long distance" from the phrase "tianya haijiao" (天涯海角, "ends of the world", used in a Tang dynasty poem that describes someone wandering looking for a person far away), which is part of the lyrics that describe someone seeking to find her intended.

[13][14] According to the composer He Luting, the director of the film Street Angel found two urban folk ballads from Suzhou he wanted to use on the film, "Crying on the Seventh Seven Day Cycle" (哭七七) and "One Who Knows Me Well" (知心客), which He Luting then adapted to become "Song of the Four Season" (四季歌) and "The Wandering Songstress" respectively.

[24] The song has been covered by numerous singers, including Li Xianglan in the 1944 Japanese film Yasen gungakutai (野戦軍楽隊, Military Combat Music Band), Bai Guang, Teresa Teng, Tsai Chin, Wakin Chau, Adia Chan (in Cantonese), Lin Bao [zh] (林寶, in Shanghainese), Song Zuying, Zhang Yan (張燕).