Translation: May the Weather Tomorrow Be Good (Happy End)

In an interview last year, Takashi Matsumoto mentioned that he'd had dinner with someone from abroad who was interested in translating the collected lyrics of Happy End, and that the meeting went well. I haven't found any other reference to the project online. Clearly something similar is occurring on this blog, but I have not had dinner with Takashi Matsumoto, so it wasn't me he meant. I hope the project is still active, and that at some point in the next few years, I'll have a chance to compare Matsumoto-vetted translations with my own amateur labors of love. I'm curious how that translator will handle the most beautiful moments, since those also tend to be the most recalcitrant, unwilling to take any shape except Japanese. But I will also, for different reasons, be eager to see how May the Weather Tomorrow Be Good will come out.

A philosopher friend of mine once said, "It's impossible to write meaningfully about a work of art if you don't first enjoy it." These days I will also attest: it's impossible to do a great translation unless you love the text you're working on. You can make a serviceable one, for sure; but if the original text is artistically sound, a serviceable translation is a disservice, because what the text deserves is a translation made with creativity, enthusiasm, and probably also/even awe. If you, the translator, are not shaking your head in wonder every few lines, you're not fit for the task.

Well, either you're not fit for the task, or the text isn't artistically sound. But when I'm left indifferent by a Takashi Matsumoto lyric that appears on Kazemachi Roman of all albums, it seems more likely to be my problem, not his.

So: the other Takashi songs I've put up so far were translated with the proper dose of "holy fuck" (The Wind is Rising maybe excepted), but the translation for this Hosono/Matsumoto co-write will be serviceable at best. It'll give you a sense of the narrative content of the lyrics, but not of their poetry or emotional impact.

Here's a pragmatic illustration. Take Gathering the Wind and I Want to Hold You Close. Both songs had sections that took me forever to work out. I understood the Japanese well enough, that wasn't the issue, the issue was finding English words and expressions that would be both sufficiently mellifluous and sufficiently accurate, while remaining at least approximately faithful to the rhythm of the original versions, as well as to the beauty of their imagery. They required hours of thinking, hours of rewriting. The translation was work; but it was work done with urgency and passion, because I wanted my versions to draw near the glory of the originals. But here — where, if things are similarly glorious, I can't feel it — I can't put in the same amount of effort. That nagging feeling of, "No, this isn't good enough, keep trying" is missing, and in its absence, when I hit an awkward patch, I settle for, "Eh, whatever, it'll do." But "eh, whatever, it'll do" is not how good art gets made. And a translation is, in effect, a new original; and therefore, art; and therefore subject to the same rigors and demands, the same high standards as the creation of an original work is. You shouldn't be allowed to cut corners just because you're translating.

So the honest thing to do would be not to post inadequate translations at all. But the completist in me wins out. And now I can pretend to defend myself by adding, "Anyway, there's a professional volume in the works." That's why I'm eager to find out whether the professional translation will get me to see these lyrics differently — best case scenario, I'll realize that I was laughably wrong to consider the lyrics (not the music; the music is marvelous, of course — pure gleaming light!) lower-shelf Matsumoto.

Until then, dear reader / fellow Happy End fanatic, you'll need to make do with my version.

Takashi has said these lyrics were written with the Vietnam War in mind. He remembered encountering American veterans of the war at Apryl Fool concerts in 1969, and wondering at the kinds of things they must have seen, must have done — here they were having fun in a Tokyo club, clearly enjoying the music, but something in their eyes or in their manner remained dark and distant.

The song is verbose, relatively speaking, and in trying to get the meaning across, I've ended up making the English even more verbose, which is unfair to the original — but you can hear it in Hosono's singing, how many words there are per line, and how they sometimes pile up on each other. The rush of the verses is offset by the emphatic repetition of the brief title phrase in the chorus (just four words, in Japanese; a reference to a children's game, as is A Flower Costs One Monme). And if you only listened to the music, you wouldn't expect there to be so much violent imagery (fighter planes, destroyers, a kidnapping). Hosono's melodies are characteristically bright and catchy. He even sings the whole thing falsetto!

One of Kazemachi Roman's little in-jokes is that the title of this song (B3) is May the Weather Tomorrow Be Good, and the title of the following song (B4) is Typhoon.



:::



Sometimes fighter planes come falling from the air.
It's been drizzling in the city since morning.

There are puddles so dark they're nearly black

and a girl leaping over them with a rare smile.

The downpour has the feel of some old movie.

Dark clouds roll through the sky like tanks.

There's a terrified girl dreaming she's being kidnapped.

She had but one tear left in reserve 

and now it drops from her eye

like rain.

May the weather tomorrow be good.

May the weather tomorrow be good.

Just now a destroyer was floating down the street

like some natural disaster,

and now above that street there's a rainbow.

There's a girl who took that rainbow

and made a thousand paper cranes.

Now she's whistling a song somehow

without expelling breath.

May the weather tomorrow be good.

May the weather tomorrow be good.

(Back to: List of Translations)