Translation: A Sketch from the Month of Sleet (Happy End)

The lyrics of A Sketch from the Month of Sleet, the third of the Suzuki/Matsumoto tunes on the third Happy End album, are pretty abstract. I feel more confident translating when I know — or at least think I know — what's going on — what exactly the scene is, what exactly the tone is. Here the tone was not a problem. The scenes were more elusive. Especially the second verse! I love that those words and images appear where they do, but I don't know what they signify.

Perhaps the chorus says it all. There is a story too sad to tell outright (the world itself is crying over it, which is why the parasol is wet with tears — literally with rain; which is to say, the world's tears), so the verses have no option but to dress themselves in abstract, seemingly unmoored images.

But musically there's never any doubt. The sorrow in this song is a thing of grandeur, and it colors the entire rest of the album. These three or so minutes of music are one of the reasons this third Happy End record has become my third favorite "of all time."

Chu Kosaka and Tin Pan Alley's sleazy rearrangement on 1975's Horo is killer too. Haruomi Hosono, producer king! All bow down!

Side-note: It's been less than a week — I'm six Matsumoto translations in and sensing an obsession coming on. I've spent most of my free time today looking up interviews and getting the beginnings of a sense of what happened after Happy End. 

:::



The streets are dim and hazy
on the far side of the rain.
A red and yellow parasol
is wet with tears.

Your face was drawn
in twelve colors of pencil.

Hey, quit it already — that's enough, don't you think?
— of a story so desolate and lonely.

Pale streets are sinking deep 

into the darkness of your eyes.

Hey, quit it already — that's enough, don't you think?
— of a story so desolate and lonely.

(Back to: List of Translations)