19.4.22

Villain

Hey, kids, we're here with the long-awaited (long-lost?) translation of "Villain," in our antepenultimate bid to round out our translations of the lyrics on Abracadabra (damn, it's so great to find a place to use the word "antepenultimate" in common speech.) We'll be with you again soon with the latest news from Buck-Tickistan (sunglasses, dollies, and masks, oh my!), but for now, we'll focus on this: how Mr. Imai's ode to Disney villains hooks up with Mr. Sakurai's screed against cyber-bullying. As in our previous post, we are using text colors that don't appear satisfactorily on mobile phones, so, for best viewing, please view on your PC. 

Also, to reiterate what we said before - Google Sites has completely changed their platform and it's completely unacceptable in terms of editability and general visual appearance. Due to this, we are unable to make updates to This is NOT Greatest Site. We are not a web designer, and if there's anyone with expertise in this area who would like to help us out fixing up a new site that looks nice and is easily navigable, please contact us directly at the mad aristocrat [at] gmail [dot] com.

A third thing - to that person who translated the "official international edition" of Abracadabra - we know you're a solid professional just doing your job. It wasn't your fault that Buck-Tick's management decided to hire someone who was eminently qualified to translate marketing boilerplate and patents and subtitles for corporate training videos, but had never read or written poetry, let alone listened to Buck-Tick. We are not blaming you. Giant paycheck or not, you're not the villain here. We've all gotta hustle for a living in this miserable late-stage capitalist hellscape nightmare RPG game called "life," so, y'know, giant paycheck ftw and all that jazz. It's not your fault that some of our readers decided that they don't care if we finish translating this album because there is already an "official international edition." Everyone's got free will, they're entitled to read whichever translations they want to read. So, readers - if you feel our translation is redundant, go on, see yourselves out. It doesn't matter. We won't stop you. We can't stop you. We wouldn't even if we could, but we can't. It's not like we know who you are, anyway. The anonymity of the internet preserves you from any judgments we could render upon you (not that that internet anonymity protects you from data mining and mass surveillance - but that's not our problem). To us, you have no name. You have no face. Ciao.

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Villain
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi/Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

They're born to be the anti
At extraordinary level
So carelessly they do it
They're the Flowers of Evil (1)
They don't know any fear
They're the wellspring of sin
It's their single-minded goal:
Unleash the madness within
Hello, taboo
Ciao, smile
Hello, taboo
Ciao

hey i know you! you, yeah! i know it's you!
you're the one who raped me, i know it's you!
you're so ugly! yeah! the villain sore! (2)
oozing thru my heart i feel the villain sore!
yeah i know you! i know it's you! 
you make me sick! you nameless jerk!
i know it's you!

The world is still outrageous
It murders the absurd
You spirits who aren't in the trap
Don't let it take you in
It's all the more magnificent
Uncommonly high-level
So carelessly it's blooming
It's the Flower of Evil (1)
Hello, taboo
Ciao, smile
Hello, taboo
Ciao

hey i know you! you, yeah! i know it's you!
you're the one who killed me, i know it's you!
the oozing blood! yeah! the villain sore!
yucky yucky aching it's the villain sore! (3)
yeah i know you! i know it's you! 
you make me sick! you have no face!
i know it's you!


hey i know you, you, yeah, i know it's you
you're the one who raped me, i know it's you
it's so ugly, yeah, the villain sore
oozing through my heart i feel the villain sore

you make me sick! yeah! i know it's you!
you're the one who killed me, i know it's you!
the oozing blood! yeah! the villain sore!
yucky yucky aching it's the villain sore!
yeah i know you! i know it's you! 
you make me sick! you make me sick!

i know it's you!


Note on the title: Sakurai and Imai stated that they wrote their parts for this song independently of each other, and "it just so happened" that "Villain," Imai's working title for the song, forms a perfect double-entendre with the Japanese "biran" (糜爛), which Sakurai said was his main keyword when he started writing the lyrics. "Biran" is a fancy literary word meaning something like "oozing sore." For supposedly not having discussed anything together before writing the song, the two sections fit together uncommonly well - so either there's something Messrs. Sakurai and Imai aren't telling us, or they're telepathically connected (or what they're not telling us is the fact that they're telepathically connected, which, let's face it, is entirely likely.) 

Imai didn't discuss why he chose the theme "villain," but since at the time of this song's release, he's the father of an elementary school girl, we suspect Disney villains might have something to do with it (Disney, and Disney villains, are hugely popular in Japan). Imai's part of the song appears to narrate the psychology of absolute evil. 

Sakurai, meanwhile, stated that his inspiration for this song was his anger at anonymous cyberbullying. He said that he feels filled with disgust at the way that people think online anonymity gives them license to bully others with impunity. He said "I want to let people like that know, I see you. I know who you are." Cyberbullying has certainly become a major issue worldwide, and Sakurai mentioned being angered by several high-profile cyberbullying incidents that were covered in the Japanese media, but considering that Sakurai never writes lyrics about themes that aren't of personal significance to him, I suspect that there's another layer to this song that he's not discussing openly - namely, some serious incidents of cyberbullying among Buck-Tick's Japanese fan base. Incidents of fan bullying have been happening since the band first became famous, but the anonymity of the internet affords a much greater reach for the spreading of vitriol and defamatory lies. In fact, we have witnessed some of this personally, and it wasn't pretty. Because the types of fans who bully others are also the types who tend to spend the most money on the band, Sakurai probably feels like he can't call them out directly - though, then again, these lyrics are a pretty direct call-out when you stop to look at them carefully. Whether the Cyberbullies of Buck-Tickistan realize they're being repudiated is another matter - bullies don't tend to be the most self-reflective types. 

Sakurai stated that he used the short, percussive phrases and excess exclamation points to echo the style of aggressive online flame comments, but also to underscore his own anger at this type of behavior. To reflect this in the English translation, I used all lowercase letters for the sections sung by Sakurai. Sakurai's sections appear to be back-and-forth dialogues between the bullies and the narrator of the song (Sakurai himself?) but, as in "Urahara-juku," it's ambiguous who is speaking which line - so, use your imaginations - if it's ambiguous, it's because he meant it to be that way.

1) "Aku no Hana" is the Japanese translation of the title of French poet Charles Baudelaire's poetry collection Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). Aku no Hana was also the title of Buck-Tick's best-selling 1989 album, released after Imai's release from six months of house arrest for possession of LSD. Aku no Hana remains the best-selling album of the band's career, and the song "Aku no Hana," the title track and lead single, is one of the band's best-known hit songs, along with "Just One More Kiss." Imai claimed that he didn't intend the phrase "aku no hana" in these lyrics to be a reference to Buck-Tick's earlier album, but... this is from the guy who claimed that the album title Mona Lisa Overdrive had nothing to do with the William Gibson novel of the same name. This is from the guy who claimed that the "Atom" in Buck-Tick's album title Atom Miraiha No. 9 had nothing to do with the Tezuka Osamu manga Tetsuwan Atom (known in English as Astro Boy)... and then went on to produce official Astro Boy tie-up goods for the tour. So... come on.

2) As explained in the note on the title, the word in this line, "biran," forms a word play with the song's title "Villain," since in Japanese, the two words are pronounced more or less exactly the same. In Japanese "biran" means "oozing sore" or "inflamed wound." Sakurai seems to be expressing that the anger and hatred in the hearts of people who engage in anonymous bullying are akin to an oozing wound. Or, conversely, that bearing witness to such bullying incidents causes his own heart to feel like an open wound.

3) In this line, the Japanese word "yumeyume," which I translated here as "yucky yucky," is not Sakurai's usual beloved 「夢夢」, meaning "dreamy dream," but a completely different word spelled in different kanji, 「努努」, which doesn't really have any meaning in its own right - rather, it serves as an emphatic like "absolutely" or "absolutely not," to underscore the force of the whole sentence. What's brilliant about this word choice is that because the emphatic "yumeyume" is a homophone of the dreamy "yumeyume," it creates a world play expressing the way that the hatred in the hearts of the bullies is fueled by their own dreams, or delusions - especially true in the case of fan bullying, which is generally fueled by jealousy of fans for other fans. 

In a single word, Sakurai expresses both the general condition of the mindset of bullies - who are often perpetually excessively focused on perceived slights which have little to do with reality - and also the dark flipside of the beautiful romantic world he creates on stage - the way his romantic fantasias have inspired some of his fans to attack others in impotent jealousy based on their own wildly skewed perceptions ("X band member likes that girl better than me, I hate her, so let's kill her," etc. The essence of fan bullying.) Sakurai returns to this theme of fantasy vs. reality, and his own complicity in the whole fan delusion, in "Maimu Maimu." It's further interesting that "uzuku," the word which appears after "yumeyume" in this line, has generally been used by Sakurai in previous lyrics in a sexual context - most notably in "Baby, I want you" ("anata mo uzuitekuru darou baby" / "you're aching for it, baby"). For those familiar with Buck-Tick's lyrics, this creates a second layer of meaning expressing how unfulfilled desire is often a big motivation for fan bullying behavior, and bullying in general. 

Here, I translated "yumeyume" as "yucky yucky" in order to preserve the general prosody and violent feeling of the Japanese words, and add some more sharp attack to the "k" sounding in "aching."


Villain
作詞:櫻井敦司・今井寿
作曲:今井寿

生まれながらのアンチ 稀に見るレベル
軽々とまさに 惡の華
恐れを知らぬ 諸悪の根源
ただひたすらに 狂気の沙汰
ハロー タブー チャオ スマイル
ハロー タブー チャオ

おまえを知っている! そう! おまえだ!
俺を犯したおまえだ!
醜い! そう! 糜爛が! 俺の胸にある糜爛が!
おまえを! 知っている! 気味悪い! 名無しの!
おまえを!

理不尽な世界 不条理を殺す
囚われぬ魂 逸脱せよ
あまりにも華麗 稀代のハイレベル
軽々とそれは 惡の華
ハロー タブー チャオ スマイル
ハロー タブー チャオ

おまえを知っている! そう! おまえだ!
俺を殺したおまえだ!
血が滲む! そう! 糜爛が! 努努 疼く糜爛が!
おまえを! 知っている! 気味悪い! 顔の無い!
おまえを!

おまえを知っている そう おまえだ
俺を犯した おまえだ
醜い そう 糜爛が 俺の胸にある糜爛が

気味悪い! そう! おまえだ!
俺を殺した おまえだ!
血が滲む! そう! 糜爛が! 努努 疼く糜爛が!
おまえを! 知っている! 気味悪い! 気味悪い!

おまえだ!


Villain
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi/Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Umarenagara no anti     mare ni miru reberu
Karugaru to masa ni     aku no hana
Osore wo shiranu     shoaku no kongen
Tada hitasura ni     kyouki no sata
Hello    taboo     ciao     smile
Hello    taboo     ciao

Omae wo shitteiru!     Sou!     Omae da!
Ore wo okashita omae da!
Minikui!     Sou!     Biran ga!     Ore no mune ni aru biran ga!
Omae wo!     Shitteiru!     Kimi warui!     Nanashi no!
Omae wo!

Rifujin na sekai     fujouri wo korosu
Torawarenu tamashii     itsudatsu se yo
Amari ni mo karei     kitai no hai-reberu
Karugaru to sore wa     aku no hana
Hello    taboo     ciao     smile
Hello    taboo     ciao

Omae wo shitteiru!     Sou!     Omae da!
Ore wo koroshita omae da!
Chi ga nijimu!     Sou!     Biran ga!     Yumeyume     uzuku biran ga!
Omae wo!     Shitteiru!     Kimi warui!     Kao no nai!
Omae wo!

Omae wo shitteiru     sou     omae da
Ore wo okashita     omae da
Minikui     sou     biran ga     ore no mune ni aru biran ga

Kimi warui!     Sou!     Omae da!
Ore wo koroshita     omae da!
Chi ga nijimu!     Sou!     Biran ga!     Yumeyume     uzuku biran ga!
Omae wo!     Shitteiru!     Kimi warui!     Kimi warui!

Omae da!

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9.4.22

Go Go B-T Train

Happy cherry blossom (and tulip) season! The weirdness of the world continues apace, but thank god that never stopped the flowers from blooming. On the one hand, the stuff that's going on right now in Ukraine (and Afghanistan, and many other places) is terrible, and we're also sending our thoughts and prayers to our many friends and readers in Russia - we know you are not your government, that many of you are praying for peace just as much as the rest of us, and that the sanctions are hitting a lot of people who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time (just like the people who are getting hit by the bombs). We hope all you readers in every part of the world join with us in praying for world peace everywhere. Because really, we are one human family. Can y'all imagine a war between the black cats and the ginger cats? Maine Coon vs. Siamese? Persian vs. Siberian? Bengal vs. Scottish Fold (oh god, we really went too far there, pleez y'alls bless and sanitize us with some of your holy water, for we have sinned...) but seriously this shit is ridiculous. Human beings are human beings are human beings, and your prayers matter. Let's blast a cotton candy sparkle unicorn rainbow of peace so hard across this world that the cherry trees up and decide to bloom an encore for us! (...while in the meantime, secretly eagerly awaiting what kind of trenchant saltiness Mr. Sakurai has in store for us this time, because let's face it, if there's going to be one good thing about yet another stupid, pointless war, it's going to be listening to Mr. Sakurai getting operatically and theatrically Very Very Angry.)

In any case, we beg your apologies on making you wait so long, but spring is doing us a world of good, physically and mentally, and so we are at last pleased to bring you the translations and notes for "Go Go B-T Train" and "Koi." We will be posting them on NOT Greatest Site as soon as we figure out how to revamp it on a new platform to our liking. In the meantime, you can enjoy the translations here on Blog-Tick. If you appreciate our work and would like to support us, please do buy us a Ko-Fi. Also, if you're looking at this on your phone - Blogger's phone interface doesn't support the background and font colors we like to use. For the best visual experience, we recommend that you view this post on your PC. As usual, the English translations of these songs are singable with the original melodies.

Go Go B-T Train
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Imai Hisashi

And so the dream continues Baby
I'll show you pomp and circumstance
And now the boarding bell is ringing
You, too, get on and come with us

This is a one-way journey only
A beautiful trip
It's time to kiss the earth good-bye
With you, two-lips (1)

Deep in my heart now
Oh light my fire
Run run on B-T Train
Running on love now (2)
Go rumble Baby (3)
Oh fly, my B-T Train

And so the dream continues Baby
La la la off to everywhere
Clickety-click clackety-clack (4)
Over the fields into the dark

Go blow a kiss out 
To the steamwork crescent moon (5)
We'll kiss the Universe good-bye
Tulips with you (1)

Deep in my heart now
Oh light my fire
Run run on B-T Train
Running on love now
Rumble on Baby (3)
Oh fly, my B-T Train

Running on love now
Running on love now
Run run on B-T Train
Rumble on Baby
Go go on Baby (3)
Oh fly, my B-T Train

And so the dream continues baby
La la la off to everywhere


Note on the title: Many long-time Buck-Tick fans probably saw the title of this single and on first blush assumed it was a case of Mr. Sakurai picking up Imai's working title for the demo song and running with it. Not so! Mr. Sakurai was at pains to tell all the magazine interviewers (who also initially assumed that the title had been authored by Imai) that the "Go Go B-T Train" concept was all his own. He said, "I heard the lumber of a train in the demo tape," and further elaborated that he thought very carefully about which words to use, and deliberately settled on "train" rather than the likes of "express," because he wanted to evoke an old-fashioned, clickety-clack, driving through the endless countryside, stopping at every station, we'll get there when we get there kind of feeling, rather than kowtowing to the speed-is-king "innovations" of modern life. He said that writing this song was his re-commitment to taking the project of Buck-Tick as far as it can possibly go, "until it disintegrates into scrap." He went on further, saying "maybe this wording sounds lame, but I don't care." 

Implicit in the train motif is the image of a circus train, carrying the performers from city to city, extending Buck-Tick's long-running Parade metaphor. (For great examples of this trope in action, see the song "Casey Junior" from the Disney film Dumbo (no relation to Cayce Pollard) and Erin Morgenstern's novel The Night Circus.) It feels slightly poetic, if bittersweet, that this re-commitment to the band's creative enterprise came at the exact time that Mr. Imai broke his hip and the planned fall (haha "fall," haha) 2021 tour to support this single had to be cancelled as a result. "The Buck-Tick train broke a wheel and had to stop for repairs," Mr. Sakurai quipped to multiple news outlets. "But we'll keep on chugging as soon as we're able." Every time Mr. Sakurai has stepped up in taking more creative authorship in the band's work, it has resulted in a great leap forward in the band's creative output, so, Imai's pain aside (take care on those goddamn boots, Imai!) maybe this was a blessing in disguise. "Maybe this sounds strange, but it seem that you've become the wholesale promoter of Buck-Tick these days," journalist Ishii Eriko remarked in her interview with Mr. Sakurai in the October 2021 issue of Ongaku to Hito. "I know what you mean," Mr. Sakurai responded. "I felt a little like I was one step below the idea that Buck-Tick=Imai Hisashi. But, from long before now, I've been coming to understand that Imai does Imai, and I do me. In that sense, I feel I'm much more instrumental in promoting the band than I was in the early days."

1) In Japanese, the word "churippu" or "chuurippu" can mean "trip," "two-lips," or "tulip." Sakurai openly stated that he used this wordplay to tie the song together, and I have endeavored to preserve the triple meaning in my translation. Judging from the imagery in the music video, I think we can safely assume that "trip" refers not only to a physical trip, but to a psychedelic or psychological trip. Two-lips obviously refers to a kiss (as is echoed by the tulip imagery and the red lips imagery on the single jacket and in the music video.) 

In flower symbolism, tulips have long been a symbol of perfect, unconditional love in Turkish and Persian folklore, centering around variations on a folktale of the perfect love between Farhad (usually represented as a commoner tradesman, such as a stonecutter), and Shirin (a beautiful woman generally represented as being above Farhad's social station). Various permutations of the tale exist, but most end in tragedy, with red tulips blooming on the site of the lovers' spilled blood, symbolizing their everlasting love for one another. (Side note: wouldn't it be nice to live in a world of "and then they lived happily ever after" instead of "our spilled blood turned to tulips, which are indeed lovely, but, wouldn't it have been nice if we could have stayed alive to enjoy love instead of being martyrs for it?" Just sayin'.) Sakurai used this same trip/tulip wordplay in the lyrics to "Kick ~Daichi wo Keru Otoko~". Underlying the entire metaphor is Sakurai's lifelong thesis statement that life is an endless journey in search of ever-deeper love.

2) The phrase here, "ai wo moyase," literally means "burn love," but Sakurai clarified in the magazine interviews that he means this in the context that the B-T Train runs on by burning the love of the fans as fuel. The burning bouquet of tulips in the music video would seem to suggest an additional interpretation, that love is a trip, and it's better to go for it (burn it) than to hold anything back, because life, whatever we might wish, is always a journey of no return.

3) The word here, 「轟轟」 ("gou gou,") means "rumbling" or "roaring," but Sakurai ties it together as a word play with "go go," evoking the rumble of the B-T Train as it go-goes on over the tracks. I have attempted to preserve the dimensions of this wordplay by altering my translation of the various lines where this phrase appears. Use of the phrase "gou gou" can also be seen in Imai's lyrics to "Igniter," on the album No. 0. There is, of course, also a nice tie-in here with the use of the word "go-go" in relation to nightclub performance, and by extension rock shows, a meaning which Imai has used with relish in his songs with his side project Lucy, "Anaconda a Go-Go" and "Lucifer a Go-Go." (And, by loose extension, Lucy's "Gaga Disco" and Buck-Tick's "Dada Disco," as well as "Les Enfant Terribles.")

4) As mentioned in the note on the title, Sakurai stated to multiple media outlets (Ongaku to Hito, Rock & Read, The Majestic Saturday Night, etc.) that he deliberately used the word "train" rather than "express," in order to evoke a slow, old-fashioned, clickety-clackety train. He stated that the band might not be able to go fast, but they will keep going for as long as they can, "until we turn into a pile of scrap metal." He also waxed poetic to several magazines about his love of train travel, and his desire to get on a train and be whisked away to destinations unknown, stating that the "train," for him, held a romance and promise that the "express" didn't, and he wanted to preserve this in Buck-Tick's music to the very last.

5) This tongue-in-cheek steampunk reference underscores the image of an old-fashioned steam train, as opposed to a state-of-the-art superfast electric train of the kind that are common in Japan. The word here, "jouki jikake," meaning "steam-powered," was also used by Imai in the lyrics to "Once Upon a Time," on the album Arui wa Anarchy, to refer to a steampunk Sphinx. It would appear to be a Buck-Tick in-joke, perhaps a concession to the fact that Sakurai took over this song wholesale from Imai, who is a known steampunk fan.


Go Go B-T Train
作詞:櫻井敦司
作曲:今井寿

夢の続き Oh Baby 派手に魅せてやろう
君も乗りなよ さあ 発車のベルが鳴る

片道だけの素敵なTRIP
サヨナラネ地球 アナタトチューリップ

この胸に 火を付けて 走れ B-T TRAIN
愛を燃やせ 轟轟 On Baby 飛ばせ B-T TRAIN

夢は続くよ Baby ランランラン 何処までも
ガタガタ & ゴトゴト 野を越え 闇をゆけ

蒸気仕掛けの 三日月投げキッス
サヨナラネ宇宙 アナタトチューリップ

この胸に 火を付けて 走れ B-T TRAIN
愛を燃やせ 轟轟 On Baby 飛ばせ B-T TRAIN

愛を燃やせ 愛を燃やせ 走れ B-T TRAIN
轟轟 On Baby, Go Go On Baby 飛ばせ B-T TRAIN

夢は続くよ Baby ランランラン 何処までも


Go Go B-T Train
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Imai Hisashi

Yume no tsuzuki Oh Baby     hade ni misete yarou
Kimi mo nori na yo     saa     hassha no beru ga naru

Katamichi dake no suteki na TRIP
Sayonara ne chikyuu     anata to chuurippu

Kono mune ni     hi wo tsukete     hashire B-T TRAIN
Ai wo moyase     gougou On Baby     tobase B-T TRAIN

Yume wa tsuzuku yo Baby     ran ran ran     doko made mo
Gatagata & gotogoto     no wo koe     yami wo yuke

Jouki jikake no     mikazuki nage kissu
Sayonara ne uchuu     anata to chuurippu

Kono mune ni     hi wo tsukete     hashire B-T TRAIN
Ai wo moyase     gougou On Baby     tobase B-T TRAIN

Ai wo moyase     ai wo moyase     hashire B-T TRAIN
Gougou On Baby, Go Go On Baby     tobase B-T TRAIN

Yume wa tsuzuku yo Baby     ran ran ran     doko made mo




Love
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

For so long I felt it, you see
I felt it deep within me...
It was somebody who you knew
I knew you (1)
Please, oh won't you show me your face?
Please show me your smile
Oh please, I want you... to call... my name

I burn
With romance (2)
A dream
A fantasy

But now you say it's time to sleep, tired from dancing, ah
From the pure-white tips of your toes, the blood dripping, ah 

You're already climbing the Stairway to Heaven, ooh (3)

And so now I go it alone
Oh I'm all alone now
Out into the new-falling rain
Like everyone
Do you have the courage to go
To walk through the darkness?
I told you that I'm not afraid
I told you... a lie...

I burn
With romance (2)
My dream
Disintegrates

But now you say it's time to sleep, tired from dancing, ah
Out from my circling arms, I feel you slipping, ah

You're already knocking on Heaven's Door, ooh (4)

Dancing, dancing, dancing, you - you are love
Delicate, so delicate like watercolor, my romance (5)
Dancing, dancing, dancing, you - you are love
Delicate, so delicate dissolves my romance (5)


Note on the title: Japanese has two main words for "love," "ai" and "koi." Japanese teachers tend to say that "ai" can mean any kind of love, including cosmic love, familial love, romantic love, and all shades of love in between, while "koi" tends to mean specifically romantic love. When this single was released, various media outlets (such as Ongaku to Hito, Rock & Read, and Chiwaki Mauymi's radio show The Majestic Saturday Night) asked Sakurai what his personal view was on the difference in meaning between "ai" vs. "koi." He said that for him, "ai" was something existential, heart's-blood deep, while "koi" could be something lighter and more innocent. 

He said that in this song, he was trying to capture a feeling of youthful purity, platonic, rather than sexual, and that he was trying to sing the part of a pure, gentle, innocent character. He went on to state that a number of people in his orbit have recently passed away, and while on the one hand he felt it wasn't his place to tread on the grief of others or to overly aestheticize death and grief, he nonetheless made the decision to write these lyrics as a sort of vicarious expression of the grief that the people around him were experiencing. He also stated that it was in part inspired by the yearly summer melancholy he feels in August, around the time of the anniversary of the atomic bombings. 

However, for various reasons, we suspect that this song is in large part about one very specific person. Who it is, we're not at liberty to say. Let's just leave it that it was someone who was very, very close to one of the Buck-Tick members, not Sakurai, also a personal acquaintance of Cayce, and much, much too young to go. Our two cents: this song is a truly beautiful send-up to the memory of the person in question. Sakurai was not overstepping bounds here. He was doing this person a great honor.

Fun fact: Sakurai is the one whistling during the instrumental break. He told Rock & Read that the whistling was originally Director Tanaka's idea, and at first, whistling in the studio made him (Sakurai) so nervous that, in his words, "I went home and practiced so much I made myself sick... my lips were swollen from me licking them too much."

1) This line is ambiguous. Depending on interpretation, it could mean "you knew someone," or "I knew who you were." Sakurai may be evoking the feeling we sometimes get when we meet someone important in our lives, that we already know the person, even though we've only just met - or sometimes, the feeling we get before we meet someone important, a sense of premonition that someone who will be very dear to us in the future is about to walk into our lives.

2) The literal translation of this line is "I burn with love," but I translated it as "romance" instead, in order to underscore the airy, youthful quality Sakurai said he was aiming for with his word choice of "koi."

3) "Stairway to Heaven," released in 1971, is the most famous song by the classic English rock/metal band Led Zeppelin, and widely regarded as one of the most influential rock songs of all time. It's impossible to overstate how enormously influential Led Zeppelin were on Buck-Tick's generation of rock musicians in Japan. Yagami Toll is a particularly enthusiastic Led Zeppelin fan.

4) "Knocking on Heaven's Door" is a song by American singer-songwriter and Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan, originally released in 1973. The song was most famously covered by Eric Clapton and Guns N' Roses, but was also covered by dozens of other well-known artists, including Nick Cave, Patti Smith, Paul Simon, Lana Del Rey, Roger Waters, and Nina Hagen.

5) This line literally means "delicate, delicate, blurring, my love." I translated it the way I did to better evoke the visual quality of the word "nijimu," which implies something wet spreading, oozing, or blurring. Sakurai used the word "nijimu" earlier in the song to describe oozing blood, but "nijimu" is also often used poetically to describe slowly welling tears (or the way that fallen tears can blur writing, pictures, etc.) I chose the word "watercolor" because of the connection with tears, and because I felt it fit with the general light, ethereal atmosphere of the song, and with the band's stage performance of the song at the DIQ 2021, in which Sakurai sang the song wearing a women's furisode juban (under-kimono), as if expressing a lost youth, and the color of the ephemeral cherry blossoms, which bloom and fade so quickly.


作詞:櫻井敦司
作曲:星野英彦

ずっと前から そう わたしの中に..
あなたが誰かを 知っている
お顔を見せて  ねえ  笑って見せて
私の名前を  呼ん で  欲し い

恋  焦がれ   夢  幻

あなたは踊り疲れて 眠る ああ
真っ白な爪先 血が滲む ああ

天国への階段  登ってゆく

ひとりでゆくのさ ひとりきりだよ
降り出した雨に 誰も
暗闇を歩く 勇気はあるかい
怖くは無いよと わた し  嘘 を

恋  焦がれ   夢  破れて

あなたは踊り疲れて 眠る ああ
わたしのこの両手 すり抜ける ああ

天国への扉を 叩いている

踊る  踊る  踊る  君は  愛
淡く  淡く  滲む  僕の  恋
踊る  踊る  踊る  君は  愛
淡く  淡く  滲む  僕の  恋


Koi
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

Zutto mae kara     sou     watashi no naka ni...
Anata ga dareka wo     shitteiru
Okao wo misete     nee     waratte misete
Watashi no namae wo     yon   de     hoshii

Koi     kogare     yume     maboroshi

Anata wa odoritsukarete     nemuru     aa
Masshiro na tsumasaki     chi ga nijimu     aa

Tengoku e no kaidan     nobotte yuku

Hitori de yuku no sa     hitorikiri da yo
Furidashita ame ni     dare mo
Kurayami wo aruku     yuuki wa aru kai
Kowaku wa nai yo to     wata  shi     uso     wo

Koi     kogare     yume     yaburete

Anata wa odori tsukarete     nemuru     aa
Watashi no kono ryoute     surinukeru     aa 

Tengoku e no tobira wo     tataiteiru

Odoru     odoru     odoru     kimi wa     ai
Awaku     awaku     nijimu     boku no     koi
Odoru     odoru     odoru     kimi wa     ai
Awaku     awaku     nijimu     boku no     koi

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To all of you who've written to us - thank you so much for your correspondence and support. We will write you back as soon as we are able. More translations and news coming soon.

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