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Old 2012.02.22, 07:02 PM   #38
Tokyo Jihad
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Location: San Antonio! Hoody Hoo
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(BlueApples post beat me to the punch, but lets elaborate)
I'm sure we all realize words can be metaphors. But they don't always have to be. (I don't mean to hold Honto no Tokoro up to this candle, but for the sake of internet arguing) Lets look at The Beatles. They rarely (read: almost never) ever wrote metaphorically. "You Won't see me" was about a breakup, Norwegian Wood was about an affair, Yellow Submarine was about a yellow submarine. And when The Beatles didn't write literally, the song was generally very abstract (read: about essentially nothing.) Strawberry Fields, I am the Walrus.
So lets take the extreme of this literal writing, the Abbey Road centerpiece "I Want You (She's so Heavy)" The lyrics are extremely simple, "I want you so bad it's driving me mad. She's so heavy." That's all she wrote! Any one could have written that right? Even the single rhyme in there is pretty training-wheels-ey. But what you say? There's more to the lyrics than what they literally are?

Exactly.

That's the power of repetition. The pounding and re-pounding of the words, the delivery. Now, it is more obvious why John Lennon would be saying "I want you so bad" over and over again, but if a guy is repeating how a cat was eaten by a hawk, over and over, you should be asking yourself why? Why would someone do that. BlueApple jumped to the conclusion before I got to here, but only after learning what the song was about did it make even more sense. It's like when you see something disturbing on the internet, but you can't help but replay it in your mind. Your inside someone else's head, and seeing their inner replay, with the cacophony bouncing around the inside of his maddening skull.

And even without that, its still just a cool sounding song! It adds some texture, some variety, something really new to the Tokyo Jihen plate which has always so readily been stocked with the safest same-old-same-old. Yeah its about something gross, and sounds a little gross. It's not something that will play on the radio or accompany a make up ad campaign, or reach the widest of audiences. But that shouldn't be the goal of every song. Honto no Tokoro is something really rough, and thought out, and abrasive and almost throws no regard to anything else in the Jihen catalog.

Yes, he repeats on about a couple of disturbing scenes. Anyone could do that. But not everyone does. To me, to write that off is just baffling. If you're going to play that game, then almost everything is meaningless and shallow. John Lennon was just lusting after a girl. Arcade Fire was just singing about being a kid. The Sex Pistols were just singing about being pissed off. Without regarding intent or the very personal deliveries. But not everyone can be so deep as to express having a crush on someone or having fun at the club.

I will end this with a youtube of what I think is one of the dumbest, shallowest songs I've heard: (spoilers: its not Kesha)
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