Translation: When the Sky and the Sea Blend into One (Young 101)

The backstory of this song is hard to puzzle out. Young 101 was some kind of TV program (maybe?) or music business pop-folk conglomerate (maybe?) (or both?), something to which a large group of young people were invited to contribute, anyway — primarily vocally, maybe? I venture that last guess because, on the album for which When the Sky and the Sea Blend into One (Osamu Shoji/Matsumoto) serves as closer, Side B has Caramel Mama backing. Right: what you're hearing is Haruomi Hosono on bass, Shigeru Suzuki on guitar (good luck picking him out, though; hint: right channel!), Masataka Matsutoya on keys, and Tatsuo Hayashi on drums.

Knowing that Caramel Mama's here will make you listen more deeply. So it's good that you know that now. Because, if you're like me, your first few listens would otherwise get submerged in the orchestral folk-pop bombast. Persevere! It's really a good song! The melodies are sophisticated and beautiful, the harmonies addictive. There are cool brass and clarinet parts, too. The arrangement is overdramatic, no doubt about it, but what's happening lyrically up in that sky above the sea is dramatic too — as is the song's personal drama, even if the way Matsumoto gets it across is characteristically subdued.

And here's the really cool thing: this song may be the grand finale of the entire Town of Wind concept.*

There aren't a lot of references online to this song, but in one of them, a commenter calls it the story of somebody who escapes the Town of Wind. I don't see textual evidence for that per se, but I love the image. 

The way I understand it, this is the song in which Takashi washes his hands — or, as the metaphorical case may be, his oil paints — clean. Hosono killed the band Matsumoto gave his heart to — alright, well, that's the end of that. Let's wrap things up.

If my interpretation is on point, the question remains: who's this "you" ? I can't figure it out. If or when I do, the translation may need some editing. But for now, here it is, with the central piece missing — which is itself, come to think of it, an appropriate metaphor for the end of Happy End: the songwriter alive & well — at the top of his game, in fact — but the context in which he thought his art would flourish, gone.

— at least, in a manner of speaking... the year this song came out (1973) also saw the release of Minami & Matsumoto's Heroine of the Skyscraper. And that's a major album. But however you choose to arrange your Matsumoto lore, 1973 certainly marked one crucial ending in Takashi Matsumoto's artistic life.

Would Hosono have made a Well, You Know, It's Summer-like masterpiece out of these words? Of course he would've, why even ask? But this was the world after Happy End and before Seiko Matsuda. There weren't a whole lot of Hosono/Matsumoto songs written in the years between 1973 and 1982.**

* at least prior to its unexpected one-off revival on Shigeru's 1975 album Band Wagon

** not a whole lot, indeed; only seven (or eight, if you count this late revision) that we know of

:::

The morning sky

seems made of molten dreams.

The only cloud that I can see

is as nimble 

as a flying fish.

The fishermen have yet to

bring their boats back to shore,

but it doesn't matter.

I'm letting my oil paints

dissolve in the water

as I carry on waiting

for you.

The striped patterns 

that the waves form

as they gently near the shore

close me in like slatted shutters.

The sand keeps crumbling

underneath my feet,

but it doesn't matter.

I'm letting my oil paints

dissolve in the water

as I carry on waiting

for you.

I'll wait right here 

until your wine-dark shadow

softly overlaps

my purple one.

The sea tilts,

bleeding like the evening twilight,

and dissolves in the sky.

The clouds have ignited

and fallen to earth,

but it doesn't matter.

I'm letting my oil paints

dissolve in the water

as I carry on waiting

for you.

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