Blurring colours start to overflow—
“God doesn’t exist in this world”
Is what the clown of scorn and applause muttered
I’m sick and tired of expecting the worst fate
It’s up to you
Wake up, My heart swells with hatred in your dreams
Dance on your grave
I just realized I could sing, could play for you
the prayers left in these hands;
My heart made for calling out to ‘love’
has not yet stopped ringing indefinite noise
Your lead-colour heart is spitting out abnormal values
Take pleasure in the exchanges of emotion that are human nature
I’m sick and tired of expecting the worst fate
It’s up to you
Wake up, My heart swells with hatred in your dreams
Can you hear me?
Can you hear the voice?
The pain that we called love—
I want to be with you
Until the end of the journey without end
In the limited time we have
And in a universe made up of shapeless things,
I wish you all the best
I just realized that in the lies and the rubble,
Sleeping Beauty sleeps on as ever
Until the clock that has rusted together signals us with its morning bell,
I’ll be beside you
My heart made for calling out to ‘love’
has not yet stopped ringing indefinite noise
.
NOTES / INTERPRETATION:
Blue font indicates text originally written in English in the official booklet.
Thoughts. This composition by Shou was arranged by Saga to sound like an evolved version of the ALICE NINE. classic kuuron-NINE HEADS RODEO SHOW-. The imagery of Sleeping Beauty sleeping in rubble so captured my imagination that it’s what immediately comes to mind when I listen to the song (and thus I used a photo I took of a dog sleeping in gravel in the shade on a sweltering day to accompany the translation). I’ve never decided whether the ‘you’ addressed in the song and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ are the same person, but I’m inclined to think that they might be, as the speaker implores ‘you’ to ‘wake up’. And yet ‘you’ is also described as a scorn-filled clown, incapable of taking pleasure in exchanges of human emotion. The combination of these images paints a very unsettling picture, and yet the lyrics, frustrated as their tone is in the English passages, are from the perspective of a speaker who is steadfast in their determination to fight for love, to offer support.
The lyrics from this era in the band’s history were so tinged with struggle, frustration, and heartache, even though Shou never lost that determination to find the light and fly for it–whatever shape that takes in a given song’s lyrics–that I have always found empowering and compelling as a fan (and I’m certainly not the only one).
You can’t always convince someone else to see the light or to change their behaviour — but you can always try your hardest to hold true to yourself, and to your own convictions. There is immense, intrinsic value in genuinely offering support, even if the other person is incapable of taking it.
.
アリス九號. ★ Adam → IDEAL (将・2017)
ALICE NINE. – Adam | From IDEAL (Shou – 2017)
Original text translated from Japanese.
Song composed by 将 (Shou) & 沙我 (Saga).
Listen on itunes/Spotify.