Translation: Hard-Boiled Town (Tin Pan Alley)

The Freckled Girl is the slow song, and this is the fast song. Also, The Freckled Girl is serious and Hard-Boiled Town is silly. I don't mean musically — Shigeru fools you into thinking, "What, it's just sleazy funk," then gets the uppercut in with that falsetto. It's the words that are merely playful. But "merely" sounds as if I were unhappy about that. No, it puts me in mind of Card Shark on Dylan & Co.'s Lost on the River.

Arsene is, of course, the great Lupin III. Shiritori is a game known as 接龙 in China, and that seems to go nameless in the west. You know the drill: I say "Vancouver" and then you say a word (or name a city, or whatever the rules are) that begins with "r." In Japanese it's done with syllables, in Chinese with characters.



:::

You either shoot or you get shot here.

It's a hard-boiled town, you know.

The kisses are covered in thorns

and honest chests in bullet holes.

A saucy flick of the hair means yes.

The lips say no, and yet...

The cat's-eye! Beware!

The trump card is the Queen of Hearts.

Even Holmes is telling riddles,

pale with fright.

Soup races down my cold throat

like fire.

I'll repay the favor by firing my gun at you

at point-blank range.

Even Arsene stamps his feet in fury

as he plays shiritori.