音の帯〜Phonon Belt

"Song of the Force" (or "Song of Power," perhaps) is another one of my favorites. It seems to be a song about folksongs, and the rhythm and sound effects are fantastic at evoking that magical, spiritual feeling of a night out in the open, when you hear animals and feel how insignificant you are.

Which brings me to a big translation problem. Usually I translation Hirasawa's lyrics from the first-person "I" point of view, even though most of the time he never uses a pronoun other than kimi/ "you." Not stating the subject of a verb works fine in Japanese, but not in English. Among other things, this song mentions acting as a flock (or herd, or group), which sounds awkward if it's from a single person's point of view. So this time (after much debate) I went with "we" throughout the entire song. I think this works with the idea of how communal folksongs typically are.

As always, I leave it to your interpretation.

平沢進 -「力の唄」
( Japanese lyrics )
( Romaji lyrics )


Hirasawa Susumu - "Song of the Force"
( My very awkward English translation )

Translation Notes:( Read more... )

I love the Mediterranean (?) feel to this song!

As for the title, "The Double of the Wind" is the official English title from Mr. Hirasawa's website. ( Some thoughts. )

In the lyrics below, lines in parentheses are sung in the background.

平沢進 - "風の分身"
( Japanese lyrics )


Hirasawa Susumu - "Kaze no Bunshin"
( Romaji lyrics )



Hirasawa Susumu - "The Double of the Wind"
( My English translation )

* What I translate as "with a whoosh" is ひゅうと (hyuu to), which is onomatopoeia. I imagine it to be the whooshing, rushing sound of a strong wind.

So I was listening to "平沢進のテクノ実験工房" ("Hirasawa's Techno Experiment Workshop"?), an old radio show Mr. Hirasawa did on FM Gunma in 1994-1995. (If you understand Japanese, you can listen to the show on NicoNico.) In episode 7, he describes the Super Jam software that he uses on his Amiga computer(s), which can be used (among other things) to have the computer automatically compose a unique piece of music in a variety of styles. Although I don't understand exactly what the process entailed, Mr. Hirasawa apparently input a bunch of his song data into the computer and then tweaked the software so that it would generate music in the "Hirasawa-style." On the radio show, he then played a song he claims was arranged by the computer using this method. To my surprise, it was "Take the Wheel"! I would never have guessed that this cool song was arranged by a random computer program! But I guess a computer that's been fed only Hirasawa music and then brainwashed in the Hirasawa style will eventually create something that Hirasawa likes and wants to use. Pretty cool.


平沢進 - "舵をとれ"
( Japanese lyrics. )


Hirasawa Susumu - "Kaji o Tore
( Romaji lyrics. )



Hirasawa Susumu - "Take the Wheel"

( My English translation. )


TRANSLATION NOTES: ( Read more... )