Translation: Sharing an Umbrella (Happy End)

When the Los Angeles sessions for the band's third album materialized (exactly how and when and why, I still haven't dug deep enough to learn, but I gather that it had more to do with label people than with the band's own wishes [editing this a week later — Patrick St. Michel has us covered]), Shigeru Suzuki and Takashi Matsumoto were ready — in terms of preparation, at least, if not attitude, necessarily; no one seemed very happy to go — but they were wielding so many new co-writes that one great song, Drifting Clouds, went unrecorded. Eiichi Ohtaki, by contrast, had just put out a solo album and was not ready for a new band album in the least. 

Haruomi Hosono was not exactly ready either, but he was game. One of the songs he contributed to the album, No Wind, used the album sessions themselves as lyrical material. Maybe The Wanderer did too. As for the third song, Sharing an Umbrella — time was tight, and he'd already put in a fair amount of work toward his own solo debut album, so — reluctantly, the story goes — he moved a song off of the projected Hosono House tracklisting and here onto Happy End.

The final track on Hosono House preserves the memory of the original tracklist, and the album ends with a few seconds of the main riff. For someone like me, moving chronologically through Hosono's catalogue, that first listen to Hosono House was capped with pure delight: "Hey, the radio's playing Sharing an Umbrella!!" 

It also put into relief how profoundly neglected my favorite Happy End album is, particularly in the English-language parts of the Internet. I've seen a surprised reference or two to "a vocal version of the last track on Hosono House," but not the other way around — no one pointing out, "Oh hey, this last track on Hosono House is the reprise of a Happy End tune!"

[But on July 20th, eleven days after I posted this (except he actually recorded it on the 9th... what would you know), Josh Dare did exactly that. Hats off.]

Like The Wanderer, Sharing an Umbrella is heavy on the wordplay. And like The Wanderer, it achieves its lyrical effects — sweetness, light, contentment, delighted relief, contagious joy — alongside the play. Note how the prime directive soaks through every tier: the words themselves, the way Hosono sings them, the guitar riff that adorns the sung words, and the rhythm that buoys the riff. 

The theme of contented poverty is pure Hosono House. Little wonder the author wasn't thrilled about having the song transplanted.

:::

It's raining all the time.

It's raining all the time.

In that town, in this town,

every alleyway is quiet.

It's raining all the time.

It's raining all the time.

We're cheek to cheek, talking and laughing.

We're strolling down the road

sharing an umbrella.

If it was sunny,

we'd have to walk apart.

So I hope it goes on raining.

We're strolling down the road

sharing an umbrella.

Tomorrow it'll be rainy too.

Tomorrow it'll be rainy too.

That kid there and this kid here,

me too, for that matter, we're all flat broke.

Tomorrow it'll be rainy too.

Tomorrow it'll be rainy too.

We'll be cheek to cheek, talking and laughing.

We'll stroll down the road

sharing an umbrella.

Walking slowly along.

Taking it easy.

We'll stroll down the road

sharing an umbrella.

The alleyways are quiet.

I'm flat broke.

Tomorrow's a day off.

We're sharing an umbrella. It's fun.

I love you so much.

I love you so much.

The sun glitters brightly

in a cloudless sky.

I love you so much.

I love you so much.

We're cheek to cheek, talking and laughing.

We're strolling down the road

sharing an umbrella.

Even though it's sunny,

we're not walking apart.

We're cheek to cheek, talking and laughing.

We're strolling down the road

sharing an umbrella.

The alleyways are quiet.

I'm flat broke.

Tomorrow's a day off.

We're sharing an umbrella. It's fun.

The alleyways are quiet.

I'm flat broke.

The alleyways are quiet.

I'm flat broke...

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