I'm sure Hosono's original ruled too, but this company-mandated rewrite is an incredible Matsumoto lyric, so thank you, Alfa moguls, for being such enemies of self-expression.
This was one of the first Hosono songs I loved, playing it a ton when I was getting to know the first disc of his 20th Century Box. The melodies were infectious, the backing vocals aimed for the sky, Kosaka's voice was soft and emotional in the verses, and passionately uplifted in the refrains. And then there was the fact that this burst of utter joy soundtracked the words "sayonara baby." And then one day I realized that what Kosaka was singing in one of the verses was "I'm grateful, baby, / that you were always smiling. / I had fun" and, considering all the insistent goodbyes the song is filled with, the lines blew my mind. "What is this miasma of malevolent tenderness?!" I wondered. I looked up the title in the dictionary and was presented with "completely disenchanted." Mind BLOWN! AGAIN!
Turns out that the phrase has a different connotation too, which is the one Matsumoto is using. There remains a smidgen of disappointment, a slight shadow on my heart, that "completely disenchanted" isn't what Kosaka and his marvelous Minako Yoshida / Tatsuro Yamashita / Taeko Ohnuki chorus is belting out, but it's okay. The lyrics are fantastic regardless.
The bravado and callousness of the narrator will be familiar from certain other Matsumoto texts, but the moments where that veneer almost breaks apart makes this take on a favorite theme unusual. Granted, the lines are too fierce and the offhanded cruelty too habitual for the "insensitive tough guy" attitude to be mere pretense, but the narrator is clearly barely holding it together himself, exaggerating his own cruelty to hurry the farewell along, lest he shatter in the presence of the girl that, for reasons we're not privy to, he's so desperate to be done with.
Matsumoto is a high priest of the "happy tune, miserable lyrics" technique, but if there's a song in his catalogue where that contrast is starker than it is here, I can't wait to hear it.
P.S. I'm not sure how long the link will last (that is to say, whether their website or mine will vanish from the Internet first, or whether we'll combust epically together!), but Alfa's channel has this great, long interview with Kosaka about the volcanic masterpiece we know as Horo. What's more, it has English subtitles.
Other good links: a contemporary live performance with Tin Pan Alley (with a precious but infuriating video; why on earth would they intersperse still photographs with this footage?) and Kenji Sato's bass cover.
:::
Let's end things tastefully, hey.
Goodbye, baby.
No turning around for one last look.
He's out there somewhere, waiting for you.
Go on, baby.
Hurry up and get out of here.
I don't go in for crying.
If there's crying, we'll be right back where we started,
and it's getting boring.
It's always just wounds all over.
Love, romance, all of that — I've had enough, really,
it's getting boring.
Don't look at me
with such misery in your eyes, baby.
It might rub off on me.
Sentimentality isn't my thing,
crybaby.
You shouldn't depend on others so much.
You'll get used to being by yourself.
Eventually you'll feel better.
Come on, it's getting boring.
It's getting boring.
It's getting boring.
I'm grateful, baby,
that you were always smiling.
I had fun.
Now let's shrug
and go our own ways home, baby,
whistling as we walk away.
I don't go in for crying.
If there's crying, we'll be right back where we started,
and it's getting boring.
It's getting boring.
It's getting boring.
It's getting boring.
Goodbye, baby.
Goodbye, baby.
Goodbye, baby.
Goodbye, baby.
Goodbye, baby.
Goodbye, baby.
Goodbye, baby...
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