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 anyone!

I've been keeping my secrets

in a little chest pocket

and I think they're gonna overflow.

You were lying in the grass,

fast asleep.

Your face in slumber looked so lovely

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

Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

in total secrecy!

You can't tell anyone!

I've been keeping my secrets

in a little chest pocket

and I think they're gonna overflow.

You opened one eye

and burst out laughing. 

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

And so I found myself in a fix!

Hey, let's make a pinky swear —

in total secrecy!

You can't tell anyone!

I've been keeping my secrets

in a little chest pocket

and I think they're gonna 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 into the sky.

Hey, let's make a pinky swear...

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