Smoke rises, the shadow of a lonely person
In a heart of rusted silver, a fissure
Their fingertips, lacking a screw,
Know not of loving
Even while the future heaps up onto a bird who flies
The sky so high lowered a curtain
And cruelly whispered of there being nowhere to go home to;
Because it knows of a place to exist, it is abandoning a prayer
The moon is wavering,
Vague, taking along with it a dream
The snow plays, dances a silver funeral procession
Quiet rain and the wind gently (in secret)
In a world without sound, are drawn to one another
The burning moon is wavering,
Vague, taking along with it a dream
The snow plays, dances a silver funeral procession
The azure sky is boisterously noisy
And a voice now rains incessantly
Mars burns, a scorpion’s tail
Until it arrives
A fingertip pricked by a needle blooms a bright red;
In order to discover a place to exist, I am abandoning a prayer
The moon is wavering,
Vague, taking along with it a dream
The snow plays, dances a silver funeral procession
The azure sky is boisterously noisy
And a voice now rains incessantly
Mars burns, a scorpion’s tail
Let us run until it reaches us
The sky, boisterously noisy ¹
Now rains incessantly
The end of the journey is a clean slate of a night
To fall and flow away
Smoke rises, the shadow of a lonely person
In a heart of rusted silver, a fissure
.
NOTES / INTERPRETATION:
oo1. This short verse is not written down in the lyric booklet, but rather sung like an echo of the previous verse.
Thoughts. The music of this song builds very slowly, the imagery of the lyrics rich and mysterious. The repetition of the very first verse at the end of the song gives it a beautifully uncanny feeling, as though the song is stuck in a sort of time loop. The music is the snow, dancing its slow funeral procession, silvery and swirling… The song is caught under the weight and in the pull of its emotion. Despite spiraling, it still finds its way forward.
I remember when I first heard it, I thought it sounded like music that belonged in a video game, something that would play in the background of a mysterious dungeon with a hard-to-navigate map that constantly changes, causing you to get lost and walk around in circles. The firm, unyielding backbone that is the acoustic guitar is a foundation upon which everything else is built — the song as a whole a wanderer that eventually finds their way out, perhaps very near where they first entered.
And when, at last, they do emerge from that labyrinthine place, they arrive at a temple…
.
アリス九號. ★ ALICE NINE.
Envy
GRACE (2022)
Lyrics by 将/SHOU
Music by 沙我/Saga
Original text translated from Japanese.
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Translation also on the Alice9Lives Archive.