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)
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