Translation: Thank You (Chu Kosaka)

Back when I had the almost deadly bout of pneumonia — it was less than a month into the Hosono (& family) obsession that is now a year old and showing no signs of dimming — I had gone to the hospital in the middle of the night, gotten my CT scan (trial by fire for my medical Chinese), gotten diagnosed by the bemused doctors ("Oh, you thought this was just a cough! Hahaha!"), and was permitted to take a quick trip home to pack before moving into the hospital. My top priority was, of course, loading the Walkman (aka portable mp3 player, but Sony still calls them Walkmen, which is awesome). 

I'd begun feeling my way into Kazemachi Roman and was committed to exploring Hosono more or less chronologically, so in addition to Eiichi Ohtaki's first solo album, Happy End's third, and then Hosono House, I loaded up most of the first disc of the 20th Century Box (a selection of the songs Hosono wrote for others (it's six 76-minute CDs long and still not exhaustive)). Later on, a partner-in-crime would hit me up with the complete download, but at the time I had to make do with a makeshift and incomplete collection of YouTube rips — I'd been putting it together, trying to match the tracklist. 

I ran into problems really fast. The song Thank You, which opens the 20th Century Box, wasn't available as such. The tracklist specified the "Single Version" but I could find neither single nor album versions online. There was a live version, though, so I thought, "It's the right song, anyway," and ripped that and slotted it in the playlist. 

Turns out that live version (from 1976, with a certain devilishly handsome man on drums, see bottom right) kicks the studio version's ass. The 1971 recording is elegant enough, to be sure, with a great sense of space, excellent vocals (Hosono sings lead and Kosaka harmonizes, unless you're listening to the Single Version on the 20th Century Box, in which case it's all Kosaka), and characteristically stellar drumming from Takashi Matsumoto, but all in all it's a little hesitant; in the live version, YT goes straight for the jugular. And the harmonies still rule. 

Day and night, lying in bed or taking dizzy walks around the hospital, I listened to the live Thank You over and over again. 

The lyrics (a masterpiece of passive aggression and retrospection, in the same fucking song — I love you, Positively 4th Street, but) are by Haruomi Hosono. The lovely, elegiac melodies and interesting chord choices are his work too. Hosono has written an unfair proportion of the best songs I have ever heard.

When Hosono's Happy End bandmates heard this song — which Hosono donated to Apryl Fool frontman Tadashi (Chu) Kosaka, for Kosaka's 1971 debut solo album, of which Thank You is the title track — they complained, "What the hell were you thinking, not bringing this to us?" 

Indeed, Hosono regretted it a little himself. The thing is, Kosaka was on contract to record a solo album, and was finding it difficult to write enough songs of his own to fill the album, so he asked his best friend Haruomi for help. Said best friend agreed readily and lightly, as he would; but in the process, he wrote Thank You and, as happens sometimes, blew himself away. It was the first song he'd written that he felt 100% happy with. It was the gateway to Kazemachi Roman. It really should have been a Happy End song — Hosono felt — but it was too late, he'd already given it to Kosaka, and Kosaka liked it.

By the way, Hosono was big into hot springs at the time. 

(...where would I be without this miracle?)

:::

Thank you for all your whims and caprices. Thank you.

Thank you for constantly spouting nonsense. Thank you.

For all of your flattery and sarcasm, I say thanks, thanks.

The only words that ever leave my mouth are thank you.

Thank you for your bald-faced lies. Thank you.

Thank you for your snorts of laughter. Thank you.

For all of your flattery and sarcasm, I say thanks, thanks.

The only words that ever leave my mouth are thank you.

Well, how about that?

While pretending to be 

as receptive and as absorbent 

as the earth we walk on,

I've only been turning into 

more and more of a fool.

Thank you for all of your advice. Thank you.

Thank you for your kind consideration. Thank you.

They may resonate from the bottom of a heart that's turned to stone,

but the only words that ever leave my mouth are thank you.

Well, how about that?

While pretending to be 

as receptive and as absorbent 

as the earth we walk on,

I've only been turning into 

more and more of a fool.

(Back to: List of Translations)

  

Translation: A Battle without Honor or Humanity (Hiroshi Kamayatsu)

Hiroshi Kamayatsu, whose 1975 album opens with A Battle without Honor or Humanity (Hosono/Matsumoto) (and follows up with another Matsumoto song, but without Hosono involvement) (and Side B opens with an Eiichi Ohtaki song) was a Group Sounds figure, ten years older than the Happy End guys. He emceed the final Happy End concert in late 1973, but audience gave him a reception so cold that the band had to switch emcees halfway through. Happy End fans were a morose bunch, back in the day.

You might know this song as Track 3 of the 20th Century Pops. I've spent all year going nuts for it, not suspecting the lyrics were awesome too.

The title is probably a reference to a 1973 movie of the same name, about yakuza activity in postwar Hiroshima. Leave it to Takashi to relocate the battleground to a relationship. ("Why don't you come on back to the war?")

There is a line in Robert Christgau's review of Under the Red Sky: "I believe he's gritted his teeth through the bad patches of a long-term sexual relationship even if he still measures the long term in months." That notion of gritted teeth has helped me persevere through countless fights with my wife. When I manage to keep in mind that bad patches do come no matter what, as well as that the two of us probably will make it out the other end again, the misery and bitterness I feel in the midst of a conflict become considerably more bearable. So I'll be adding this song to the liturgy. "Don't give up! I can make it!" — with a whole chorus of backing singers giving me strength. 

Granted, the narrator appears to be one of Takashi's "cool tough guy" male protagonists, not exactly given to deep self-reflection (see also Rainy Station and Tsupparing Blues). He isn't spending the lulls in their fight searching his soul.

But -- as much as soul-searching can help -- there are times when you really do just have to battle it out.

:::

Lately, my girlfriend and I have been fighting —

you know, the kind where nobody's talking:

exchanging glares, ignoring one another.

Sparks are flying all over.

It's the calm before the storm.

Ah, but my girlfriend's so attractive

even when she's mad.

Crying is always her last resort.

No giving up! I can make it!

Tears are formidable.

It's a battle without honor or humanity.

Misunderstandings. Jealousy. False charges. Suspicion.

Complexities! Profundities!

Too much for me to handle.

She's keeping silent, facing away:

a volcano on the verge of eruption.

A single touch and she'll blow up.

You'll see.

Her secret weapon 

is sharp, sharp claws.

No giving up! I can make it!

No letting my guard down.

No weakening. 

Crying is her last resort.

No giving up! I can make it!

Crying is her last resort.

No giving up! I can make it!

Crying is her last resort.

No giving up! I can make it!

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation Repost: Wandering (Chu Kosaka)

This is not my translation, but it's a beautiful one, and given the vagaries of the Internet — and also the difficulty of discovering that this translation exists — I decided to repost it here, where people who are into this realm of music might be poking around. Although — again, given the vagaries of the Internet — who knows which location will actually tank first. 

The translation is uncredited. Presumably it was done by someone in Alfa's camp, since it appears in the description of a video on Alfa's channel — if you're the translator and happen to see this, give me a shout, I could use some tips! And I'd like to credit you by name.

The song is the magnificent Wandering, better known (if it's known at all) as Horo or Hourou, music and words by Haruomi Hosono, but recorded by his Apryl Fool bandmate and erstwhile Sayama next-door-neighbor, Chu Kosaka. I heard it first on the absolutely stunning and perfect and gorgeous and and and (superlatives fail me) first disc of the 20th Century Box (aka The Pops of Haruomi Hosono), which should be required listening for every Hosono fan (the whole box, not just the first disc!). It is utterly wonderful.

The album that this song opens, 1975's Horo, is a secret Hosono album. I mean, it's not all that secret, since Hosono produced it and Caramel Mama is the backing band. But it's most of the way to a Hosono Album That Never Was. 

What happened is, after Hosono House came out — and really, all throughout the Caramel Mama / Tin Pan Alley era — the genres that Hosono gravitated to were funk and soul (see, for instance, the just-reissued, Hosono-produced Linda Carriere record). In fact, Hosono wanted the follow-up to Hosono House to be really heavy on precisely those genres. He wrote several songs in the funk and soul vein, but when he tried recording them, he discovered (or decided) that his voice didn't suit the material. He scrapped the album, feeling deeply disappointed, and for a while had no idea where to take his career next.

Eventually the whole Tropical Dandy thing happened, and he was off on his next big adventure, but even as he was making that legendary Trilogy, every time he picked up a bass guitar, it was funk riffs he would play.

But Hosono didn't abandon the funk album dream, he simply outsourced it. He felt that Kosaka's voice would succeed where his own had failed. 

And so we have Horo, the album. Of its nine tracks, two are new Hosono originals, another two are new Hosono/Matsumoto originals (!!!) (one of which is a musical rewrite of a song from the Apryl Fool record and simultaneously a lyrical rewrite of unrecorded Takashi lyrics originally set to music by Shigeru Suzuki), two are remakes of songs from Happy End's last record (one Hosono, one Suzuki), one is a remake of a song from Kosaka's first album, one is a co-write between Kosaka and his wife Eika Koh, and one is an early Akiko Yano song (!). 

It's fun to imagine what the Hosono funk album would have looked like if its maker hadn't lost his nerve. For the most part, I think it would've looked just like Horo; but the two Kosaka songs and the Yano could have been swapped out for three other Hosono-penned candidates that appear on the 20th Century Box, all recorded around the same time: A Battle without Honor or Humanity (another Takashi co-write, gifted to Hiroshi Kamayatsu), The Invisible World (a song Hosono wrote in high school, gifted to Akiko Wada), and Bye Bye Baby (gifted to Makoto Kubota for Hawaii Champroo, one of a couple sister albums to Tropical Dandy; see also Eiichi Ohtaki's Niagara Moon).

By the way, note the elegant sequencing: Horo opens with Wandering and ends with The Wanderer.

:::

[anonymous translation, not mine]

I like rhythm and blues at this tempo

because I can dance while I sing.

These well worn tattered shoes

begin to dance on their own.

I like this kind of rhythm and blues

because I can dance while I sing.

These well worn tattered shoes

begin to walk on their own.

Now I wander, always wander,

wander far away.

I like rhythm and blues at this tempo

because I can dance while I sing.

These well worn tattered shoes

begin to dance on their own.

Now I wander, always wander,

wander far away.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: Capture Me in a Strawberry Field (Seiko Matsuda)

So it turns out I was wrong about the overarching theme of Kaze Tachinu being "happy songs about unhappy situations." That's representative of Side B, yes, but Eiichi's five on Side A are just as happy or as sad as they sound. Take this song, Capture Me in a Strawberry Field (Ohtaki/Matsumoto). The lyrics are exactly as playful as Eiichi's setting.

And yet... it seems to me that there's power in these lyrics that Eiichi may have played down. I can imagine an arrangement that leaned more into splendor and beauty, to match lines like "come to me through the light of dawn" (!) or "I'm dressed in lace, awaiting you," or the recurring image of the glass princess. There's an elemental longing behind the play-acting, and I think Eiichi's happy-go-lucky melodies obscure it.

That fake-out ending is apposite, though. Just when you think the chase is over...!



:::



Come get me, quickly,

riding a white bicycle.

Just like in a Disney movie,

come to me through the light of dawn.

On this morning

in which the raindrops

are still shining on the window,

I'm dressed in lace,

awaiting you.

Come capture me 

in a strawberry field.

I would love that.

Love is a sorcerer who,

with a mere wave of a wand,

can turn an ordinary girl

into a princess made of glass.

I softly plant a kiss

on a red strawberry's seed.

How good it would be

to toss that seed into your hand

as you run in my direction.

Even if you whispered the words "I love you,"

and even if it made me dizzy to hear it,

there's no way I would turn around

to face you just yet.

     Come capture me

     in a strawberry field.

     I would love that.

Instead, I would become the wind,

teasing your outstretched hands,

and when I got tired of running,

maybe I'd purposely stumble and fall...

When you find someone you like,

first things first, you run away.

That's what my mother taught me

about the ways of love.

Love is a sorcerer who,

with a mere wave of a wand,

can turn an ordinary girl

into a princess made of glass.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: The Glass Cove (Seiko Matsuda)

A stately offering from Eiichi Ohtaki. You can file The Glass Cove in the "modest but affecting" drawer, next to Shigeru Suzuki's Moon Baby.

:::

I really did love you.

Don't forget that.

The small cove

reflected a clear sky.

When I stepped barefoot into the water,

the cold sliced right into me.

I'd ridden on the back of his motorcycle 

that bygone day.

We'd come upon this secret place

as we sought the sunset.

The initials we carved

into the wet rock

are calling back lost time.

Even if I removed my bracelet

and buried it in the sand,

the white band of skin around my wrist

wouldn't vanish, now would it?

The initials we carved 

back in that long-gone summer

glitter as they sway within the waves.

I'm sitting on the edge of a boat

from which the colors have faded

on account of long contact with the sand.

I'm throwing pebbles at my memories.

Low tide in the glass cove

doesn't last very long.

I didn't shed many tears either.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: Pocket Full of Secrets (Agnes Chan)

Not only does Pocket Full of Secrets (Hoguchi/Matsumoto) have Hosono's band Caramel Mama arranging and performing, there's a Tin Pan Alley remake of it on their second album (a very strange album; precursor to Yellow Magic Orchestra's debut, I've heard one person claim — I suppose that would be one way to understand it, but...).

When Takashi was putting his first major compilation together (1999's hundred-song Encyclopedia of the Town of Wind), he was surprised by how timeless the pop songs he'd written decades earlier felt, and named Pocket Full of Secrets as a prime example: "This song! So refreshing!"

The first verse ("you were lying in the grass...") is an acrostic in Japanese, the first syllables of each of the four lines (a / gu / ne / su) spelling out Agnes's name. The singer herself didn't realize it until the 1990s.



:::



Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

in total secrecy!

You can't tell anybody about it!

I've been keeping my secrets

in a little chest pocket

and I think they're going to overflow.

You were lying in the grass,

fast asleep.

Your face in slumber looked so sweet

that I couldn't help whispering, "I love you."

     Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

     in total secrecy!

     You can't tell anybody about it!

     I've been keeping my secrets

     in a little chest pocket

     and I think they're going to overflow.

You opened one eye

and burst out laughing. 

You'd been cunningly feigning sleep, that's all.

And I found myself in a fix!

     Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

     in total secrecy!

     You can't tell anybody about it!

     I've been keeping my secrets

     in a little chest pocket

     and I think they're going to overflow.

I was lying in the grass too,

but my mind was moving

at a million miles an hour.

Darn! Darn! Darn! 

What should I do?

Mostly I wanted

to escape straight into the sky.

     Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

     in total secrecy!

     You can't tell anybody about it!

     I've been keeping my secrets

     in a little chest pocket

     and I think they're going to overflow.

     Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

     in total secrecy!

     You can't tell anybody about it!

     I've been keeping my secrets

     in a little chest pocket

     and I think they're going to overflow.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: The Crossroads of Love (Agnes Chan)

I'm swiftly becoming an Agnes Chan fanatic. At least an Agnes + Takashi fanatic. Counting the two songs I haven't posted yet, their collaboration hit/miss tally is currently at five/zero.

The word "crossroads" in the title (十字路) conjures too much Robert Johnsonian rurality for this (classically Takashi) urban scene — it should really be "traffic intersection," I guess — but while The Traffic Intersection of Love would be a great song title, it doesn't exactly suit a tune this lovely or a tale this mournful. The Crossroads of Love it is.

The music (reminiscent of contemporaneous songs from Poland's own folk/pop scene... I'm Polish and grew up on that great stuff... listen to how the riff comes in under Agnes's last long notes in each chorus!) is by Kohichi Morita, an experienced pop songwriter who also did the music for Poppy Flower, Agnes's crossover / breakthrough hit in Japan. There's a total of nineteen Morita/Matsumoto songs, and the majority of them appear on a 1976 album called Chiisana Koi no Merodii, by The Lilies, with all tunes credited Morita/Matsumoto. I'll probably adore it. Where would I be without YouTube? 

:::

You waved good morning

with a hand from which

the ring that had our names engraved on it,

matching the ring I wore,

was missing.

You'd only mislaid it.

You'd taken it off for a good reason.

I didn't ask what the reason was.

I stared down at my feet

and the city trembled in the wind.

If love is really like a flame,

then please, oh, please don't blow it out.

It seems that a gentle sigh

will suffice to snuff it completely.

Tender-hearted people

pass each other in the street.

There at the crossroads,

I get the feeling

I'm going to lose you.

We walked along the tree-lined avenue.

We weren't even arm in arm.

You suddenly broke into a sprint and left me

on this side of the red light.

The road stretched out between

two transformed people.

Where had the tenderness

you always used to show

gone off to?

Please take my hand.

I'm about to cry.

Your love is so far off

all I can do is gaze in its direction.

Lonely-hearted people

pass each other in the street.

There at the crossroads,

I get the feeling

I'm going to lose you.

There at the crossroads,

I get the feeling

I'm going to lose you.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: An Apple Pie Love Letter (Agnes Chan)

(short version intro)

Man, this song is FANTASTIC.

But really, all three of the Agnes-via-Takashi songs on Anata to Watashi no Concert are splendid, each in a different way.

(long version intro)

Lane Dunlop wrote a translator's note for his portion of work on Yasunari Kawabata's magnificent Palm-of-the-Hand Stories, explaining how his interest in the stories grew very slowly, and did not blossom until seven years after his first encounter with them... "My experience as I reread the stories reminded me of the biblical phrase about the scales falling from one's eyes. Even those that I did not immediately understand seemed to say, 'Translate me.' I did, and then they yielded their point."

I thought of this while working on An Apple Pie Love Letter (Hoguchi/Matsumoto). Translation gets you into really, really close contact with a text. Add to this that my Japanese hasn't reached the stage where I could listen to a song and understand it just by hearing it. Depending on the song, I'll understand anywhere from 30% to 70% (or occasionally, like, 5%... 'I have never seen or heard this language before'). Looking at a song's lyrics in their written form, with kanji, will get me another 20% or more of the way to comprehension (that's where knowing Chinese helps). But if I want to reach 100% (or, since sometimes I can't get any higher, at least 93%), I need to work through the lyrics carefully, with a dictionary and Google and and and... it's fun but definitely/obviously the most painstaking part of the process. 

Point being, I'm in an especially great position to have the Dunlop Experience, since I need the scales of unfamiliar vocabulary lifted from my eyes before I can even engage with the text in the way Dunlop refers to. So the beauty of the average Takashi Matsumoto lyric (and so far, the awesome have outnumbered the lazy) takes me by surprise first as I understand the lines fully in the first place, and again as I translate.

So my next point is: this song is seriously wonderful.

The Japanese comment section on YouTube is full of people marveling, as I do, at the extreme cuteness of Takashi's words and Agnes's delivery. Her record company, concerned about this lyricist-transplant from the rock music world, supplied Takashi with notes about how to write in character, but I get the sense Takashi gave the notes a once-over and tossed them aside. You can't write a set of lyrics like this if you're writing according to company guidelines. No, Takashi was a natural.

Fortunately, his collaboration with Yusuke Hoguchi, who wrote the tune, would turn out fruitful. There's lots more on the Hoguchi/Matsumoto shelf.

:::

All this love I feel —

I can't express it well over the phone.

However, I can write out the letters "l-o-v-e"

in sweet cream.

An apple pie love letter!

An apple pie love letter!

I've just got done baking an apple pie.

It's nicely browned, and the color of a heart.

I made it while constantly checking the cookbook.

I made it for someone I love a lot —

I made it for you!

What exactly should I say to you?

That's what I was wondering

as I stood in the kitchen by myself.

Maybe I'm not very good at talking,

but what I can definitely do

is convey my feelings to you

through an apple pie love letter.

All this love I feel —

I can't write a letter that will get it across.

However, I can write out the letters "l-o-v-e"

in sweet cream.

An apple pie love letter!

An apple pie love letter!

I wonder what you'll say.

In fact, I'm super worried.

If you don't think it's delicious,

I know I'll cry my eyes out.

But even so, it's alright.

One way or another,

I'll keep smiling!

All this love I feel —

I can't express it well in words.

However, I can write out the letters "l-o-v-e"

in sweet cream.

An apple pie love letter!

An apple pie love letter!

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: The Rose and the Wild Beast (Haruomi Hosono)

The Rose and the Wild Beast is Hosono House's epic [may as well be] closer, in which the quotidian and eschatological strands of the album meet. There are other songs in the world as good as this one (heard Cheap Day Return lately?), but none better.

Apparently a "Yellow Mario" mondegreen (for 家の囲りを, approximately "surrounding the house") enjoys some currency. Why does everything have to be so wonderful all of the time?

Hosono has said this song was about the persistent call of Tokyo — which the writer of I'm Sort Of could hear despite having ensconced himself, for the time being, safely in Sayama. Hence the city's shadows on the mountains in the second verse. 

But the song welcomes larger and more sinister interpretations. I mean, just listen to Tatsuo Hayashi drum. And note the angel. Which, in Hochono House press materials, Hosono seemed embarrassed about: "I don't understand these lyrics now. 'An angel taps me on the shoulder' ? Who the hell did I think I was?" — the old genius condescending to the young.

There are a couple of absolutely killer repetitions in the chorus that didn't translate, or not in so many (which is to say, not in exactly matching) words. "Dream" in the first line is sung three times in a row, which I nodded to by doubling "sweet," while "shake" in the second line is sung twice in a row, for which a fortuitous echo formed in the rhyme with "awake."

:::

The house is guarded on all sides

by wild roses and their thorns,

but the rumble of the mountains

reverberates even here,

so that the tips of my fingers

become afraid

and tremble just a little.

Oh, let me have my sweet, sweet dream.

Don't shake me awake from my slumber.

Even now, I am sleeping —

and now continue to sleep...

But now as I go on sleeping

inside a house

guarded on all sides

by wild roses and their thorns, 

there's a dark melody

always inside my head —

and when I hum it,

it sounds something like this...

    The house is guarded on all sides

    by wild roses and their thorns,

    but the rumble of the mountains

    reverberates even here,

    so that the tips of my fingers

    become afraid

    and tremble just a little.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: Fairy of Winter (Seiko Matsuda)

And here I thought I would avoid tears by getting back into Kaze Tachinu translations. I should have known better. Goddam Takashi and his album openers.

Matsuda + Ohtaki + Matsumoto was some team. Those tinkling piano notes in the verses — those husky, quavering vocals — and these words!!! Takashi understands how to inhabit a character.

Knowing how opposed Matsumoto was to Happy End's break-up, and listening to Side A of Kaze Tachinu, and knowing that even as mad a genius as Eiichi Ohtaki was about to be cast aside by the Muses (the backstory of Each Time is crazy, and would seem unbelievable to me, if it hadn't really happened), the poignancy levels of a song like Fairy of Winter go right through the roof. It may be that, for much of his artistic life, all Takashi ever wanted was to be able to write new lyrics and then weigh them out: "This one for Hosono. This one for Ohtaki. This one for Shigeru..."

In that sense, the Seiko era in the 1980s was a dream that Takashi made come true, and could be considered the second part of Happy End's saga.

The back half of the second verse (from "If I wrapped..." to "second glance") stumped me. There are no pronouns or subject markers, so I'm not sure of the association between actors and actions. I'll give it another go in six months.

:::

I'll give you a rose

that has blossomed in winter —

blossomed right by the window

this morning.

When a person's in love,

it calls miracles forth —

that's why

I don't think I'd get cold

even on a street

frigid in the winter wind.

Now show me your ten-karat smile

and soon you might even have me saying

that I love you.

You're always walking so quickly.

I'm tired of trying to keep up.

If I wrapped your face up in a long, long scarf,

the people passing in the street

wouldn't give you a second glance.

I'm on edge.

It's really troublesome.

And soon you might even have me saying

that I love you.

The snow is so soft and strange

and I am the fairy of winter.

When I wore a frilly coat,

you laughed and said:

"Alice in Wonderland, I take it?"

If you make fun of me,

I'll never forgive you.

Seriously, soon you might even have me saying

that I love you.

I'll attach a note to this white winter rose.

I'll scribble down exactly what I'm thinking.

Now please breathe on 

the cold palms of my hands

until they are thoroughly warmed up.

I need your kindness.

Show me your ten-karat smile

and soon you might even have me saying

that I love you,

that I love you,

that I love you...

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: I'm Sort Of (Haruomi Hosono)

I'm Sort Of is Hosono doing (and dare I say, with all due love, outdoing) The Band. It's one of the best instances of Caramel Mama/Tin Pan Alley ensemble playing that I can think of. And it has lyrics that, what with Hosono's melodies and phrasing, make me weep like a baby. A few of the other songs I've translated reduce me to helpless tears too, but so far they've all been Takashi's... no, I forgot! There are also three of Yukihiro's. In any case, this time it was Haruomi's turn.

The album sequencing is incredible — this song (the second on the album) and The Rose and the Wild Beast (the second to last) are in eerie conversation. Here in A2, Hosono describes the dream that, in B5, he finds himself being rudely woken from. So all the other songs in the middle of Hosono House are just various details of the dream, by which I mean the artistic commune life in Sayama that was so beautiful at its best (Crossing the Winter) but was to run its course come mid-1974 or so. Hosono just seems to have known it early. Or recognized his own restlessness.

But I'm Sort Of and the Rose don't contradict each other. They're not enemies. Because the awakening does not undercut the need or the importance of the dream.

It's clear from the lyrics that what Hosono was desperate to find, at the start of the Sayama era, was a resting place. What he's hoping for, with such disarming and moving passion, is time to quiet down and recover, regroup. But the lyrics don't necessarily suggest that he wants to live that way forever. I mean, he does sing of settling down. But at the end of the chorus that accompanies that last verse, he grants that he only intends to keep quiet for a little while, rather than "from now on and forever," as the Rock-a-Bye, My Baby lyric goes.

But it's the fullness of his determination here that conveys just how hurt and weary he really feels. In that sense, I'm Sort Of reminds me of Golden Slumbers and Carry That Weight (and music gets no more poignant than those two songs, does it? — but there are things equal to them, such as this).

Devendra Banhart wrote a charmingly light and lovely response song — Kantori Ongaku, track A2 on his album Ma — but it's a response song by way of structure and conceit rather than anything thematic; Devendra was simply taken with how the lyrics in Hosono's song are all in Japanese, except for the one phrase, "country music." So he wrote a song that's in English, except for the words "kantori ongaku." Returning the favor, as it were.



:::

How about enjoying the sunshine together a little?

We could sit, drink tea, and talk.

What do you think we should talk about?

Maybe the things that might happen tomorrow

in the land of the rising sun.

And while we're at it, why don't we take a walk?

We could get to our feet

and brush the dirt off the cuffs of our clothes.

And where do you think we should go walking?

Maybe down the gleaming roadways

in the land of the rising sun.

The sunset will shine

in the slush of the road.

It's bound to be quiet

in the red afternoon.

And you know, I'm sort of

expecting I'll laugh.

How about we settle down

right here in this neighborhood?

We could move out of that old place,

come hear live country music.

How about we look for a house painted totally white?

And — just you and me — climb the hill 

to watch the rising sun?

The last of the sunbeams

will be buried in the withered trees.

It's bound to be quiet

in the afternoon at home.

And you know, I'm sort of thinking 

of keeping quiet for a while myself.

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: Rock-a-Bye, My Baby (Haruomi Hosono)

When I was in a New York City high school kid, the writer who, in the circle of passionate but elitist readers that I joined (hey, it was high school), would get you the most props for having read was Thomas Pynchon. It's why so many people were walking around reading The Crying of Lot 49: it got you the props, but it was short.

I was intrigued but not persuaded. I was reading mostly fantasy to start with, then got deep into Japanese literature, and then the 19th-century Russians. Towards high school's end I clicked with Herman Melville. But it took me a while to get interested in what contemporary Americans, including Melville's disciple Tom, were up to. Eventually I read Vineland (via a lovely paperback edition from a secondhand book sale/fair at a library in the Colorado mountains) and adored it, and started right in on Against the Day, which was awesome too.

Internet searches for insightful Pynchon commentary brought me to the Fictional Woods, a literature forum where the talk was honest and the people curious and open-minded. There was a thriving music thread alongside the book talk, and in the autumn of 2012, a poster I trusted went into raptures about a new album by a band I'd never heard of, called Swans.

That album, The Seer, became an instant favorite, and it remains one of my favorite of all time. Wanting more where that came from, I was soon listening to lots of Angels of Light — and very soon I was listening almost exclusively to Angels of Light. 

Half a year went by that way. But the Angels only put out five and a half albums, and I wanted more from the Gira of the era, and at some point began to understand that the Angels were only part of the project, maybe not even the main one. Most of Gira's attention in the decade between 1998 and 2007 was on Young God Records, of which Angels of Light were merely one act. The long, loving write-ups on his website (still one of the best places on the web) got me hooked on Fire on Fire, Akron/Family, and Devendra Banhart.

The Fire on Fire family became home to me, and probably 95% of the music I fell in love with between mid-2016 and mid-2023 was either made by or recommended by a member of the band. But all the while I was listening to tons of Devendra too, and investigating some of the acts that he called favorites. This included a certain Haruomi Hosono.

It was probably the release of 2019 album Ma that got me to actually torrent Hosono House and give it a listen — which is to say, attempt to listen, because I stalled at Rock-a-Bye, My Baby. It sounded too much like the old-timey Dylan songs on "Love And Theft." I might have tried I'm Sort Of too, and if I did, I'm sure I would have felt there was too much of The Band there. In any case, the album didn't take. But that first song or two did leave an impression. And I did think: "Someday" — someday I'd be in the right mood to jump in again and give the album proper attention.

A few years later, a Nick Reed blog post convinced me I needed to take the Yellow Magic Orchestra seriously (one can only see such a cool band name so many times before one caves), but I think some other piece of writing had also got me curious about Yudemen, so I thought, even though I've mostly grown out of the approach at this point, "Oh hell, I'll just go chronologically."

...and stalled again, inside Yudemen's psych-rock stew. It took me a few days to finish my first listen. But then, there at the end of that first listen, was the song Happy End (Continued). That's more like it, I thought. I looked up the composer: Haruomi Hosono. Well, all right then. Things seemed to be moving down the right track.

So I moved on to Kazemachi Roman. Bland enough on first listen too, except for that "momonga, momonga" song. I looked up the composer: Haruomi Hosono. Aha...

This was around September 2023. The same month, I got deadly pneumonia and wound up hospitalized for a week. Lying in bed in Xiamen's cozy Changgeng Hospital, I played Kazemachi Roman on repeat to the tune of a steady supply of morphine in my IV drip. Kazemachi Roman got supplanted by Eiichi Ohtaki's first record. Then by Happy End's second self-titled. And finally by Hosono House.

Which meant that there I was, four years later, listening to Rock-a-Bye, My Baby again. This time, it sounded like a stroll through the Garden of Eden.

And it still sounds that way today, even when all that's left of the sea of morphine is a dream as beautiful and as over as the one the narrator of The Rose and the Wild Beast really, really doesn't want to wake up from.

All of this to say: Haruomi Hosono's music is to the spirit as opium is to the flesh.

And also: long and winding are the roads of the soul. I have Devendra Banhart to thank for bringing me to Hosono — and Michael Gira to thank for bringing me to Devendra — and Fictional Woods poster Frunk for bringing me to Michael — and Thomas Pynchon for bringing me to the Woods — and my high school circle of precocious literati for bringing me to Thomas.

Beautiful are the roads, and blessed is the journey.

Finally — I love you, Haruomi, thank you.



:::

Humming an old melody...

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Slipping into a gorgeous dress...

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Don't cry anymore!

Dinah, we'll be together 

from now on

and forever.

You look so lovely, and as for your lips...!

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

What an odd song this melody makes for...

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Don't cry anymore!

Dinah, we'll be together 

from now on

and forever.

The weather's cleared up

and now the sky looks so blue.

The flowers are in bloom all around.

The breeze is so soft.

You can hear the birds warble.

Come nighttime,

we'll gaze at the blue moon.

Humming an old melody...

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Slipping into a gorgeous dress...

Rock-a-bye, my baby.

Don't cry anymore!

Dinah, we'll be together 

from now on

and forever.

:::

P.S. There's an awesome lounge/reggae remake on Tin Pan Alley's second album; drummer Tatsuo Hayashi, who was in charge of the arrangement, wanted to pay tribute to Percy Faith. Key take-away: the harmonies!

(Back to: List of Translations)

Translation: The Memory Walkway (Agnes Chan)

I'm learning about Takashi Matsumoto's long and winding road as I wander along it.

At the beginning there was Happy End, of course. In 1971 or early 1972, while the flagship band was still active, Takashi wrote the larger part of an album called Adventures of the Pirate Kid for Apryl Fool keyboardist Hiro Yanagida's folky side-project Sons of Sun. In 1972 came another seven songs for a self-titled Yanagida album and five for Eiichi Ohtaki's solo debut.

After Happy End broke up came the brief but busy period in which Takashi tried to make a living doing production work — he exhausted himself making four albums in a little over a year:


1. The "Takashi solo album" Skyscraper Heroine, with Yoshitaka Minami as frontman and Caramel Mama backing (fresh off of recording Hosono House).

2 & 3. Two albums (Golden Lion and Who'll Extend This Child a Loving Hand?) by folk singer Nobuyasu Okabayashi — an old friend by then, since Happy End had backed him on tour in 1970. As the so-called "god of folk," Okabayashi didn't need help with lyrics. Neither did...

4. ...intrepid songwriter Morio Agata, whose Les Miserables has five songs with a Takashi lyric-writing or co-writing credit regardless. A couple years later, Agata put out a double album produced by Haruomi Hosono (off of which you might know this gorgeous song, which found a second home on the first disc of Hosono's 20th Century Pops box).


But production meant working nonstop and still barely making ends meet. Takashi has said he was rarely at home that year, which for a new father two years into his first marriage did not look like a sustainable career path. So, hoping to make his living more reasonably, he decided to try becoming a professional lyricist. The rest is history...

...but it's a rich and convoluted history that I've merely scratched the topmost archeological layer of. 

Early on, that history involved Agnes Chan, a sweet-voiced young singer from Hong Kong who moved to Japan and gained popularity there (then went to university in Canada, got a couple of master's degrees, and returned to Japan to make more hit albums). Takashi wrote one of her early hits, Pocket Full of Secrets, and as a result of its success, went on to write another twenty-six songs for her over the next four years. 

Hosono and Shigeru's Caramel Mama arranged and played on several early Agnes-via-Takashi songs, including The Memory Walkway (Makaino/Matsumoto), an album track that preceded the Pocket Full of Secrets breakthrough. The album it appears on was released in the spring of 1974. Technically, Takashi was still in the middle of his Production Year, which gives you a sense of just how crazy things were, and how many nets Takashi had in the water. He was still in close touch with the Apryl Fool and Happy End guys, too — two songs on Chu Kosaka's Hosono-produced Horo had Takashi lyrics, and Shigeru's fully Takashi co-written solo debut Band Wagon would come out a year later. 

Had Kyohei Tsutsumi, Takashi's most stalwart musical collaborator, looked him up by then?

Anyway, a lot was going on. And all the while Takashi was writing songs as lovely as this one.

:::

The apple tree

towered over that quiet hill.

I couldn't reach any apples

even if I stood on tiptoe.

You plucked them for me, laughing.

The day grew dark.

You're no longer here.

But everything else is exactly the same

as it was back then.

I've come walking up the hill on my own.

See, these memories have already turned

the color of wind.

This blue-green apple

feels nice and cool in my palm.

There was only one up on the high bough.

I stood on tiptoe

and got it down.

The one who changed without noticing it

wasn't you after all, it was me.

But everything else is exactly the same

as it was back then.

I'm alright on my own. I'm alright now.

See, these memories have already turned

the color of wind.

See, these memories have already turned

the color of wind.

(Back to: List of Translations)