Do you listen to songs of other languages. A language that you are not familiar with? I listen to Japanese music but I don’t speak Japanese.
And because I don’t live in Japan or listen to aJapanese radio station. I choose artists either based on recommendation or the fact that that artist has a nice Japanese name. I end up listening to similar artists like Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro, Hikaru Utada, and occasionally Hello!Project groups. Hello!Project is some sort of an organization to nurture teeny pop princesses and throw them to form a group. The brain child of Tsunku, Hello!Project includes groups like Morning Musume [Musume=Girls], Coconut Musume, MiniMoni, PetitMoni, Aa! and more. Very successful due to marketing and looks.
Then the question comes. I always ask myself, “Why do I listen to music that I don’t understand?”. I can’t provide a decent answer on that one. All I can say is that I like the flavor of the music. The beat of the music. The vocals, and well.. the broken English.
So the day arrives that I tell myself, I got to at least why out what they are singing! I roughly know it’s what type of songs as I know some very common words, plus the tune suggests it too.
But I want to know the details. So one day, I did.
I start of with searching for Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Real Me”. I was surprised with the results. I mean, wow, she sang some parts in English! I didn’t know it was English. I do know there’s English in that song, but I didn’t know there’s so much in there.
Some parts of her song:
What I get?
[No translation needed]
What you get?
Te ni shiteru mono wa
[It may be an illusion]
Shinjitai dake de
[And we may only want to believe]
Gensou nano kamo na
[That we have got]a woman could be dangerous
a woman could be generous
in order to survive
Sonna ni itsudemo
[We cannot always be]
Ii Ko bakari de irarenai
[So good girls]a woman could be having fun
a woman could be like a nun
in order to survive
honto no watashi wa
[As I know]
Anata ga mite de kureru kara
[You see the real me]Translations done by Masa.
Personally, I find the lyrics rather amusing. “A woman could be having fun, a woman could be like a nun”, I didn’t know that’s what she sang before I checked. Sister Act 1 and 2 are enough to proveAyumi wrong that nuns cannot have fun.
If it’s the English that you feel doesn’t make sense, I think Ayumi wrote it herself, please forgive her, lol. As for why the lyrics itself doesn’t make sense, well, most of her lyrics are like that. It probably make more sense before it’s translated to English.
