Bouyaku (Forgotten)

I am so, so sorry to keep y'all waiting for this translation for a whole year and a half... but in a way, I'm not actually sorry. This is, without exaggeration, the most difficult Buck-Tick translation I've ever done (runner-up, Guernica no Yoru.) 

It's not because "Boukyaku" is technically difficult in terms of words and phrases - it's not. But the meaning is oblique. Yeah, the lyrics to so many Buck-Tick songs are oblique in meaning, and I never let that stop me before. But at the nexus of the pandemic, the cancelled Buck-Tick tours, and the things I've been going through in my personal life through this time, this song aroused a lot of very strong emotions in me and I wanted to sit with it, tease it out, let it percolate before I translated it. Like so much of Sakurai's recent work, it's yin-yang level multi-faceted. Is it happy, or sad? It's both, and one in the other, and both in each, both because it's each, each because it's both. How best to express that?

If you just glance at these lyrics, maybe you'll think they're simple - and they are, deceptively so, like most of everything Sakurai has ever written. Let's start with the word "hitosuji," which he uses in the first verse to mean "stream (of blood)" (as in, one drop of blood dripping down), and in the second verse to mean "stream of a tear" (one tear dripping down). In Japanese, this word literally means "one line." So first, we have the comparison between a drop of blood flowing, and a tear flowing. The verb here, "nijimu," is one that Sakurai likes a lot, and we've seen it before very recently, in the lyrics to "Koi" and the lyrics to "Villain" - in both cases, to express oozing blood. Here, we see it to express both oozing blood and oozing tears - a upwelling and slow flow that leaves a trail behind - so, a drop of blood flowing down skin, a teardrop flowing down a face. 

But then, we have the ever-present "me vs. you" that Sakurai employs in his lyrics. He stated in interviews that in this song, he was trying to express the way that some people hurt others because of the pain in their past, because they can't get past it, because they can't help themselves - but that ultimately, through hurting others, they hurt themselves the most. Sakurai, the son of an abusive alcoholic father, who has spoken openly throughout his life about the trauma he has suffered, is clearly referring to himself in the victim role - but probably also in the perpetrator role. Why do I say this? Because he's written many songs where he laments having hurt other people without meaning to - "Rain" is probably the most notable, but there are a sheaf of others ("Megami," "Zangai," even "Guernica no Yoru.") On this album, "Villain" might get an honorable mention - not that he's admitting to cyberbullying (perish the thought! but just sit for a minute with the image of him typing spam comments on Buck-Tick's YouTube channel...), but in most of his lyrics about injury or crime/punishment, he maintains a sense of culpability, like he really doesn't want to turn a blind eye from the way everyone can be complicit in tableaux of abuse. He knows he is the next link in the chain of his family's trauma.

So, "senketsu hitosuji," or "stream of blood." How is it relevant? Well, a stream usually only flows one way. It flows from me, to you (or you, to me?). That's just like time, which is the other theme of this song, and also a one-way road. Time flows from then, to now. And yet, there's the implicit duality in the lyrics, the pas de deux of perpetrator-victim. There is a sense of back-and-forth flow, as the pain inflicted rebounds on its originator. (Which connects well with the ambiguous back-and-forth perpetrator-victim dialogues in "Villain" and "Urahara-juku.") At first I thought of translating "hitosuji" as "track," as in "tracks of my tears." But does a "track" flow? In writing this translation, I thought a lot, even more than I usually do, about word choice - not just the denotations and connotations of the words, but the way they sound when you speak or sing them. I really wanted this translation to flow, like blood, or like tears. "Track" sounds harsh, stopped-up, thick. So instead, I chose "stream," to express that flowing feeling - the nature of blood, tears, emotions, time, memory and wind - the main themes in this song.

There's a connection here to the theme of Buck-Tick's album One Life, One Death (2000). The title of this album comes from the lyrics to the song "Cyborg Dolly: Soramimi: Phantom" (by Imai), which go "You live on the straight line / We’re born once, we die once / We die once, only once." We doubt that Sakurai was thinking of this when he penned the lyrics to "Boukyaku," but the two form another sort of dialogue. "Hitosuji," the straight line, the arrow of time, the thrust of a sword into a wound - same as Imai's thesis statement, "we die once, only once." Sakurai comes to more or less the same conclusion at the end of "Boukyaku," with the line "all these irreplaceable days." Life's a one-way street. You can't go back. And yet, in "Boukyaku," there's still this sense of flow, of connection, of return - that everything is not quite as linear as it might seem.

Another main theme in this song is wind. This is another deep one. In Japanese poetry, the image of strong wind is often used as a metaphor for adversity, though it can also be used as a metaphor for positive support, with the word "oikaze" ("tailwind.") In this song, I couldn't help but also think of Bob Dylan's famous anti-war/protest anthem "Blowin' in the Wind" (if you don't know it, look it up, please.) It's not entirely clear whether Sakurai wrote this whole song before or after the pandemic began, but it seems like he finished it up following the pandemic. But even if he didn't... it doesn't really matter. "Wind" is also breath. The breath that we breathe in and out every minute (and isn't that theme of breath pandemic-relevant, despite Sakurai's insistence that he didn't want to let the pandemic affect his lyric-writing). But "wind" is also the spirit of life. 

The English words "spirit," "inspire," "respire," and "conspire" are all derived from the Latin root "respirare," meaning, "to breathe." Spirit = "that which breathes." Inspire - "to be given breath." Respire = "to breathe again." Conspire = "to breathe together." But this connection is by no means limited to languages influenced by Latin - it goes much, much deeper into human consciousness. In Japanese, the phrase "kaze wo hiku" ("to catch a cold") literally means "to pull the wind." Also, the kanji for "kaze" (「風」, "wind"), when read with its on-yomi, or Chinese-derived reading, "fuu," means "feeling," "vibe," "atmosphere," or "flavor." It can be found in words like 「風」 ("fuu," "manner/vibe"), 「風味」 ("fuumi," "flavor"), and 「風景」 ("fuukei," "scenery/view"). There is, naturally, a deep-seated sense in human beings that the flow of wind and breath is what propels life forward. Each breath we take marks the time we live on this earth. Wind travels from one part of the earth to another, carrying messages. In Western occult symbology, the element of air (wind) represents ideas, concepts, dreams, and imagination. Things that float past. Things that have no substance. Spirits, vibes. Things that travel from here to there, like sound waves, and like time. Things that flow, like sound waves, and like time. The stuff of thought, or memories. Wind and water have a commonality in the fact that they flow, they are never still, and Sakurai draws on this commonality in these lyrics, not just by mentioning both tears/blood (i.e. water) and wind, but also connecting the two with the image of "toori ame," or "passing rainfall." The wind blows the rainstorm across us, over and away, as the water falls, then ceases.

Overall, the connection of these two images lead us to the heart of the song: nothing ever stays static. Everything flows onward. You can't hold onto anything. The passion and the pain both rain down and then blow away. And, depending on your perspective, this could feel like grief, or like a blessing. On the one hand, there's often so much we want to hold onto from the past - the beautiful moments with people and places now lost. On the other hand, there's so much we want to be able to let go of. The pain of the times we were wounded or abused. The pain of the memories of the times we ourselves were the ones who caused the pain or abuse. 

In this song, Sakurai says, "let it go." He says that it's okay to let go of the past, that it doesn't define you, good or bad. His invocation of "the rainbow you saw today" underscores this. How many moments of wonder, joy, and beauty have we forgotten, or let us pass us by? In the last stanza, Sakurai says, everything passes by anyway, and it's fine to forget about it - but, remember, it's irreplaceable. He doesn't come and say it outright, but the ultimate implication is, you have to live in the moment. Be here now. Feel what you feel. It's kind of the opposite of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." It's, "see that rainbow before it fades." (And then there was this adorable post on Imai's Instagram, about the rainbow his daughter saw in the park.) In any case, in my final draft I chose to translate the final line as "Oh, all those irreplaceable days." But my second choice translation was, "Today's the only day, every day." So I've also written an alternative ending.

In translating this song, my biggest question was, who is Sakurai really referring to when he says "you"? In the first verse, it seems clear that the "you" is another person, someone he (or the narrator of the song) hurt, but as it goes on, it gets less and less clear. When we get to "Ah, but when I am embraced by you / All my tears, they slowly vanish," I started to wonder. Is this a tale of forgiveness and redemption? Is this "you" the same person who was hurt, or another person who has forgiven the song's narrator his past sins and absolved him with love? Or, is this "you" a more cosmic "you," the love of the entire Universe, as it takes our souls back into its arms after our brief mortal lives here on this Earth? The answer, as usual, is probably, "all of the above," and/or "you decide." But I wanted to draw attention to the ambiguity here.

There is a strong belief in Eastern religion and philosophy, going back many thousands of years, in the non-linear nature of time - cosmic cycles and reincarnation. But if we are reincarnated, why don't remember our past lives? The answer is an idea called "the veil of forgetting." Each time we're born, our souls pass through this veil, and temporarily lose all memory of their previous lifetimes. Then, each time we die, we return through the veil, to the outer cosmos, and regain the memories. Buck-Tick have dealt a lot with themes of reincarnation over the course of their career, hell, they even made a whole album about it (Six/Nine). So, why forget? What's the point of reincarnating if you have to start everything over? Why can't you keep what you've learned? In fact, in many cases, people do keep some of what they've learned - whether through flashes of past life memories, or more nebulous things like dreams and gut feelings and inexplicable attractions to certain places, people, or activities. But the point of forgetting everything before each new birth is so that each new lifetime can be experienced afresh - so that you can live in the moment again, as the new you, having new, authentic experience, without being weighed down by what might be tens or hundreds of lifetimes' worth of not only joy and pleasure, but also pain, regret, sorrow, and trauma. Between lifetimes, and also within lifetimes, forgetting can be salvation. 

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Forgotten

Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi

Music: Imai Hisashi

I sit alone here waiting

For nightmare

Fresh, a stream of my flowing blood

Like tears falls

Oh, how I have wounded you

Deeply, oh, so deeply

And so, too, have I wounded me

Deeply, so deeply

In the quiet, my panting breath

Unravels

Fresh, a stream of my flowing tears

Still falling

Ah, but when I am embraced by you

All my tears, they slowly vanish

Ah, and when I'm wrapped up in you

The tears all melt away

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten

Pass over like a brief-falling rain

Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing

Wind blowing, let it blow it away

In the wind

But when I melt into you, the pain

Ah, slowly it leaves me

Ah, and when I'm wrapped up in you

The pain, it leaves you, too (1)

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten

Pass over like a brief-falling rain

Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing

Wind blowing, let it blow it away

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten

Just like that rainbow you saw today

Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing

Oh, all those irreplaceable days (2)

Everyone

Everybody lives them through

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[Alternate ending]

Ah, let go and let it be forgotten

Just like that rainbow you saw today

Like on a sunny day spent doing nothing

Today's the only day, every day (2)

Everyone

Everybody lives it through

Note on the title: "Bouyaku" can be translated as "oblivion" or "forgetting." After much consideration, I settled on "Forgotten," because I think the theme of this song is less about the way everything vanishes with time (though it certainly is about that), and more about how it's okay to live in the moment and let the past go. Happy or sad, don't hold onto regrets, hold onto love.

(1) This isn't quite a literal translation - in the original Japanese, it's unclear whether the pain belongs to the "I" or the "you" or to both. However, Sakurai stated when this song was released that one of the themes he wanted to express is the way in which our past pain leads us to hurt others, but when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, too - so I added the "you" into this line to help keep that back-and-forth balance (which has been a big theme in Sakurai's lyrics since day one.)

(2) Sakurai stated explicitly that, in addition to being about the general "you can't take it back" nature of life, this line was about his feeling of poignant regret, come the pandemic, that Buck-Tick tours are probably never going to be what they used to be - the sense of loss on realizing that, despite him singing about death all the time, it still hurts when you realize things you thought were forever can vanish in an instant.

忘却

作詞：櫻井敦司

作曲：今井寿

悪夢を待っている　独り

鮮血一筋　滲む

あなたを傷つけた　深く　とても　深く

そしてこのわたしを　深く　深く

呼吸は静かに　乱れ

涙が一筋　落ちる

あなたに抱かれている　痛みが消えてゆく

あなたに包まれて　消えてゆくよ

忘れ去られてゆけばいい　通り雨のように

何気ない　ある晴れた日　風が通り過ぎる

風が

あなたに溶けてゆく　痛みが消えてゆく

あなたに包まれて　消えてゆくよ

忘れ去られてゆけばいい　通り雨のように

何気ない　ある晴れた日　風が通り過ぎる

忘れ去られてゆけばいい　今日の虹のように

何もない　ある晴れた日　かけがえの無い日々

誰も　通り過ぎてゆく

Boukyaku

Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi

Music: Imai Hisashi

Akumu wo matteiru     hitori

Senketsu hitosuji     nijimu

Anata wo kizutsuketa     fukaku     totemo     fukaku

Soshite kono watashi wo     fukaku     fukaku

Kokyuu wa shizuka ni     midare

Namida ga hitosuji     ochiru

Anata ni dakareteiru     itami ga kieteyuku

Anata ni tsutsumarete     kieteyuku yo

Wasuresararete yukeba ii     toori ame no you ni

Nanige nai      aru hareta hi      kaze ga toori sugiru

Kaze ga

Anata ni toketeyuku     itami ga kieteyuku

Anata ni tsutsumarete     kieteyuku yo

Wasuresararete yukeba ii     toori ame no you ni

Nanige nai      aru hareta hi      kaze ga toori sugiru

Wasuresararete yukeba ii     kyou no niji no you ni

Nani mo nai      aru hareta hi      kakegae no nai hibi

Dare mo     toorisugite yuku

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Why, Fish Tank Tour Goods?

Welp, we can't post the photos of the goods here because they're all too fucking tiny. Web design, in Buck-Tickistan? What country do you think this is, eh?

But, while they have all the money and the lack of web design skills, we have the WHYs y'all are looking for. So, here's why.

1. Imai-designed Masks and "Half Pants" (c'mon Imai, these are call shorts. I know, I know, "shorts" is a euphemism for "panties" in Japan, but if Acchan-chan did it, so can you.) So, why? Chiropractor, kids. For his old man brokedown hip. We recently sprained our non-corporeal knee and we've been commuting once a week to the generously insurance-underwritten chiropractor, where we lie on an air conditioned bed listening to 90's and 2000's pop (both Japanese and Western... by the way, we are never, ever ever getting back together.) while receiving exotic services such as electric massage and chiropractic manipulations by an extremely handsome, charismatic young man who should probably be a televangelist or a used car salesman instead of a chiropractor, but we respect him the more for the fact that he isn't. And what happens when you go to a Japanese chiro clinic with a sprained knee, folks? They have you change into these standard-issue "half-pants" that look pretty much exactly like the ones Imai's got on offer. The masks go without saying. Cuz corona is gonna kill you but them masks will save you. Vax or no vax. So you're snorting into your mask and your half-pants and just wishing that that 90's playlist included "Dress," which of course, it doesn't. Mr. Imai, 9500 yen is a lot of money for some chiro clinic pants, and you know it. But your hip still hurts, and you really, really want to get back up onto those ridiculous boots, so we get it.

2. Yutaka: Serious Bear Round Squishy Ball Keyholder. Well, well, well. We know that aside from Mr. Imai, Yutaka is the most happily married of the bunch in Buck-Tickistan, and what Serious Bear doesn't love to lightly squish a nice, squishy, squishy ball? At 2000 yen, this is very cheap, fit for an everyman... every man who wants a nice, squishy ball. Yutaka, my but you're sweet. Squish squish, it's a boob, it's a ball, it's a stress reliever (is there any difference?) Why does poor Serious Bear look so glum? Probably because none of us can attend the tour and that fucking sucks. But we could buy this thing and squish all of our latent, long-lost longing for Buck-Tick into it, and even if that doesn't make things feel better, it does help that this baby is very cute (and would also make a good cat toy, probably. If Yutaka has a cat. Or if he goes to visit Acchan-chan, which is unlikely.) Yutaka, you are the sweetest, the bestest. We love you.

3. Yagami Toll: Super Ice Cold Ultra-Chilled Sake Set, anticipating our annual global warming 36-degree summer here in Japan. Toll is going to turn 60 on August 19th, kids. Right in the middle of that sauna. Will it be 36 degrees? Will it be 37 degrees? Let's hope to fuck it's not 60 degrees, or we really will all die. But yeah, what does Toll like? Nihonshu. That is to say, "Japaneez sake" (as Mr. Sakurai sings in "Goblin"). When does he like it? Whenever he goddamn well pleases. He has surely earned that right, by now. But if you buy this sake set, you not only get to enjoy that cute zombie-with-a-mohawk Toll graphic, and remember that Toll was ready to give up rock music for a life of drinking away his misery before he ever joined Buck-Tick (see Love Me on This is NOT Greatest Site for more info), but also, Toll has been drinking sake that entire time and he's still alive and pushing sixty, so really, the point is, what you can learn from Toll's life is that you should do what you love, *if* doing what you love involves painstakingly reviewing each and every video of your drumming post-concert (while drinking nihonshu), lecturing to young drummers (while drinking nihonshu) that they shouldn't be so show-offy and should pare their style back to something more refined and Japanese minimalist so as to better show off Mr. Sakurai's voice (like nihonshu), and just plain ol' drinking nihonshu. While maybe checking out your super-duper cool mohawk in the mirror (and toasting your reflection with nihonshu), even though you're alone in your house. (Who says he doesn't do that? Can you prove he doesn't do that? No, you can't!)

4. Hide: Hairband, With Bow (presumably intended to be affixed to your dog's head as she goes running with you.) Why? Well, Hide is an over-50 soccer dad whose very uncool hobby is getting up at 5AM to go jogging along the river. Why does he do this? To stay in shape for playing soccer? Nope. He's just that kind of guy that likes to get up very early in the morning to go jogging. And he's secretly flattered by the groups of 80-something year old ladies who regularly and unabashedly hit on him, with pickup lines like "oooooh look at the handsome prince!!!" They have no idea who he is, no idea that he's famous, no idea what a Buck-Tick is or where to buy one. All they know is they saw that silver fox in his hairband, modestly priced at a department-store price of 2500 yen (price of the man or the headband, you decide, this is a choose your own adventure), because he's an everyman, jogging by the river with his little dog, and their jaded hearts were stirred by his purity of spirit, and by his well-exercised muscles, and by his chiseled features, and his silver beard. 

They heckle and heckle, because when you're 85, you're just over it. "Nice pecs!" "Nice beard!" "Nice biceps!" "Nice bxx!" "Whoo-hoo!" "We like a man with a nice dog!!" "We like a man with a nice headband!!!" And somehow, Hide feels just as small and shamed as any 18-year-old girl getting cat-called by construction workers... and yet... he's still flattered. His ego is inflated and deflated in equal measure (as are other parts of him). Because he knows, work that thang when you still can (and how long can he?? Oh, god, don't go spiraling down this loop anymore...). Because secretly, loss of self-confidence is a very real fear for this extremely handsome, talented, six-foot-tall professional rock star jock. Because everyone's life has to be hard somehow!!! But look, early-morning jogging is a slippery slope. By the time Hide's 70 (oh dear we said it perish that thought now kill it with fire), his wake-up time will have moved back to 4AM. Fun fact: one time Cayce was walking along the seawall in Yokosuka in the middle of winter at 4AM (please, please don't ask why.) And we kid you not, there were not one, not two, but a whole steady stream of very old Japanese people (we mean like octogenarian old), wrapped up in anoraks, jogging along. And, kids, they looked so very, very miserable, running through that blistering wind. They were cold and it was still pitch dark out, and their were heavily hoisting their venerable bodies along the road, and we couldn't help but want to ask them... my dudes, why don't you just wait until it's like 10AM and it's sunny and warm out here and you can see the ocean while you jog? We've got nothing against jogging, exercise or health. These are undoubtedly good things, keeping Japan with the longest life expectancy in the world. But, why put yourselves through this sadness and hardship, at a time in your life when you could and should just be kicking back and working in the garden and cuddling with your cats? Is misery virtue? Welcome to Japan, a country where that question has never been satisfactorily answered.

5. Mr. Sakurai. Hanky Panky Hankies. Okay, we know what you're thinking. You know we know what you're thinking. Lace handkerchiefs into which to loose your impotent fantasies is so much more romantic than tissue paper. "You are the honey I spill all alone" ("Sasayaki"). So much more elegant with a hanky than a tissue from the grocery store, ain't it? And ain't nobody getting any younger. You think he can still actualize those fantasies of his? What woman would do it? What woman could do it? They are all listening to K-Pop and playing otome games now, he's an old, old, OLD man, like 5666666 years old, and those fantasies of his, well, they are epic. Nope, Acchan-chan is alone, alone, in a world of plastic-surgified very young very perfect-faced male idols and very, very scary large and overripe fangirls, and he's a hikikomori who prefers to stay safe at home in his own home sweet home house, thank you very much, and make his own "fun." With some nice, lovely, silk handkerchiefs. 

Except, kids, that's not even what's going on here. You know what Acchan-chan loves, even more than sxx (fun fact: he gave that up long ago, he's faking it, no one is worth it anymore, Covid ruined everything, goodbye, I don't even watch porn anymore, it's all an act, signing off. Nen nen korori yo.) Acchan-chan loves watching really sad, scary, and/or twisted movies. His favorite Ghibli film, by his own accounting in multiple sources, is Grave of the Fireflies. He's currently penning lyrics all about how fucking pissed he is that there is another fucking war in central Europe/Asia. And you know what happens when you write lyrics about the war in Ukraine while watching Grave of the Fireflies on repeat? You cry, kids. You bawl. You snivel. You hork snot and then you snivel some more. Because what the fuck even is this life and why the fuck does it have to suck this much, kthxbai. It sucks for everyone, Ukrainian, Russian, Japanese, American, every fucking person, it just blows (like you blow your nose in that hanky panky hankie). Jobs suck. Being bombed sucks. Being blacklisted by the world through no fault of your own sucks. Being ruled by oligarchs and megalomaniacal egomaniacs sucks. Late-stage capitalism is what's sucking us all dry.

Japan sucks a lot less than the rest of the world in many ways, but when you're Acchan-chan, you feel ALL of the world's feels at once, so you're in constant pain, but you are too gentle and retiring to complain enough to get a well-insured appointment with that spiritual chiropractor. And furthermore, Sugar does not have the time or the patience to be Acchan's napkin on which to rub his bogeys, even though he would prefer Sugar's fur (Kurumi would just scratch his lovely old old OLD 56666666 year old face and glare at him and have done and he just doesn't have the heart to inflict his misery on Maru because for him Maru is a little angel and maybe the only scrap of loveliness this world has left, because Sugar is guilty of Gluttony and Kurumi is guilty of Envy and in a way that makes him feel closer to them bc 7 deadly sins and all but he needs to feel something of the divine just to get the energy to get out of bed and into the studio each morning). But, he's Acchan-chan. He has class. He has style. Whether or not he's getting any hanky-panky, he needs a fucking hanky. Here you go. A whole 4500 yen's worth (per color!), and you can't even go to the tour - he's got that covered, too. This is your hanky to cry in. Can't go to the tour. It sucks. Cry with him in solidarity.  

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