Down the line, Ohtaki wrote a lot of his own lyrics, and I wonder how that turned out. Here, the words are just a vehicle for his singing — the timber of his voice, the ingenious phrasing — and a thematic backdrop for the instrumental sections. But it's fun to see how Takashi's work rubbed off on Eiichi even so: the images of sky and wind, the city scene, the quotidian detail of the weather broadcast.
I love how well the last line of the chorus works in an English translation made fifty years on. I wonder whether "blowing someone away" meant the same thing in 1971 Japan.
:::
Dark clouds suddenly
fill the sky.
The cold wind
rattles the window blinds.
The midday weather broadcast
announces the imminent arrival
of Typhoon No. 23.
The gray clouds
are racing, racing, racing, racing
up there in the sky.
And as for the wind...
Boom, boom! Boom, boom!
— it comes blowing.
The typhoon! The typhoon!
Boom, boom, boom!
Everybody's getting blown away.
The city has grown dark and silent.
The water pouring out of the overflowing gutters
parades down the center of our streets
as if it owns them,
splashing everywhere,
leaping about.
Rain is —
rain is the firmament's debris!
The wind and the rain
spring from every direction,
washing the earth,
pooling, gurgling, spinning...
dancing...
The typhoon!
The typhoon!
Boom, boom, boom! —
Everybody, everybody, EVERYBODY
is getting blown away.
The typhoon...
...is it coming?
Is it coming back?!
Oh yes!
(Back to: List of Translations)
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