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Kudos me... for writing what is currently the most viewed blog on H!O! 
I'm even more skeptical about the views actually being human views than I was before though because the viewcount exploded, increasing by close to 150% in the space of a week. Something on my blog increases the hits but I'm not sure what. Could be the clocks, could be the sheer number of words being feasted on by Googlebot. In terms of effort I think I deserve to be top but in terms of content I don't think there'd be many arguments if I said mister.mori's Adventures in Japan is far more interesting. I'll enjoy being top for now, even if I don't even believe myself that it's legitimate.
In any case, here's the halfway stage of the 想いあふれて translations: 想いあふれて itself.
作詞： popY 作曲： 中野雄太
Song Credits
This is where the familiar names stop and is probably the part I should dedicate most words to given that I've already written a lot about the song before, albeit in relation to a transcription/translation with some errors. I finally have an answer to the burning question though... this song was not written by Aya as I'd hoped but that isn't a disappointment. I'm still looking forward to hear what becomes of her scrapbook. For now I'll just have to carry on waiting while she sings great songs written by other people, like popY. Popy is a Japanese toy manufacturer which is part of the Bandai Namco Group. That's clearly not who wrote this song though. Information on popY isn't easy to come by. Searching for popY on Google offers nothing of value because it's not case sensitive. Japanese wikipedia also has nothing on him or her. That's another thing... with a name like popY there's no way of me telling if it's male or female. What I have found out though is that popY composed the music for the w-inds. song Storytelling (from an original Christmas compilation in 2007 called CHRISTMAS HARMONY) and also composed and wrote the lyrics for I believe by a boy band called LEAD, the seventh song on their 2005 album LEAD!HEAT!BEAT! rather than the 綾香 song. That, my friends, is the power of the internet, and no, I'm not deliberately mentioning w-inds at every occasion that I can!
I also didn't know who 中野雄太 was until a few weeks ago and was saved a lot of research by fellow forumer and weekly FIVE STARS with Aya Matsuura uploader sville1999 who informed me that he had composed and arranged for avex artists, particularly 島谷ひとみ and alan, whose Chinese name incidentally (阿蘭 in Traditional Chinese) is what friends and family call my mother.
Both are well worth checking out, although 島谷ひとみ has a brand of J-pop that isn't really my thing, she has a pretty good voice as demonstrated in this lovely song which might sound vaguely familiar to Aya fans. That's 元気を出して, originally by 竹内まりや which could have been covered by Aya in the musical last year, but unfortunately wasn't. Instead it was sung by the character 藤木和恵, played by マルシア who you may recall I mentioned in my last Miki entry (if you read it). alan on the other hand really does do my sort of music. It's powerful, she has a great voice (a necessity to pass the avex audition of 40,000 Chinese!) but on top of that she is Sino-Tibetan and she brings a cultural flavour to the Japanese songs she sings. Now she does have a link with Aya because they appeared together in a fantastic performance on 木枯らしのコンチェルト in November. Getting back on track though, my reliable informant also told me that 中野さん wrote, composed and arranged ひとり as well which I had never noticed. The first instance on Naked Songs was before I cared who created the songs but I really should have noticed it for the single version that appeared as the coupling song for きずな. Maybe a lot of it stems from me being overly pleased about the knockdown price I got it for (￥1000 brand new with free shipping to the other side of the planet when it would cost ￥1050 plus travel expenses to buy it in Japan!). I really liked both arrangements (especially the part at the end of the original which I think may actually be a Theremin!), helped by the fact that I loved the song anyway. The upshot is that Mr Composer and Arranger for this track had already supplied us with a great Aya song. If that wasn't enough he also conducted this one. In simple terms, conductor means orchestra, orchestra means orchestral version, orchestral version means love.
Title
Ironically I don't really have many thoughts on the title!
The one thing I will pick up on is the kanji. When I first heard the song I heard it was called おもいあふれて but didn't know how it was written. おもい can be written as 想い and 思い. All fan accounts of the STB 139 shows reported that the song was called 想いあふれて and I wondered why it wasn't 思いあふれて. It's hard to consisely explain because in English there's only the one word: thoughts. However, thoughts can roughly be split into ideas (思い) and images (想い), by which I mean the fruits of your imagination. 'Images' are not necessarily visual but often the thoughts/memories that fall into that category are. Basically, the title 想いあふれて is concerned with an overflow of images of love and life rather than ideas. Take 結婚しない二人 for instance. The song is heavily based on 想い because it's about how the two people live their lives while unmarried. If it was about 思い then it would just be about the idea of not being married, stuff like legal rights. I can't see many songs being written about that!
Foreword
My first attempt at translating this song can be found here. Most of what I said remains valid if you haven't read it and are crazy enough to want to.
想いあふれて
Thoughts Overflowing
ひとりきりの週末にも
The weekends spent alone
なんだか慣れたみたい
Have become somewhat familiar
きみを思い出さないで過ぎてく日もある
There are even days that go by without me thinking of you
ただ待つだけの毎日は
Every day when I did nothing but wait
ひどく長かったけど
Were wretchedly long though
気持ちにふたをしながら夜明けを待ったわ
I'd put a lid on those feelings and wait for the dawn
どうか忘れないでほしい
I want you to somehow not forget
あんなに愛していたこと
Just how much I loved you
大切で守りたいよと
泣いた日が あったこと
That there were days I cried, wanting to protect this
あんなに愛していたから
Because I loved you that much
あんなにやさしかったから
Because I was that
想い出なんかは欲しくない
I don't just want memories
あの頃に戻りたい
I want to go back to those days
壁の時計の音を聞き
I listened to the sound of the clock on the wall
部屋に花を飾った
And decorated the room with flowers
静けさに身をゆだねて 瞼を閉じるの
Surrendering myself to the serenity, I close my eyes
ただ待つだけの毎日が
私にくれたものは
The thing those days of just waiting gave me was
孤独と背中合わせの少しのプライド
A little pride in standing back-to-back with solitude
このさきも思い出すでしょう
Will you remember in the future
あんなに愛していたこと
Just how much I loved you?
簡単にしまい込めない
I can't just push it aside so easily
温もりが残ります
Your warmth lingers
どんなに愛していたって
Just how much I loved you
どんなに想っていたって
Just how much I thought of you
あなたに届くことはないと今ならばわかります
I now understand these thoughts will not reach you
このさきも思い出すでしょう
Will you remember in the future
あんなに愛していたこと
Just how much I loved you?
大切にしまいこむには
For me to treasure it
温もりが残ります
Your warmth lingers
どんなに愛していたって
Just how much I loved you
どんなに想っていたって
Just how much I thought of you
あなたに届くことはないと今ならばわかります
I now understand these thoughts will not reach you
色褪せることない 想いがあふれます
In my head these unfading thoughts are overflowing
Thoughts?
I guess I'll do a line-by-line run through. I didn't do one last time, only commenting on bits here and there. I'm also going to give the characters of the song names because I'm all rhymed out from the last entry. I'm going to call the narrator Haruka, a female name that means "far away". Also involved is a departed love interest who I'm going to call Makoto, a unisex name that means 'truth'.
Haruka is lonely on the weekends. It wasn't always that way but her weekend company, most recently in the form of Makoto, is such a vague and distant thing to her that it doesn't feel like it ever existed. Old routines have been replaced. I translated 思い出さない as "without me thinking of" but it's more accurately "(I) don't recall/remember" as in the memories aren't brought to the fore. The implication is that in the past Haruka had thought about Makoto every day but the passing of time has eased that somewhat. Her reminiscing is something she consciously does and when it happens it really happens but she bring those memories to the surface daily like she used to. Also remember what I said in the title talk about the difference between the kanji 思and 想.
The awaited dawn could be literal, with the days dragging along for Haruka due to her memories holding her back and keeping her awake all night. What else can you do if you can't sleep because you're haunted? Despite using that word, Makoto has not died. He's departed in the other sense that he's not longer with Haruka. Is there no way to say he's gone without meaning he's gone?
The more you want something to come, the longer it seems to take. It'd be much better to interpret the line metaphorically though. 夜明け is one of several Japanese words for dawn and it literally means "night brightening". Taking this figuratively, the night represents "dark times" so Haruka was waiting for her life to light up again. That's not exactly stretching the imagination though and it's quite an obvious metaphor. In fact, why not see it as both? Nothing prevents us from doing that.
So even though there's all this apparent progression of Haruka getting over losing Makoto, there's still a lot going on in her head. The relationship ended with reluctance. That's putting it rather weakly though as she tried hard to protect it. Whether it was her or Makoto in the wrong, we don't know although I will suggest that it could be harder to get over a relationship ending if you are a fault. You then have the burden of regret to bear as well, which is why when hearing the last two lines of the chorus I can't help but wonder if that's what it implies. Could just be overthinking though. Wouldn't be the first time and definitely wouldn't be the last! The big point to note here is that あんなに also functions to distance Haruka from the feelings, hinting that she no longer feels that way, or at least not quite as passionately. If the feelings were closer then こんなに would have been used. Also 愛してた is past tense which just backs up the previous point.
I don't have an analogue clock anymore. The last one I had was about five or six years ago that ticked so loudly that it took me a while to get used to it and be able to fall asleep each night. That was solved by moving it from my bedside table to the other side of the room! There is something about the ticking of a clock that is relaxing despite the regular mechanical tick reminding me that my life is slowly but surely moving towards its end!
Thinking about it is actually making me want to get an analogue clock again, or maybe a metronome! 
It's not all doom and gloom though. Humans have a handy ability to gain strength through adversity. Maybe that's a bit of a dramatic word because we're talking relationships rather than handicaps but the principle is similar. In this case Haruka has found that the days have made her face up to being alone, which again isn't the most appropriate word because 背中合わせ means "back-to-back". But it's something that has developed spontaneously rather than consciously. It's about being comfortable enough with yourself that you can stand back-to-back like a Spaghetti Western duel knowing that you'll pull through.
By the time the chorus comes again the mindset has changed from the last. It's not so much a case of almost begging Makoto to remember anymore but almost a rhetorical mindset. 残ります means "to remain" but I feel the word 'linger' has a bit more a sensual feel to it. It's a sensation that caresses her shoulders rather than weighs down on them. There's a sense that it doesn't recede at all, always there as a gentle reminder. Forum member ILoveMico commented on my first draft version that this is similar to ひとり. The line 温もりが残ります here is very similar to the line あなたの温もりがまだ残ってる in that song. That's true enough and both songs share the same idea of casting minds back into the past but the concept of reciprocality is starkly missing from this one. So much affection with no place to direct it.
The line that is different in the final chorus would probably make more sense if I paired it up with the one after it and reversed the order but I didn't. There was a reason: I hadn't translated any of the other lines in pairs and didn't want to have any. I didn't say it was a 'good' reason!
In any case, the warmth that's hanging around serves as a reminder which is how the memory can be preserved and stored in a pocket in Haruka's heart.
The final line was added since it was first performed at STB139. Obviously someone thought there wasn't enough in the song to show off Aya's voice. It was given a first run out at Aya's Christmas Dinner show by which time the recording for the album was probably already done. The line is actually more than just padding at the end of the song. It explains exactly why Haruka is still so emotionally involved despite effort to move on. There's no poetic word for 'unfading'. I could have used 'everlasting' but, aside from it being a cliché (as "everlasting love"), I wanted to retain the nuance of the lyrics that the memories will not fade, rather than saying they will last forever. Yes, ultimately they mean the same thing but there's a subtle difference in nuance that not everyone will appreciate. To me, thoughts/memories that are 'everlasting' are explicitly always there while those that are 'unfading' are implicitly always there. You need a certain kind of mindset to think that "not wrong" doesn't quite mean 'right' but that's my take on this. The importance of something that is 'unfading' is that through time it doesn't lose its vibrancy (色あせる means "fade in colour") and stays vivid. The best word would probably be amaranthine' which is far too esoteric to use in a simple song translation. However, in addition to meaning 'unfading', it also implies that something retains its beauty (because of the vibrancy thing). While not everyone will think of unrequited love, or an ended love as beautiful, as twisted as it seems, I do. All it takes is a little imagination. But to sum up the song, there's a really cheesy quote: it's easy to fall in love but hard to find someone to catch you.
Very cheesy but it perfectly sums up this sort of song. So very, very cheesy! 
Just to be a little mischievous and offer a bit of a tongue-in-cheek final word because the song is rather intense; I mentioned last time that there's no explicit mention that the narrator is female and that きみ, or 君 as I wrote back then, can be used by either boys or girls but it refers to the opposite sex. Further to that, there's never an explicit mention about the loss even being a person! You could sing this song about a cat and it would still make perfect sense! Oh no, did I just ruin a great song?
Singing Style
This is more about her voice than the style in which she sings this song. Aya's voice has a slight rasp to it and if it was just a little more obvious I'd call it a smoker's voice, not because you have to be a smoker to have it but because smokers tend to get it. Anyway, this song starts on E♭ above middle C or C4 and goes down to A♭ below C4, otherwise known as A♭4. If you have no idea what that means, just think of it as a reference point. The notes go up A1, B1, C1 all the way through to G1 onto A2 and so on.
The highest note of this song is a C6 which means the range for the whole song is a little over two octaves from the A♭4 but that's not her full range. I haven't worked out what that is yet but lets have a think... The highest note I can recall in an Aya song was in the middle-eight of 笑顔 which my very untrained ear tells me is F6. But then there are also GAM songs where she did the harmonisations and I believe, although again I'm far from certain, that the top note in イチャ♡イチャ Summer is B♭7 although for the live versions it was lowered a bit to around F6 so she wouldn't destroy her larynx during the course of the concert tour and end her career as a singer. イチャ♡イチャ Summer is also the song that I think Aya sings her lowest note in as well. That's an F3 during the verses. I'm not sure she can go much lower than that but it establishes her vocal range at three and a half octaves minimum which is a decent range. Not spectacular but useful. Here's a representation of a 61 key keyboard to give some visuals to all that...
1. The purple key is the lowest note of イチャ♡イチャ Summer
2. The blue key is the lowest note of 想いあふれて
3. The green key is the highest note of 想いあふれて excluding the very last line
4. The yellow key is the highest note of 想いあふれて (the い of final line: 想いがあふれます)
5. The orange key is the highest note of 笑顔, the highest note singing a main melody line
6. The red key is the highest note of イチャ♡イチャ Summer, the highest note in a harmony line
I'm not sure how accurate that is but it's a fair illustration. Now here comes a technicality... the middle eight of 笑顔 was usually left out for TV performances and during the the ダブル レインボウ tour it was lip-synched to the studio recorded one for the CD (as sville1999 brought to my attention) so is that F6 really her top if she can't really do it live? It's quite easy to adjust pitch in a studio to get something sounding perfect on a CD. That's an understatement nowadays because it's incredibly easy. You can even do it in Audacity. Here's a rudimentary demonstration where I played a sequence of E♭ eleven times and then with some simple pitch adjustment turned it into a familiar melody. Primitive, but if someone with as basic music knowledge as me can do it with the most basic equipment and free software then it must be child's play to a professional recording engineer with professional equipment. On the CD version of 笑顔 the note is quite strong and it sounds like she could hold it note for a long time at that level but in reality that's not the case. So is the F6 just a trick like my melody line? Yes, but no as well. While it was in all likelihood augmented a bit for the CD, she can and did sing an F6 on the very first episode of コラボ☆ラボ (08.03.25), one of the few times she's sung the middle eight live and while it's not the most powerful note ever, it's good enough for me! The point of all this is to say that the C6 at the top of 想いあふれて is not at her limit. She even sung E6 pretty comfortably in the サライ (the song I linked after the alan rant) performance but that step E6 to F6 where her voice starts walking a tightrope. She covers a decent range in this song (just under two and a half octaves) and the whole song is nicely within her comfort zone. That's a lot of words to say something that simple!
Musical Style
The music of this song changed considerably since the STB 139 shows where it was a simple acoustic track. As I said before the translation, orchestral version is love. Like the final line of the song, the orchestral track made its first appearance at Aya's Christmas dinner show. I assume it was a backing track rather than squeezing in an orchestra for the one song though. Aya started recording the album at the end of October so it's a safe bet that by mid-December it was pretty much complete (apart from post-production) so they would have already had that available to use. Orchestral versions of songs are great because there are layers of sounds. That's not to say that layers of sound automatically works but that's where 'symphony' comes in. Good arrangers make it so that it works.
One obvious thing remains from the acoustic version though: no drums. In the absence of the beat the musicians either have to count time in their heads (which can go wrong with as many people as an orchestra) or watch the conductor's baton which moves downwards at each beat. That way, if the conductor is out of time then everyone is out of time together so timing errors aren't that noticeable. As a listener it's not something to worry about though so you should just enjoy the music. Or is there something more to it than that? Obviously I believe there is because I wouldn't have written that otherwise! The absense of drums comes at a good point, straight after a drum heavy song. Remember what I said about the drum? Probably not but I'll assume you do. I want to say it 'emphasises' but it's really hard to use that word to describe the effect of absence. But there's none of that beating which I think is... I want to say "very loud" but that would be a paradox. It's very conspicuous and so stark though, not even having a ダブル レインボウ style slow percussion track. It feels like something is missing, and to very good effect. For the benefit of those who don't get it, the heart has been torn out so it no longer beats. Very emo.
Afterword
This is probably my favourite Aya song of all time. It's had about four or five months to brew inside my head but it's kind of song I'd use to introduce people to Aya songs along with stuff like ダブル レインボウ and 灯台. I'd even say it's her best song. When I talk about Aya songs I tend to mean the non-covers which rules out extremely good songs like 渡良瀬橋, 笑顔, あなたに出逢えて and ひこうき雲. However, in this context I think including those would be no problem because I feel 想いあふれて is better still. Well, maybe not better than なごり雪.
As an album song it suffers the same misfortune as 灯台 did though. It seems like it's not placed correctly in the tracklist but a listen through of the CD reveals a bigger problem... there isn't actually anywhere on the album that the song fits! Although I said it's good that it follows boomboomboom because of the beat contrast, that's just to highlight a difference. The two don't meld together very well as as album though so as odd as it may seem, even though the album is based on the theme of thoughts, the title track and perhaps the song that portrays that theme the best doesn't have a comfortable place on it!
Still an absolute corker of a song though.
Romaji (aka Not Enough Thought)
omoiafurete
hitorikiri no shuumatsu ni mo
nandaka nareta mitai
kimi wo omoidasanaide sugiteiku hi mo aru
tada matsu dake no mainichi
hidoku nagatta kedo
kimochi ni futa wo shinagara yoake wo matta wa
douka wasurenaide hoshii
anna ni aishiteita koto
taisetsu de mamoritai yo to naita hi ga atta koto
anna ni aishiteita kara
anna ni yasashikatta kara
omoide nanka wa hoshikunai
ano koro ni modoritai
kabe no tokei no oto wo kiki
heya ni hana wo kazatta
shizukesa ni mi wo yudanete
mabuto wo tojiru no
tada matsu dake no mainichi ga
watashi ni kureta mono wa
kodoku to senaka awase no
sukoshi no puraido
kono saki mou omoidasu deshou
anna ni aishiteita koto
kantan ni shimaikomenai
nukumori ga nokorimasu
donna ni aishiteita tte
donna ni omotteita tte
anata ni todoku koto wa nai to ima naraba wakarimasu
kono saki mou omoidasu deshou
anna ni aishiteita koto
taisetsu ni shimaikomu ni wa
nukumori ga nokorimasu
donna ni aishiteita tte
donna ni omotteita tte
anata ni todoku koto wa nai to ima naraba wakarimasu
iroaseru koto nai omoi ga afuremasu
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I'm even more skeptical about the views actually being human views than I was before though because the viewcount exploded, increasing by close to 150% in the space of a week. Something on my blog increases the hits but I'm not sure what. Could be the clocks, could be the sheer number of words being feasted on by Googlebot. In terms of effort I think I deserve to be top but in terms of content I don't think there'd be many arguments if I said mister.mori's Adventures in Japan is far more interesting. I'll enjoy being top for now, even if I don't even believe myself that it's legitimate.In any case, here's the halfway stage of the 想いあふれて translations: 想いあふれて itself.
作詞： popY 作曲： 中野雄太
Song Credits
This is where the familiar names stop and is probably the part I should dedicate most words to given that I've already written a lot about the song before, albeit in relation to a transcription/translation with some errors. I finally have an answer to the burning question though... this song was not written by Aya as I'd hoped but that isn't a disappointment. I'm still looking forward to hear what becomes of her scrapbook. For now I'll just have to carry on waiting while she sings great songs written by other people, like popY. Popy is a Japanese toy manufacturer which is part of the Bandai Namco Group. That's clearly not who wrote this song though. Information on popY isn't easy to come by. Searching for popY on Google offers nothing of value because it's not case sensitive. Japanese wikipedia also has nothing on him or her. That's another thing... with a name like popY there's no way of me telling if it's male or female. What I have found out though is that popY composed the music for the w-inds. song Storytelling (from an original Christmas compilation in 2007 called CHRISTMAS HARMONY) and also composed and wrote the lyrics for I believe by a boy band called LEAD, the seventh song on their 2005 album LEAD!HEAT!BEAT! rather than the 綾香 song. That, my friends, is the power of the internet, and no, I'm not deliberately mentioning w-inds at every occasion that I can!
I also didn't know who 中野雄太 was until a few weeks ago and was saved a lot of research by fellow forumer and weekly FIVE STARS with Aya Matsuura uploader sville1999 who informed me that he had composed and arranged for avex artists, particularly 島谷ひとみ and alan, whose Chinese name incidentally (阿蘭 in Traditional Chinese) is what friends and family call my mother.
Both are well worth checking out, although 島谷ひとみ has a brand of J-pop that isn't really my thing, she has a pretty good voice as demonstrated in this lovely song which might sound vaguely familiar to Aya fans. That's 元気を出して, originally by 竹内まりや which could have been covered by Aya in the musical last year, but unfortunately wasn't. Instead it was sung by the character 藤木和恵, played by マルシア who you may recall I mentioned in my last Miki entry (if you read it). alan on the other hand really does do my sort of music. It's powerful, she has a great voice (a necessity to pass the avex audition of 40,000 Chinese!) but on top of that she is Sino-Tibetan and she brings a cultural flavour to the Japanese songs she sings. Now she does have a link with Aya because they appeared together in a fantastic performance on 木枯らしのコンチェルト in November. Getting back on track though, my reliable informant also told me that 中野さん wrote, composed and arranged ひとり as well which I had never noticed. The first instance on Naked Songs was before I cared who created the songs but I really should have noticed it for the single version that appeared as the coupling song for きずな. Maybe a lot of it stems from me being overly pleased about the knockdown price I got it for (￥1000 brand new with free shipping to the other side of the planet when it would cost ￥1050 plus travel expenses to buy it in Japan!). I really liked both arrangements (especially the part at the end of the original which I think may actually be a Theremin!), helped by the fact that I loved the song anyway. The upshot is that Mr Composer and Arranger for this track had already supplied us with a great Aya song. If that wasn't enough he also conducted this one. In simple terms, conductor means orchestra, orchestra means orchestral version, orchestral version means love.Title
Ironically I don't really have many thoughts on the title!
The one thing I will pick up on is the kanji. When I first heard the song I heard it was called おもいあふれて but didn't know how it was written. おもい can be written as 想い and 思い. All fan accounts of the STB 139 shows reported that the song was called 想いあふれて and I wondered why it wasn't 思いあふれて. It's hard to consisely explain because in English there's only the one word: thoughts. However, thoughts can roughly be split into ideas (思い) and images (想い), by which I mean the fruits of your imagination. 'Images' are not necessarily visual but often the thoughts/memories that fall into that category are. Basically, the title 想いあふれて is concerned with an overflow of images of love and life rather than ideas. Take 結婚しない二人 for instance. The song is heavily based on 想い because it's about how the two people live their lives while unmarried. If it was about 思い then it would just be about the idea of not being married, stuff like legal rights. I can't see many songs being written about that!Foreword
My first attempt at translating this song can be found here. Most of what I said remains valid if you haven't read it and are crazy enough to want to.
想いあふれて
Thoughts Overflowing
ひとりきりの週末にも
The weekends spent alone
なんだか慣れたみたい
Have become somewhat familiar
きみを思い出さないで過ぎてく日もある
There are even days that go by without me thinking of you
ただ待つだけの毎日は
Every day when I did nothing but wait
ひどく長かったけど
Were wretchedly long though
気持ちにふたをしながら夜明けを待ったわ
I'd put a lid on those feelings and wait for the dawn
どうか忘れないでほしい
I want you to somehow not forget
あんなに愛していたこと
Just how much I loved you
大切で守りたいよと
泣いた日が あったこと
That there were days I cried, wanting to protect this
あんなに愛していたから
Because I loved you that much
あんなにやさしかったから
Because I was that
想い出なんかは欲しくない
I don't just want memories
あの頃に戻りたい
I want to go back to those days
壁の時計の音を聞き
I listened to the sound of the clock on the wall
部屋に花を飾った
And decorated the room with flowers
静けさに身をゆだねて 瞼を閉じるの
Surrendering myself to the serenity, I close my eyes
ただ待つだけの毎日が
私にくれたものは
The thing those days of just waiting gave me was
孤独と背中合わせの少しのプライド
A little pride in standing back-to-back with solitude
このさきも思い出すでしょう
Will you remember in the future
あんなに愛していたこと
Just how much I loved you?
簡単にしまい込めない
I can't just push it aside so easily
温もりが残ります
Your warmth lingers
どんなに愛していたって
Just how much I loved you
どんなに想っていたって
Just how much I thought of you
あなたに届くことはないと今ならばわかります
I now understand these thoughts will not reach you
このさきも思い出すでしょう
Will you remember in the future
あんなに愛していたこと
Just how much I loved you?
大切にしまいこむには
For me to treasure it
温もりが残ります
Your warmth lingers
どんなに愛していたって
Just how much I loved you
どんなに想っていたって
Just how much I thought of you
あなたに届くことはないと今ならばわかります
I now understand these thoughts will not reach you
色褪せることない 想いがあふれます
In my head these unfading thoughts are overflowing
Thoughts?
I guess I'll do a line-by-line run through. I didn't do one last time, only commenting on bits here and there. I'm also going to give the characters of the song names because I'm all rhymed out from the last entry. I'm going to call the narrator Haruka, a female name that means "far away". Also involved is a departed love interest who I'm going to call Makoto, a unisex name that means 'truth'.
Haruka is lonely on the weekends. It wasn't always that way but her weekend company, most recently in the form of Makoto, is such a vague and distant thing to her that it doesn't feel like it ever existed. Old routines have been replaced. I translated 思い出さない as "without me thinking of" but it's more accurately "(I) don't recall/remember" as in the memories aren't brought to the fore. The implication is that in the past Haruka had thought about Makoto every day but the passing of time has eased that somewhat. Her reminiscing is something she consciously does and when it happens it really happens but she bring those memories to the surface daily like she used to. Also remember what I said in the title talk about the difference between the kanji 思and 想.
The awaited dawn could be literal, with the days dragging along for Haruka due to her memories holding her back and keeping her awake all night. What else can you do if you can't sleep because you're haunted? Despite using that word, Makoto has not died. He's departed in the other sense that he's not longer with Haruka. Is there no way to say he's gone without meaning he's gone?
The more you want something to come, the longer it seems to take. It'd be much better to interpret the line metaphorically though. 夜明け is one of several Japanese words for dawn and it literally means "night brightening". Taking this figuratively, the night represents "dark times" so Haruka was waiting for her life to light up again. That's not exactly stretching the imagination though and it's quite an obvious metaphor. In fact, why not see it as both? Nothing prevents us from doing that.So even though there's all this apparent progression of Haruka getting over losing Makoto, there's still a lot going on in her head. The relationship ended with reluctance. That's putting it rather weakly though as she tried hard to protect it. Whether it was her or Makoto in the wrong, we don't know although I will suggest that it could be harder to get over a relationship ending if you are a fault. You then have the burden of regret to bear as well, which is why when hearing the last two lines of the chorus I can't help but wonder if that's what it implies. Could just be overthinking though. Wouldn't be the first time and definitely wouldn't be the last! The big point to note here is that あんなに also functions to distance Haruka from the feelings, hinting that she no longer feels that way, or at least not quite as passionately. If the feelings were closer then こんなに would have been used. Also 愛してた is past tense which just backs up the previous point.
I don't have an analogue clock anymore. The last one I had was about five or six years ago that ticked so loudly that it took me a while to get used to it and be able to fall asleep each night. That was solved by moving it from my bedside table to the other side of the room! There is something about the ticking of a clock that is relaxing despite the regular mechanical tick reminding me that my life is slowly but surely moving towards its end!
Thinking about it is actually making me want to get an analogue clock again, or maybe a metronome! It's not all doom and gloom though. Humans have a handy ability to gain strength through adversity. Maybe that's a bit of a dramatic word because we're talking relationships rather than handicaps but the principle is similar. In this case Haruka has found that the days have made her face up to being alone, which again isn't the most appropriate word because 背中合わせ means "back-to-back". But it's something that has developed spontaneously rather than consciously. It's about being comfortable enough with yourself that you can stand back-to-back like a Spaghetti Western duel knowing that you'll pull through.
By the time the chorus comes again the mindset has changed from the last. It's not so much a case of almost begging Makoto to remember anymore but almost a rhetorical mindset. 残ります means "to remain" but I feel the word 'linger' has a bit more a sensual feel to it. It's a sensation that caresses her shoulders rather than weighs down on them. There's a sense that it doesn't recede at all, always there as a gentle reminder. Forum member ILoveMico commented on my first draft version that this is similar to ひとり. The line 温もりが残ります here is very similar to the line あなたの温もりがまだ残ってる in that song. That's true enough and both songs share the same idea of casting minds back into the past but the concept of reciprocality is starkly missing from this one. So much affection with no place to direct it.
The line that is different in the final chorus would probably make more sense if I paired it up with the one after it and reversed the order but I didn't. There was a reason: I hadn't translated any of the other lines in pairs and didn't want to have any. I didn't say it was a 'good' reason!
In any case, the warmth that's hanging around serves as a reminder which is how the memory can be preserved and stored in a pocket in Haruka's heart.The final line was added since it was first performed at STB139. Obviously someone thought there wasn't enough in the song to show off Aya's voice. It was given a first run out at Aya's Christmas Dinner show by which time the recording for the album was probably already done. The line is actually more than just padding at the end of the song. It explains exactly why Haruka is still so emotionally involved despite effort to move on. There's no poetic word for 'unfading'. I could have used 'everlasting' but, aside from it being a cliché (as "everlasting love"), I wanted to retain the nuance of the lyrics that the memories will not fade, rather than saying they will last forever. Yes, ultimately they mean the same thing but there's a subtle difference in nuance that not everyone will appreciate. To me, thoughts/memories that are 'everlasting' are explicitly always there while those that are 'unfading' are implicitly always there. You need a certain kind of mindset to think that "not wrong" doesn't quite mean 'right' but that's my take on this. The importance of something that is 'unfading' is that through time it doesn't lose its vibrancy (色あせる means "fade in colour") and stays vivid. The best word would probably be amaranthine' which is far too esoteric to use in a simple song translation. However, in addition to meaning 'unfading', it also implies that something retains its beauty (because of the vibrancy thing). While not everyone will think of unrequited love, or an ended love as beautiful, as twisted as it seems, I do. All it takes is a little imagination. But to sum up the song, there's a really cheesy quote: it's easy to fall in love but hard to find someone to catch you.
Very cheesy but it perfectly sums up this sort of song. So very, very cheesy! Just to be a little mischievous and offer a bit of a tongue-in-cheek final word because the song is rather intense; I mentioned last time that there's no explicit mention that the narrator is female and that きみ, or 君 as I wrote back then, can be used by either boys or girls but it refers to the opposite sex. Further to that, there's never an explicit mention about the loss even being a person! You could sing this song about a cat and it would still make perfect sense! Oh no, did I just ruin a great song?
Singing Style
This is more about her voice than the style in which she sings this song. Aya's voice has a slight rasp to it and if it was just a little more obvious I'd call it a smoker's voice, not because you have to be a smoker to have it but because smokers tend to get it. Anyway, this song starts on E♭ above middle C or C4 and goes down to A♭ below C4, otherwise known as A♭4. If you have no idea what that means, just think of it as a reference point. The notes go up A1, B1, C1 all the way through to G1 onto A2 and so on.
The highest note of this song is a C6 which means the range for the whole song is a little over two octaves from the A♭4 but that's not her full range. I haven't worked out what that is yet but lets have a think... The highest note I can recall in an Aya song was in the middle-eight of 笑顔 which my very untrained ear tells me is F6. But then there are also GAM songs where she did the harmonisations and I believe, although again I'm far from certain, that the top note in イチャ♡イチャ Summer is B♭7 although for the live versions it was lowered a bit to around F6 so she wouldn't destroy her larynx during the course of the concert tour and end her career as a singer. イチャ♡イチャ Summer is also the song that I think Aya sings her lowest note in as well. That's an F3 during the verses. I'm not sure she can go much lower than that but it establishes her vocal range at three and a half octaves minimum which is a decent range. Not spectacular but useful. Here's a representation of a 61 key keyboard to give some visuals to all that...
1. The purple key is the lowest note of イチャ♡イチャ Summer
2. The blue key is the lowest note of 想いあふれて
3. The green key is the highest note of 想いあふれて excluding the very last line
4. The yellow key is the highest note of 想いあふれて (the い of final line: 想いがあふれます)
5. The orange key is the highest note of 笑顔, the highest note singing a main melody line
6. The red key is the highest note of イチャ♡イチャ Summer, the highest note in a harmony line
I'm not sure how accurate that is but it's a fair illustration. Now here comes a technicality... the middle eight of 笑顔 was usually left out for TV performances and during the the ダブル レインボウ tour it was lip-synched to the studio recorded one for the CD (as sville1999 brought to my attention) so is that F6 really her top if she can't really do it live? It's quite easy to adjust pitch in a studio to get something sounding perfect on a CD. That's an understatement nowadays because it's incredibly easy. You can even do it in Audacity. Here's a rudimentary demonstration where I played a sequence of E♭ eleven times and then with some simple pitch adjustment turned it into a familiar melody. Primitive, but if someone with as basic music knowledge as me can do it with the most basic equipment and free software then it must be child's play to a professional recording engineer with professional equipment. On the CD version of 笑顔 the note is quite strong and it sounds like she could hold it note for a long time at that level but in reality that's not the case. So is the F6 just a trick like my melody line? Yes, but no as well. While it was in all likelihood augmented a bit for the CD, she can and did sing an F6 on the very first episode of コラボ☆ラボ (08.03.25), one of the few times she's sung the middle eight live and while it's not the most powerful note ever, it's good enough for me! The point of all this is to say that the C6 at the top of 想いあふれて is not at her limit. She even sung E6 pretty comfortably in the サライ (the song I linked after the alan rant) performance but that step E6 to F6 where her voice starts walking a tightrope. She covers a decent range in this song (just under two and a half octaves) and the whole song is nicely within her comfort zone. That's a lot of words to say something that simple!
Musical Style
The music of this song changed considerably since the STB 139 shows where it was a simple acoustic track. As I said before the translation, orchestral version is love. Like the final line of the song, the orchestral track made its first appearance at Aya's Christmas dinner show. I assume it was a backing track rather than squeezing in an orchestra for the one song though. Aya started recording the album at the end of October so it's a safe bet that by mid-December it was pretty much complete (apart from post-production) so they would have already had that available to use. Orchestral versions of songs are great because there are layers of sounds. That's not to say that layers of sound automatically works but that's where 'symphony' comes in. Good arrangers make it so that it works.
One obvious thing remains from the acoustic version though: no drums. In the absence of the beat the musicians either have to count time in their heads (which can go wrong with as many people as an orchestra) or watch the conductor's baton which moves downwards at each beat. That way, if the conductor is out of time then everyone is out of time together so timing errors aren't that noticeable. As a listener it's not something to worry about though so you should just enjoy the music. Or is there something more to it than that? Obviously I believe there is because I wouldn't have written that otherwise! The absense of drums comes at a good point, straight after a drum heavy song. Remember what I said about the drum? Probably not but I'll assume you do. I want to say it 'emphasises' but it's really hard to use that word to describe the effect of absence. But there's none of that beating which I think is... I want to say "very loud" but that would be a paradox. It's very conspicuous and so stark though, not even having a ダブル レインボウ style slow percussion track. It feels like something is missing, and to very good effect. For the benefit of those who don't get it, the heart has been torn out so it no longer beats. Very emo.
Afterword
This is probably my favourite Aya song of all time. It's had about four or five months to brew inside my head but it's kind of song I'd use to introduce people to Aya songs along with stuff like ダブル レインボウ and 灯台. I'd even say it's her best song. When I talk about Aya songs I tend to mean the non-covers which rules out extremely good songs like 渡良瀬橋, 笑顔, あなたに出逢えて and ひこうき雲. However, in this context I think including those would be no problem because I feel 想いあふれて is better still. Well, maybe not better than なごり雪.
As an album song it suffers the same misfortune as 灯台 did though. It seems like it's not placed correctly in the tracklist but a listen through of the CD reveals a bigger problem... there isn't actually anywhere on the album that the song fits! Although I said it's good that it follows boomboomboom because of the beat contrast, that's just to highlight a difference. The two don't meld together very well as as album though so as odd as it may seem, even though the album is based on the theme of thoughts, the title track and perhaps the song that portrays that theme the best doesn't have a comfortable place on it!
Still an absolute corker of a song though.Romaji (aka Not Enough Thought)
omoiafurete
hitorikiri no shuumatsu ni mo
nandaka nareta mitai
kimi wo omoidasanaide sugiteiku hi mo aru
tada matsu dake no mainichi
hidoku nagatta kedo
kimochi ni futa wo shinagara yoake wo matta wa
douka wasurenaide hoshii
anna ni aishiteita koto
taisetsu de mamoritai yo to naita hi ga atta koto
anna ni aishiteita kara
anna ni yasashikatta kara
omoide nanka wa hoshikunai
ano koro ni modoritai
kabe no tokei no oto wo kiki
heya ni hana wo kazatta
shizukesa ni mi wo yudanete
mabuto wo tojiru no
tada matsu dake no mainichi ga
watashi ni kureta mono wa
kodoku to senaka awase no
sukoshi no puraido
kono saki mou omoidasu deshou
anna ni aishiteita koto
kantan ni shimaikomenai
nukumori ga nokorimasu
donna ni aishiteita tte
donna ni omotteita tte
anata ni todoku koto wa nai to ima naraba wakarimasu
kono saki mou omoidasu deshou
anna ni aishiteita koto
taisetsu ni shimaikomu ni wa
nukumori ga nokorimasu
donna ni aishiteita tte
donna ni omotteita tte
anata ni todoku koto wa nai to ima naraba wakarimasu
iroaseru koto nai omoi ga afuremasu
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Always loved your translations! It's not just mapping the lyrics from one language to another. You have the detailed background info, your analysis, and so on. This time there is even this illustration!
Thank you!