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Old 2012.01.13, 01:56 PM   #11
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Man I was just thinking today about Suberidai is the perfect breakup song. As in, the perfect song for a breakup, definitely not about a perfect break up. She's nervous, sad, hopeless...but at the same time she knows it's for the best. akfjkadfjk I love it.

I really like the idea for this thread, by the way. I'm totally a lyrics person.
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Old 2012.01.14, 02:09 AM   #12
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I can totally see that.

"....KIOKU GA USURERU NO O MATTEIRU~ *jazz jam and Shiina scatting as the stage turns dark*"
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Old 2012.01.27, 11:50 AM   #13
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Okay like I said I really like this thread so I'm not going to let it die out so easily.
What do you guys think that Toumei Ningen is about? I don't think it's quite what the title implies of feeling physically invisible...for a lot of the song, it seems like it's about her being detached/disconnected by choice. Possibly she's trying to reconcile this with finally having feelings for someone? Ending it with the line about being excited to see the person again seems to be in contrast to the rest of the song.
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Old 2012.01.27, 01:37 PM   #14
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I don't know how it functions in Japanese, but I've heard "invisible person" in English used to refer to somewhere who is very transparent with their feelings, possibly meaning "not complex" in regards to how they show their feelings.

The line "boku ni wa kantan ja nai koto da yo" which I think means "I'm not simple" or something. So maybe it's about that.

I don't know, like with most Shiina lyrics.
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Old 2012.02.07, 09:27 PM   #15
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I'm really disturbed by how much she references opiate abuse. Not just in Muzai Moratorium, which is of course pretty much all about the mythic life of Kurt Cobain... (Or is she drawing from real experience?? I sometimes wonder...)

I noticed a few lines in Atarashii Bunmei-kaika that kinda just SET OFF SOME ALARMS. I think she might have written it in English for a reason.

The song begins...

"Knock me out now (opiates used to numb & aid in sleep)
The ground I’m on is failing (the sensation of getting high, the head rush)
One more hit and I go down (is this as literal as I think?)

All I ever see is pretty flower power (opiates derived from the poppy flower)
But you know I’m really starving for the other side... (the other side of... consciousness? mental health?)


I mean, I can't pick apart every single line in the song, but I felt like there was a theme being built...

"Sometimes it feels
The more you want and want it (omg addiction?)
You get caught and forget it’s never real (drug abuse is not real happiness, derp)
Sometimes I find
I think I’m losing my mind (yikes)
I get caught and forget it’s never real
Hello goodbye
See and touch, think and know
Feel, forget, breathe now because
Something has gone wrong here, I said..."


The song begins to look hopeful and then gets really scary.


No don’t doubt
The ground I’m on is failing
One more hit and I go down
I go down
What was right?
This past is not worth saving (drugs mentioned in many other songs... might post those too sometime later.)
I don’t want another round
Nothing to be found (rock bottom?)
What is wrong?
The past is what I’m craving (withdrawal??)
Both my feet have left the ground (literally getting high)
Nowhere to be found
(yeesh)
so... yeah. Don't do drugs yall, watch Intervention.

edit: I also just thought about the title of the song, which is officially "Brand New Civilization" - It makes me think of the difference between people who are on drugs and sober people. It's like the difference between civilization and barbarism. There is no willpower or delayed gratification or concentration on the greater good - just visceral pleasures. Hmmmmm.

Last edited by apple pie : 2012.02.07 at 09:33 PM.
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Old 2012.02.08, 02:56 PM   #16
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That's certainly a valid interpretation, but I read in an interview that the song more directly is about Japan after the earthquake.

Like "we may have gotten knocked out, but we can still recover" Brand New Civilization = Japan Re-Making Itself after Tragedy.

It makes sense because the PV certainly has a lot to do with "Cheer Songs" (with the cheerleaders), and the lines that don't fit the opium theme fit the cheer song theme.
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Old 2012.02.08, 05:54 PM   #17
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So I'm posting what I posted to my tumblr today just because it's been on my mind.

Ringo loves to write about drugs:
  • Morphine (no arguing this one?)
  • Sid to Hakuchuumu (she refers to Sid Vicious again in Koko de Kiss Shite, Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose as a part of a death pact he had with his lover Nancy Spungen - it’s a fuckin weird, unsummarizable story.)
  • Izonshou / Substance Abuse Disorder (also no arguing this one?)
  • Gibs (refers to Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love, both heroin addicts. Kurt also died under weird conspiracy-laden drug/love circumstances.)
  • Marunouchi Sadistic (getting high & even tripping, also referring more to Kurt Cobain… “a hit of this distortion makes me high”)
  • Dopamint (a play on dopamine - interesting to note that dopamine is not responsible for making you feel high, but for making you addicted. At least, this is what I gathered from a 10-second glance at a wiki.)
These are just the blatant ones! I could still be completely wrong, though! Just trying to start a conversation… I’m thinking it might be a discography-wide metaphor for being [really, really] crazy in love.

fake edit: It’s hard for me to talk about lyric analysis seriously, because I feel too many degrees separate from it. There’s so much I can never hope to gather just because of structural liguistics. :/ goddamn nihongo desu

I do want to say thank you frecklegirl for translating so many of these songs. Even though it enables my Anglocentric interpretations.
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Old 2012.02.08, 10:44 PM   #18
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Before I read the lyrics to Yattsuke Shigoto, I always imagined it was a song about breaking out of the stereotypical/expected female expectations (house wives etc). I guess I thought about that because of the vacuum turning off in the beginning.

Okay so yeah that interpretation is definitely more of what I imagine in my head.
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Old 2012.02.08, 11:01 PM   #19
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When I heard the vacuum the first time I realised how much I needed to vacuum my carpet that day
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Old 2012.02.09, 07:56 AM   #20
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Ringo was part of the punk-rock scene during her teenage years, so it's not unfathomable that she used and wrote about drugs.
But Sid Viscious and Kurt Cobain are just two of the many artists she references in songs, such as Janis Ian and Benzie (Blanket Jet City).

Yattsuke Shigoto is a very interesting song. After re-reading the lyrics a couple of times, I think it is about the boredom and monotony of everyday life. When you look at it from that perspective, the vacuum cleaner makes perfect sense. And the house-wife angle is interesting, because she's written about house-wives before such as in Aisakasa no Choushoku (sp?). Uki played the vacuum cleaner for the KZK Yattsuke Shigoto.
Comparing the two versions of Yattsuke Shigoto, I think they both change the meaning in subtle ways. In KZK, Ringo SOUNDS bored singing the song, whereas in ZCS, she sounds frustrated. KZK is "life is bland and monotonous, and there's nothing you can do" while ZCS is "life is bland, and fuck that!!!"
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