Translation: Happy End (Continued) (Happy End)

Towards the end of the recording sessions for Valentine Blue's debut album, Haruomi Hosono (a born album artist if there ever was one) had an idea. "Matsumoto, write a poem and bring it to the studio tomorrow. Let's do a spoken word track." The lyricist followed the captain's orders, and the next day, Happy End (Continued) (Hosono/Matsumoto) came together, with a band affiliate on twelve-string guitar and Shigeru Suzuki sitting out.

Takashi has said that, when Happy End fans have interviewed him over the decades, they often find their nerves soothed by the sound of his voice, having heard it before on Yudemen's last (and, by my reckoning, best) track.

When I was getting into the band last year, my Japanese was rather worse than it is now, and I thought Takashi was telling a story about and/or narrating a conversation between two tribes of people, happy and unhappy ones. This story or parable was one of the reasons (increasing in number daily) that I felt a need to speed up my Japanese learning. Except it turns out it's a monologue, not a story — though, maybe still a parable. I think it's a valediction to Yudemen's angst, clearing the way to Kazemachi Roman's confidence and thoughtful nostalgia.

One day, shortly after completing the album, the members of Valentine Blue were in a car together, driving down some Tokyo road, when Hosono said to the others: "Hey, you know what we should do? Change our band name to Happy End."

The track title typography emphasizes the three syllables いいえ (meaning "no")in the name "Happy End" (はっぴいえんど), presumably as an answer to the rhetorical question Takashi's poem (almost) ends with.

Edit, many months later: the words to this song just gave me chills. In fact, all of Side B is a lot better-written than I remember it being. O Takashi, o lyricist-king...!



:::



You know, I thought I had forgotten

a long, long time ago
how to pretend to be happy, or joyful,
or lonely, or sad, 

or in pain.

But now, 

though I seem to be walking through darkness,
just fumbling my way along,
my fingertips sometimes seem to sense
the touch of the thirsty wind upon them.

At such times, I ask myself —
hey, could it be that you're only pretending to be blind?

Say — are you really all that unhappy?

Happy end.
Happy end.
Happy end...
(No.
No.
No...)

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