Songs you have changed your view on after reading lyrics

[susel 31]

As much as I agree with the statements such as 'Music has no language' there are quite a few songs, reading lyrics translations of which changed my view on them/left an impact. I'm sure you have some too, so let's share them?

I'll start with one of my most beloved lyricists is Mao of SID, who is great at conveying whole stories into his two verses that would otherwise take a novel to unwrap themselves.

One of those is 妄想日記 (Mousou Nikki)! http://youtu.be/PNMtZMi7xLI

Translation http://gurakko.livejournal.com/3882.html

A catchy upbeat song that turned out to be about a creepy female stalker

And guess what? Five years later they wrote a sequel!

妄想日記 2 http://youtu.be/ShdAO2XX1_M

Translation http://gurakko.livejournal.com/120745.html

I'm specifically enamoured with this line "I'll dump her for you", and every time I listen to these songs now I can't help feeling sorry for that poor dude What about you? ^^

[sai 868]

Well, I don't recall having changed views on certain songs, but I assume some song are completely different than your initial impression. I thought BUCK-TICK's Alice in Wonder Underground was innocent enough and was probably Alice in Wonderland-related (because D did Yami no kuni no Alice and that one DID have lyrics related to the fairy tale) until Atsushi started singing about wanting to slide into something *HINTHINT*. I thought Kagrra,'s true beauty was also in their lyrics, because no matter how simple the melodies, Isshi could always tell an entire story throughout one simple song.

[Tokage 5930]

I really like amber gris' lyrics for some reason.

9goats' too.

They have a sort of similar atmosphere that just speaks to me.

[Aion 184]

Not something Japanese though, but a Spanish song xD

Righeiro - Vamos a la Playa

never knew it was about the Cold War xD

qCVQpcY1au4

rough translation:

Let's go to the beach

The bomb has detonated

due to the radiation

we're getting a blue skin

Let's go to the beach

Put on a sombrero

Cause the radioactive wind

will mess up all your hair

Let's go to the beach

The ocean is finally clean

No stinking dead fish

Only fluorescent water

[Number Girl 48]

There are songs I used to dislike or only moderately appreciate up until I read the lyrics.

Number Girl's translations used to always surprise me because of the sometimes very melodic songs they have. I used to think "Trampoline Girl" was a silly upbeat track until I read the translation and realized it was a vague metaphor to suicide.

[susel 31]

Not something Japanese though, but a Spanish song xD

Righeiro - Vamos a la Playa

never knew it was about the Cold War xD

qCVQpcY1au4

rough translation:

Let's go to the beach

The bomb has detonated

due to the radiation

we're getting a blue skin

Let's go to the beach

Put on a sombrero

Cause the radioactive wind

will mess up all your hair

Let's go to the beach

The ocean is finally clean

No stinking dead fish

Only fluorescent water

LOL yes, yes, I'm looking for something like this xD

I agree on Isshi's and Temari's lyrics, those are always beautiful <3

I can't find a translation but Eat you alive's 'ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS' though generally express love to some woman, actually are addressed to one's mother who is an alcoholic

[susel 31]

There are songs I used to dislike or only moderately appreciate up until I read the lyrics.

This too happens to me very often. That's why I'm so addicted to song translations

[237Q 154]

There are songs I used to dislike or only moderately appreciate up until I read the lyrics.

a song needs to be catchy (or in case of heavier songs-have a very strong and good melody) for me to love it before reading/properly listening to the lyrics, and I myself find it sad how many great lyrical pieces I miss because I don't like their melody (of course, I need to at least like the song to even think of looking up the lyrics).

I'm lucky for having my "band phases" that in most cases last around a month each where beside listening to band's discography i also check most lyrics out. That's how I found most of my favorite songs, esp by boogieman and Dog inthe PWO which are both my favorite bands now.

I must confess I got quite disappointed in Jackman's lyrics as their songs in terms of composition/catchiness/instruments/melody are somewhere around my ideal everyday music, and their lyrics, even though they do try to express a nice message, can get borderline stupid. Zuck is different though, their music style is very similar to Jackman's, but their lyrics are far better in style of writing, expressing the thought and in story.

Also, a band that needs just a little bit of stylistic boost to their lyrics is ACE, their lyrics are very good comparing to most bands, but considering that they're one of the most interesting and by far the best relatively new band on the scene, I think they should pay just some more attention to their lyrics to achieve the complete quality.

[Augie1995 325]

Some of the ones I can name right now are The GazettE's UNTITLED and Yoin.

UVERworld's Awayakuba

Alice Nine- Stargazer and GEMINI

[Jigsaw9 6783]

To be honest, I don't really look up translations much, but of course I have some prime examples for this subject as well. xD Two come to mind right now, BUCK-TICK's Misshitsu and cali≠gari's Mama ga boku wo sutete Papa ga boku wo okashita hi.

B-T's song, even after reading the translation, can be a bit ambiguous - much like Every Breath You Take by The Police -, either about a person singing of how much he loves and wants to protect that certain somebody, or just about a really creepy obsessive objectifying psychopath, lol. cali≠gari's song is a pretty upbeat and gentle one but the lyrics are pretty melancholic and at times shocking... yeah I know, the title (The day mama left me and papa raped me) should've given it away but I didn't know that much Japanese at the time.

[susel 31]

a song needs to be catchy (or in case of heavier songs-have a very strong and good melody) for me to love it before reading/properly listening to the lyrics, and I myself find it sad how many great lyrical pieces I miss because I don't like their melody (of course, I need to at least like the song to even think of looking up the lyrics).

I'm lucky for having my "band phases" that in most cases last around a month each where beside listening to band's discography i also check most lyrics out. That's how I found most of my favorite songs, esp by boogieman and Dog inthe PWO which are both my favorite bands now.

I must confess I got quite disappointed in Jackman's lyrics as their songs in terms of composition/catchiness/instruments/melody are somewhere around my ideal everyday music, and their lyrics, even though they do try to express a nice message, can get borderline stupid. Zuck is different though, their music style is very similar to Jackman's, but their lyrics are far better in style of writing, expressing the thought and in story.

Also, a band that needs just a little bit of stylistic boost to their lyrics is ACE, their lyrics are very good comparing to most bands, but considering that they're one of the most interesting and by far the best relatively new band on the scene, I think they should pay just some more attention to their lyrics to achieve the complete quality.

what are Dog in PWO's lyrics about usually?

as for ZUCK, Yuu's lyrics for 176biz somehow were always bitter regardless if they were about society or some romantical stuff. But that suited the music, I wonder how it goes with ZUCK now.

cali≠gari's song is a pretty upbeat and gentle one but the lyrics are pretty melancholic and at times shocking... yeah I know, the title (The day mama left me and papa raped me) should've given it away but I didn't know that much Japanese at the time.

I didn't know about this one O_O I need to read more of their lyrics

There are also many of those that you can guess subject/mood of but miss true meaning.

D=out's 'Music Nippon' for instance, sounds rather patriotic with all that clapping but is really mocking modern society.

[237Q 154]

what are Dog in PWO's lyrics about usually?

well if I had to categorize them:

there are a lot of songs in which they (Haru) criticize society and exhibits some of his social ideals, but most of these are on their older releases (eg. Because Dead, Koran, Zecchou high speaker, Kimyou na circus...). they have a lot of positive songs that honestly inspire me to move forward, and even those that are written in a very simple style have that underlaying dose of profoundness when you analyze them better (eg Speed tonight, Miracle GO!, Aozora Halation, Apple world go round, Sugar noise...). there are also quite a few songs that talk about self-hate and lack of self-esteem, of which some have an amazing layer of psychological process of overcoming that, and some that are not so positive (eg WONDERxWONDER, God days for the first, and StyleLover:Rubber-style and watagumo rex (partly) for the latter). along with social ones, some of their themes are rather explicit and that's the thing i love them the most for, as they're not afraid to speak out, for example-Psycho no tegami is a song about overly-obsessed fangirls. They have many sweet themes too, but I respect them a lot for not overdoing standard mellow love songs, and even when they do, they take quite a different approach than most other bands do (eg Shouting star, Rainy Rain...). They also have beautiful songs about friendship (all of their weird every-bandmember-is-a-vocalist-all-of-a-sudden songs, Smiley...) and about how much they love their fans (Dear my, ONE, arutora...)

(lol I just kinda summed up 3 years of someones hard work)

Also, Ordermade (Haru's previous band) had some very amazing lyrics too, though they are much darker and somehow their charm is more in the style and word-play than the themes themself.

[Sakura Seven 593]

Million Dead Baby Songs by amber gris. It's actually a kinda sad/bittersweet love song.

[Heroin 53]

When I first listened to "What She Said" by The Smiths it seemed that it was a sort of happy content song, but of course it was totally gonna be the opposite. Kind of a sad lyrical song, but I don't have any mood changes of the song though it talks about a depressed woman. I now think the song is more awesome ^__^

[Tokage 5930]

oh, special shoutout to Metronome/FLOPPY/GalapagosS as well for having upbeat music and ( often )extremely negative, yet rather 'simple' lyrics.

Also bonus points to Eiji's projects (Codomo A, Makaroni, Sandwich de 120pun?, Kibouya) for telling really weird stories in most of their songs. (ie: being sold into a circus only to get raped by your uncle and then murdered by said uncle for falling in love with a girl, japanese government planting bombs inside girls' vaginas, stuff about cults, suicide and more) Again with somewhat upbeat melodies most of the itme

[*りりこ* 14]

Not something Japanese though, but a Spanish song xD

Righeiro - Vamos a la Playa

never knew it was about the Cold War xD

qCVQpcY1au4

rough translation:

Let's go to the beach

The bomb has detonated

due to the radiation

we're getting a blue skin

Let's go to the beach

Put on a sombrero

Cause the radioactive wind

will mess up all your hair

Let's go to the beach

The ocean is finally clean

No stinking dead fish

Only fluorescent water

LOL yes, yes, I'm looking for something like this xD

I agree on Isshi's and Temari's lyrics, those are always beautiful <3

I can't find a translation but Eat you alive's 'ADULT CHILDREN OF ALCOHOLICS' though generally express love to some woman, actually are addressed to one's mother who is an alcoholic

I am Italian and Vamos A La Playa is an Italian song even if it's sung in Spanish ^^' and the performer name is Righeira with final A XD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vamos_a_la ... ra_song%29