— on the basis of the music, at least. I've been eager to find out whether the lyrics are correspondingly great. So a few months back, after making sure it would have a lyric sheet, I bought a CD copy, but it turns out that said sheet is a tiny, lo-res reproduction of the lyrics from the original LP, which means that some of the rarer kanji and their furigana are unreadable. That's alright. I'll do my best.
Translating the whole album is some project, and I've been waiting for the right time to plunge in. I'm not sure now is the right time (note how I've only finished half of Shigeru Suzuki's Band Wagon) but I'm in the mood to get started, so here goes.
(I go on tinkering with translations months or years after I "publish" them to this page — that's how I work. So check back now and then if you're interested in versions that will be a little more accurate and a little more beautiful.)
Now raise the anchor!
...except oh yeah, we're sort of already in media res, since the first melody you hear is a reprise from an earlier Morio Agata record — that's how he works.
But soon enough the song proper — the title track — or okay, the first incarnation of the title track — Zipangu Boy (Agata/Agata), begins in earnest.
In the lyric sheet, many songs are followed by snippets of prose. These are exclusive to the booklet, neither spoken nor sung. I'll follow Agata's own typesetting, with the break marked by a dot and only paragraph, not line, breaks in the prose codas.
The "dragon king, Lord Ryujin" is a sea god from Japanese folklore who likes to visit people's dreams, particularly when the dreamer is on the verge of waking.
:::
That night,
I heard the ocean roaring
in the mountains behind our home.
It was moaning like a wildcat
all night long.
The ocean's pretty scary, huh...
My ear was infected
and hurt so much
I couldn't sleep.
Mom was crying,
facing the telephone.
Dad didn't say a word.
That night,
I heard the ocean roaring
in my own ear.
The dragon king, Lord Ryujin, was furious,
and my ear
was going crazy too.
I was on Dad's back.
We were heading home
from the village doctor's.
Mom was crying,
facing the telephone.
Dad didn't say a word.
:::
That night,
I heard the ocean roaring
in the mountains behind our home.
It was moaning like a wildcat
all night long.
The ocean's pretty scary, huh...
My ear was infected
and hurt so much
I couldn't sleep.
Mom was crying,
facing the telephone.
Dad didn't say a word.
That night,
I heard the ocean roaring
in my own ear.
The dragon king, Lord Ryujin, was furious,
and my ear
was going crazy too.
I was on Dad's back.
We were heading home
from the village doctor's.
Mom was crying,
facing the telephone.
Dad didn't say a word.
.
Our protagonist is a young boy living on the coast of Japan, dreaming of far-flung southern isles. He's a sickly boy, however, always in and out of the doctor's. The boy's father is a sailor. The boy hopes that, when he grows up, he can be as strong and as cool as his dad. He dreams of travel to distant, unknown lands...
(Back to: List of Translations)
Our protagonist is a young boy living on the coast of Japan, dreaming of far-flung southern isles. He's a sickly boy, however, always in and out of the doctor's. The boy's father is a sailor. The boy hopes that, when he grows up, he can be as strong and as cool as his dad. He dreams of travel to distant, unknown lands...
(Back to: List of Translations)
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