"Tại sao? tức Sao muốn giết người yêu?" (Why? aka Why Do I Want to Kill My Lover) - Vinh Sử (1971)

ngâm:

Tại sao Anh muốn giết người yêu?

Vẫn biết người đi khổ trăm chiều.

Chữ hiếu nên Nàng đâu dám cãi,

Đi rồi đành bỏ chuyện tình yêu.

Why do I want to kill my lover?

Knowing she left and suffers for a hundred evening.

Inscribed filial duty, so you not dare argue,

You're gone now, there's no choice but to give up this love story.

Tại sao Anh muốn giết người Anh yêu?

Why do I want to kill the one that I love?  
Người yêu Anh có tội tình gì đâu?

Was My lover at all at fault?  
Nàng lên xe hoa ngày cưới, ngở như xe tang mở lối, sung sướng gì theo kẻ không yêu?

She ascended the bridal carriage on her wedding day, you would think a hearse was leading the way, what happiness when you follow someone you don't love?

Tại sao Anh chẳng yêu người yêu Anh?

Why don't I love the one who loves Me?  
Lòng Anh ích kỷ nhưng nào Anh hay...

My feelings are selfish, I know...
Mẹ cha tham sang gả bán, nợ duyên xem như bài toán, phận làm con Nàng phải vâng lời.

Your parents, greedy for luxury, bartered you into marriage, karmic debts of love seen as a calculation, Her fate as their child was to agree.

Anh ơi! sao Anh nghĩ rằng,

Oh! I am thinking that,
Anh phải giết Nàng, để Nàng của anh mãi mãi...

I must kill Her, so that She is mine forever...
Thế nhưng khi Anh giết Nàng

Yet, when I've killed Her  
Anh sẽ vui gì, hay là Anh khổ đau hơn.

What happiness would there be for me, I would be even more miserable.  

Giờ đây Anh đã hiểu Nàng phải không?

Up to now I have understood Her, isn't that so?  
Còn thương Anh cố quên Nàng cho xong.

My feelings remain, I'll forget Her so it's over.
Dù cho hôm nay Nàng chết tình yêu hôm nao cũng hết, thì thôi Anh đừng có bận lòng...

Though if She died today, the love would end one day, so, that's it, I won't worry Myself...

nguồn: Vinh Sử, "Tại sao? tức Sao muốn giết người yêu," Sài Gòn: [Tác giả], [n.d.].

The song's title and the sheet music's cover are both rather shocking. On the cover the dấu sắc (rising tone ' ) and the dấu huyền (sinking tone ` ) are both rendered with daggers. The dot at the bottom of the question mark is a skull. It's difficult to justify killing anyone, much less the one your profess to love.

On March 10, 2008, I gave a paper at the Popular Culture Association's annual meeting in San Francisco entitled "Shocking Music: Popular Song and Vietnam's Generation Gap." I looked at a phenomenon that some in the Vietnamese cultural press called "nhạc gây sốc." I would argue that Vinh Sử is the originator of this kind of song, anticipating this later music by 30 years or so.

Naturally, one shocks to gain attention. The title is the clickbait. Spoiler alert - he won't kill his lover. That would hurt even more. Vinh Sử keeps the morbid theme going with the hearse leading the bridal procession. Celebration for others is a funeral for him and, we're led to believe, for her, too. 

But murderous urge reflects overwhelming emotion. He and his lover are forever parted because she has to marry somebody else. Vinh Sử makes it clear that her parents' greed is the prevailing reason. This general theme -- girl leaves boy because parents want her to marry somebody else -- is very common in Vietnamese poetry and popular song. Nguyễn Bính handles the subject subtly in his poem "Nhớ người trong nắng" (Missing Someone in The Sunlight). 

This song is also sometime mis-titled "Giết người anh yêu" (Kill The One I Love)

Chế Linh introduced "Sao muốn giết người yêu?" on the Kim Đằng 1 tape in August 1973.