My five-year-old self’s dream was to be someone else
Cause I hate myself more than anyone else in the world
My fourteen-year-old self’s dream was to be an extraordinary figure ²
Orig.] Cause I hate rules more than anything else in the world
2019] Cause I hate rules more than anyone else in the world
Bird in the woven, woven cage, when, when will we meet? ³
“Who is it behind you?”
Always, I was looking out of a cage
A dream of being all on my own that went on forever, without end
Orig.] We’re weak in every way… ⁴
2019] Cause we’re weak in every way… ⁵
I’ll close my eyes again today, forever without ever becoming an adult, so
Teach me the meaning of life…the end. No, a sequel. ⁶
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NOTES / INTERPRETATION:
Important. Certain lines have been marked as “Orig.”, meaning that they were the originally published lyrics from 2004. Below them are lines marked “2019” to indicate changes in wording found in the lyrics from their 15TH ANNIVERSARY BEST [kachou no shirabe] album. Both are official.
oo1. A ‘monme’ is a very specific unit of measurement (3.75g), used for a now obsolete form of currency, which is referred to as a ‘mace’ in English. Several other countries used this same unit, under slightly different names, as currency as well. The kanji used for ‘monme’ (匁) seems to be one that is specific to Japan, and if you compared the weight of one 1 monme with the coins in circulation today, it might be equivalent to a 5-yen coin. So the title is really calling to mind a value of currency, not weight. The kanji used for ‘magnificence’ is interesting too (華). It means ‘flower’, but is mainly used in given names, or in words carrying meanings like ‘magnificent’, ‘gorgeous’, or ‘extravagant’. If you use that kanji, you’re thinking more about a flower in a metaphorical sense, or the properties of a flower. So the title is less straightforward than it seems at first. We could think of it as, “1 monme’s worth of flowers” (where the flowers are very tiny, or maybe dried)… but it would probably be more accurate to think of it as something like, “1 monme’s worth of magnificence” (which would make it quite self-deprecating, calling to mind the speaker’s dream of being someone extraordinary). Either way, 1 monme (or mace) is a very small amount, probably the smallest unit of currency at the time. To compare it to Canadian or American currency, it would be like saying “one penny’s worth of magnificence”. These days, we think of pennies as being nearly worthless. You can’t buy anything with just a penny.
oo2. More specifically, the word that I chose to translate as ‘extraordinary figure’ would be someone who went down in history, for good or bad, to be remembered after death.
oo3. This line and the one that follows is from the Kagome Kagome children’s song, which is sung as part of a game (they’re written almost verbatim). One child sits in the middle with a blindfold (the ‘demon’), and the other children sing the song while moving around the ‘demon’. At the end of the song, they would stop, and the ‘demon’ would have to guess which child was standing at their back. The lyrics themselves, short as they are, have regional differences and many different interpretations! That being said, here I went with a fairly straightforward interpretation. I chose to use the word ‘cage’, though the word in original Japanese can also mean ‘basket’… in either case, these would be made of woven material.
oo4. In the second repetition of the chorus, instead of “yowaku” (weak) Show sings “tsuyoku” (strong).
oo5. In the second repetition of the chorus, instead of “yowainda” (weak) Show sings “tsuyoinda” (strong). The very slight difference in wording for this updated version really just adds a sense of emphasis or implication that is difficult to convey in English without making things clunky. So, ’cause’ was the winner.
oo6. The part in bold red at the end is written in the lyric booklet, but is not sung. Instead, Show makes vocalizations. As to what it might mean… my interpretation is fairly dark, and the fact that Show makes vocalizations instead of actually singing that part of the lyrics kind of supports it. I think ‘the end’ means that the speaker has died (literally, ‘the end’ of their life story). But then there is a correction (‘no, a sequel’), which I have taken to mean that the speaker dies hoping they’ll be reincarnated into a better life situation – the ‘sequel’ of their life story will be better. Darkly hopeful. The addition of these few words change the tone of the song a fair bit, so it’s interesting that they are left unsung – only someone reading the lyric booklet would get the full story, so to speak. It’s also interesting that the song itself, when you listen to it, is really upbeat, and that the children’s song lyrics in the middle of it gives it a backbone of naiveté… the emotional tone and contrast in the lyrics is almost disorienting. There is childlike contempt, an adult sense of bitterness, the implication of death at the end, and the darkly cheerful inclusion of two lines of a children’s song.
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アリス九號. ★ 華一匁 → 「名前は、未だ無ひ。」(将・2004)
ALICE NINE. – 1 Monme of Magnificence | From “namae wa, mada nai.” (Show – 2004)
Original text translated from Japanese.
Listen on Spotify (Orig. / 2019).
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Translation also on the Alice9Lives Archive.