Translation: A Flower Costs One Monme (Happy End)

Venturing into Kazemachi Roman now — the middle album, the most celebrated. It's not my favorite, the third album is, but they're both pretty much perfect. The debut is good too. Happy End was one of the best bands ever.

Shigeru Suzuki, who contributed so much crucial stuff to the final album, made his songwriting debut here, with A Flower Costs One Monme. It marked the fulfillment of Haruomi Hosono's ideal: a band made up solely of songwriters (for another example of which, see also, a mere six years down the line, the Yellow Magic Orchestra). 

I think that, because it was Shigeru's first recorded song, his bandmates seriously stepped things up (and Shigeru's own guitar solo is sublime). Matsumoto's lyrics have no chorus; as if intentionally putting in maximum effort, no words are repeated until the last moment (and oh man, when they are!). Hosono's bassline is beautiful, covering rhythm and melody at the same time. And Ohtaki, to whom Shigeru turned for help with harmonies, wrote three entirely different harmony lines, one to go with each chorus.

The lyrics are a picture of collective childhood, about how it felt to be growing up with friends in a particular Tokyo neighborhood, but it's universal too — the races through town, the street-side entertainment, the elaborate role playing. It's also about the way childhood has a tendency to transcend its surroundings.

But it ends with a time jump. The final verse and chorus are from the perspective of Takashi the young man, drummer of Happy End. In the Kazemachi Roman documentary, Matsumoto says that the chimneys belching out fire and smoke represent Ohtaki and Hosono, who would argue all the time. From where Matsumoto sat behind his drum kit, he'd see one friend and bandmate standing to the left of him, and another standing to the right. 

The title is a reference to the traditional children's game, hana ichi monme. The "paper play" refers to kamishibai, a form of street theater that fell out of fashion around the time Happy End were together (no causal link). 



:::



We run full speed along the tramway tracks.
Whirlwinds form.
The streets are quaking.

The petals of the flowers flutter
when the painted wind goes by.
The streets that shimmer in summer heat
look just like fields of flowers.

When the paper play narrator
folds up his corner stand,
the narrow back alleys
overflow with heroes.

To the kids of the dusty wind,
even the seven seas
look just like a miniature box garden.

The chimney on the right
spews out out yellow smoke clouds.
The chimney on the left
spews out red smoke clouds.

It's strange how quickly everyone gets so angry.
It's strange how quickly everyone gets so angry.

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