Translation: It's Springtime, Mon Amour (Miki Fujimura)

Hosono had a strange 1983 even by his own standards. Naughty Boys is beautiful and bizarre enough all by itself, but then there's the miraculous stars-align birth of Miharuomi (and Tutu rules, big-time) and also all these odd side-jobs, like Side A of Miki Fujimura's solo album (four out of the five Side A songs have music by Hosono, two with Takashi Matsumoto lyrics; the non-Hosono song has an amazing Yukihiro Takahashi arrangement, radio-friendly pop music via paranoid BGM downer vibes), alongside a late and unexpected encore to the Tropical Trilogy on a couple of tracks Hosono wrote for Harumi Ohzora (see here and here). There was also the massive Yellow Magic Orchestra farewell tour. And the album Service. Hosono recorded Watering a Flower in 1983 too. And produced Inoyama Land's awesome debut.

So Hosono, clearly, was in peak form. But I'm starting to worry about Takashi. It's Springtime, Mon Amour (Hosono/Matsumoto) is the second 1983 Takashi lyric that I've translated, and it probably ties with the first (My Heart Goes "Kyun" for You) for the dubious title of least interesting Takashi lyric I've worked on. Either I'm just having awful luck, or 1983 was a low point — one of those nadir periods when Takashi spun off course and needed to revisit his Happy End-era work to reorient. I suspect it's just my bad luck (Takashi wrote about a hundred songs that year) but, pessimist that I am, I'm getting worried about Takashi's '80s in general. What I've worked on from 1981 hasn't had the most encouraging ratio of good to great either, and it's the great Takashi songs I'm searching for, of course.

It's weird to think that Hosono/Matsumoto songs always began with the lyrics. That means Takashi wrote these words, and delivered them to Haruomi, and that Haruomi read them, and then set them to music so beautiful, it would make you think Miki Fujimura was revealing mystical secrets about the origins and ultimate purpose of the cosmos.

:::

If I saw you by chance

on the corner of the street,

I wouldn't say anything.

I would polish my hand-mirror

and signal you 

with a gleam of light.

Someone as dazzling as you

would undoubtedly notice.

"You're beautiful."

— but you can't let your guard down

around a voice that sounds kind.

If you make to grab hold of its owner,

they'll just slip cleverly away.

I know that lost time

can't be called back again.

But my heart has turned the color of adventure.

You're dangerous, my darling.

Even if you take me out on a date,

I'll keep looking at my watch

as if I have another appointment.

I'll aggravate you on purpose.

I got jilted once, long ago,

so I've learned to keep a certain distance.

This whole time I've been so eager to see you, though.

But I'll be keeping that a secret.

Now I'm getting this strange feeling

that spring is almost here.

I'm dangerous, my darling.

My heart has turned the color of adventure.

You're dangerous, my darling.

Dangerous, my darling.

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