Translation: How Nice the Weather Is (Happy End)

In 1972, after completing Kazemachi Roman with the band, Eiichi Ohtaki made a solo album that was half a Happy End album in its own right, considering the line-up — but the tunes were all his. Not long after, the band hightailed it to Los Angeles, seeking Jim Messina, to record Happy End's second self-titled (it turned out Messina was unavailable, but a certain Van Dyke Parks did end up contributing). Ohtaki didn't have much left to offer.

He did beautiful lead vocals on the chorus of one of Shigeru Suzuki's songs, but otherwise laid low, tucking his two modest new tracks onto the end of Side B. Takashi Matsumoto was only composing new lyrics for Shigeru by then, so How Nice the Weather Is drew on The Wind Quartet, a collection of Matsumoto essays, lyrics, and poems published earlier in the year ("the height of cutting corners," Matsumoto said). The wistful words give Ohtaki's fluffy genre exercise metaphysical weight. Ohtaki, for his part, and as ever, nails the vocal delivery.



:::



You sit by yourself at the window
that the pale blue light shines through.
The wind would make your visage spread
like colors spread in water.

At the table wet with pale blue light
you are sitting, chin in hand,
and trying to remember
the remainder of the morning's dream.

Come on! Put on your hat and go outside.
Look how nice the weather is.

It's much too sad to stay indoors here
where the pale blue light brims over.
The wind would make your dreaming spread
like colors spread in water.

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