Translation: Oh Youth (Takuro Yoshida)

Thematically and tonally, Oh Youth (Yoshida/Matsumoto) is a rank stranger to the Town of Wind, but the way the lyrics work — their playful structure, the imagery, the cruelty, the stark vision — is the way Happy End songs worked too. It’s a glimpse of an alternate timeline in which the band got back together a year after making their ‘72 album, but Takashi, for one reason or another, got more and more cynical over the years (about life, not the band).

I’ve dug around for Japanese lore about this song and have gathered that the people who know it treasure it. It’s an anthem alright — and yet so personal, and also — for all the flames in the chorus — cold.

The composer is Takuro Yoshida, a folk musician three years Matsumoto's senior. Oh Youth was their first (and, thankfully, far from last) collaboration.

The tune was originally an instrumental theme for a popular detective show on TV; for some reason or another, someone somewhere commissioned Takashi to write words for it, and specified that the lyrics needed to involve counting. Lo and behold: a spectral, bitter, bone-splintering masterpiece. Origin stories sometimes have nothing to do with anything at all.

If I’ve done my research correctly, this 1975 performance at a massive music festival was the first time anyone outside Yoshida’s circle and management heard the song. It looks like the start of Yoshida’s set. His band is up there, playing the familiar instrumental version, the TV show theme; and as they're approaching the end, the 28-year-old Yoshida strides onstage with his acoustic guitar, receives a rapturous welcome, and — plot twist! — steps up to the mic and begins to sing. A stir runs through the crowd. The microphone levels are good, and Yoshida sings Matsumoto’s lines with with clarity (meaning they’re audible) and passion (meaning they grab your attention) — though in fact no one would have known, yet, that the lyrics were Matsumoto’s. I wonder how many people in that huge audience had been Happy End fans.

I presume that there’s not a lot of us who grew up outside of Japan who know anything about this performance, or this festival, or even this artist; but it feels like a milestone moment in rock music history. First time I watched the video footage, I got chills several times.

Now for the translation notes. My version is a lot less literal than I would normally allow myself to be, but

(A) the structural conceit is tricky: there are two verses of four lines each, and each of them begins with a numeral reference, counting 1 to ... well, two verses of four lines equals eight lines, so you would think 1 to 8, right? But Takashi counts to 10, slipping 7 and 10 into the back half of 6 and 9’s respective lines. In some cases, Takashi says literally “firstly,” “thirdly,” “fifthly,” or “eighthly,” but that “firstly” (ひとつ) is immediately followed by a “one person alone” (ひとり), and the second line plays off of this, mentioning “two people together” (ふたり) but omitting a “secondly” (ふたつ). Lines four, six, seven, and nine pun on the words you would expect (that is, “fourthly,” “sixthly,” etc.) by borrowing the opening syllable or syllables of, say, “fourthly” (よっつ, yottsu) and instead substituting a different word that begins with an identical syllable or syllables (so, in this case, 酔いつぶれ, yoitsubure, meaning "dead drunk")

and also (B) Takashi’s lines are short and dense. Maintaining their brevity would have meant giving short shrift to the speaker’s tone, which is arguably the most important thing about the song.

So once I realized my usual literalist approach wasn’t getting anywhere, I said “fuck it,” made the counting explicit (because, good luck translating puns), and decided that it would be okay for the English lines to be long and intricate (versus Takashi’s short and dense) as long as I was getting the tone across and making the images clear.

I’d love to see alternate English takes on these lyrics, but doubt I ever will, and probably neither will any of you; so please just remember that my translation, while divergent, was made while I was fully under the sway of the song’s emotions, and that my version is imbued with love for the original. That’ll have to suffice.

Or else you’ll have to learn Japanese too.

Or else you can play with AI and see what our Good Robot Cube comes up with. (Anyone else a veteran of Live a Live?)

:::

So — one —

you're either by yourself,

which is horribly lonely,

or — two —

you're with somebody

in a room

where even the air suffocates you,

and in any case — three —

you're crushed to pieces

by your unfulfilled dreams,

all while — four —

the city is dancing

with the drunk evening wind.

You've only just finished

counting your sorrows,

and the day has already

grown dark.

Is youth like

the shimmering

heat of the summer

the moment the shimmer

combusts?

Is youth like

the shimmering

heat of the summer

the moment the shimmer

combusts?

Now, listen  — five — 

life's aftertaste is so foul

that — six — by the time you're done 

thinking it over,

seven — you'll have cried 

a whole ocean of tears.

And — eight (oh, would you stop counting) —

even when you're holding

somebody tight in your arms,

(nine) your heart is already

(ten) leaving these cheap lodgings behind.

You're busy counting

your sleepless nights

as day after day

slips by.

Is youth like

the shimmering

heat of the summer

the moment the shimmer

combusts?

Is youth like

the shimmering

heat of the summer

the moment the shimmer

combusts?

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