Translation: M-line Music #1 Ogata Risa Interview

Translation by Lurkette

Requested by Kumi-chan

Were you familiar with the song, "Mayonaka no door~stay with me"?
To be honest, I was not familiar, but I looked it up on YouTube, and lots of people had done covers of it. I knew that city pop was really popular, but when it was decided that I would be singing this song, that's how I realized how big it was.

What did you think when you first heard the original song?
My very first impression was that the melody sounded very cool. As I listened more, though, I felt that the original singer, Matsubara Miki, also had a very cool voice, so I started to get worried that I would be able to live up to a song this cool. But I personally really liked the song, so I practiced and hoped that I could convey to everyone how much I enjoyed it.

At 22 years old now, how did you sing this song?
I'm actually older than Matsubara Miki was when she first sang the song, so that made me work harder at it, but I hoped to sing it in my own way while still paying respect to her version. I also felt that because there are many sections of the lyrics that are rather mature, I could hopefully be able to sing it as an older person being more conscientious of those things. That's what I paid attention to.

Singing in 2021, how did you try to understand or imagine the contents of the song?
There's a part in the song that refers to a needle on a record, and so for someone of my generation, records aren't something I've seen much of even though I think it was trendy then. I've never dropped a needle onto a record in my life, and there are several things in the lyrics like that, that I wasn't as familiar with, so I read up on them to try to better express the feelings in the song. There are also some parts in the song that are like a monologue, parts where the feelings are very clearly expressed, so I tried to put all my emotion into the song.

How was the music video shoot?
It had been a really long time since I had filmed a video of me singing, or a video in general, so I was honestly extremely nervous. The biggest thing for me was maintaining my performance every single second, but when I saw the finished product, I did seem kind of nervous. But it still came out well and that was a relief.

A message to the viewers
I am covering even more songs, not just this one, that are being posted to YouTube, so I'm feeling very happy about receiving lots of comments. I'm not sure when it will be, but I might be able to get some original songs to perform as a solo artist and I'm excited to sing different kinds of songs. I hope that I'll be able to convey to you all how much emotion I'm putting into my singing and the lyrics, so I will work hard and focus on doing that. Thank you for your support.