August 05, 2024

Translation: The Season of the End (Haruomi Hosono)

These lyrics may seem murky (it's interesting that they're credited to a pseudonym, Uno Mundo, after the Buffalo Springfield song), and very different from the other songs on Hosono House (The Season of the End indeed having a bit of an alternate history, appearing first in a jauntier version on the Hosono-produced (and wonderful) 1972 album Country Pumpkin, with Tatsuo Hayashi playing a very different drum part) but actually these are confessional lyrics too — Hosono was privy to apocalyptic visions in the Sayama period. In the liner notes to a compilation, he introduced The Season of the End like this: 

"A state of dead calm. Thinking about the end of the world. A song about apocalyptic delusions."

(Hosono believed in Nostradamus's prophecy that the world would end in 1999. Hence, to a large degree, his ambient 1990s.)

In an interview promoting Hochono House, on which The Season of the End is instrumental, Hosono mentioned that, in the fifty years since it originally came out, many people have told him they love the lyrics. With his characteristic naughty charm, he invited listeners to treat the Hochono House version as a karaoke backing track.

See also this neat synth/glitch-pop cover by Rei Harakami.



:::



I was holding my breath
in the shadow of the gate.
People were quietly saying goodbye.
The six o'clock freight train
went clattering by
outside the window.

Through the window
the inferno of the morning
was sending me its invitation.
It was smiling as it entered,
its dark face turning red,
as if dyed,
as if blushing,
and I felt I had been saved.

It was more or less the season of the end.
People were muttering goodbye.
The face of the fellow
who'd gotten out of bed at six
was like flickering sparks of light
outside the window.

Through the window
the inferno of the morning
was sending me its invitation.
It was smiling as it entered,
its dark face turning red,
as if dyed,
as if blushing,
and I felt I had been saved.

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