I’m sure you have encountered plenty of song titles that sound cool at first but don’t seem to make much sense when you think about them.
I’m not talking about Engrish titles (e.g. “Can you feel crying alone?” by tiaraway) because you can still make out the general meaning of the title, I am instead referring to songs like “JUST COMMUNICATION” by TWO-MIX. Just what exactly is it trying to say? It certainly is a blast trying to figure out what the person was thinking when he/she penned the title.
Let’s take a look at some of titles that have been bugging me since forever…
- Red fraction by MELL from BLACK LAGOON
(Communist arithmetic?) - Face of Fact by KOTOKO from Baldr Force
- resolution of soul by KOTOKO from D+VINE LUV
(How many megapixels is yours?) - I deal Forest ～S style～ by KOTOKO
(Typo of “Ideal Forest”?) - Wing my Way by KOTOKO from Farland Symphony
- To lose in amber by EIKO from Dorei Shijou
- Wind and Wander by Mami Kawada from Silvern
- SAKURA diference by Jyukai
(Yet another arithmetic song!) - WHITE STATION by Ace File from I My Me! Strawberry Eggs
- HOW HOW BEAR by Megumi Hayashibara
- Touch Yourself by Megumi Hayashibara
(Actually this makes so much sense now!) - Fire.com by Masami Okui
(New internet dot com startup?) - Chao Tokyo by See-Saw
(Mandarin Chinese?) - half pain by Bana from Witch Hunter Robin
(What is with their obsession with maths?)
I mean, when you have a song title like “Flower”, “butterfly”, “Be in Silence” or “lonesome road”, the meaning is sort of vague and it is often obscured by the Engrish, but eventually you can actually see the relationship between the song and the title.
But what sort of feeling is “Red fraction” supposed to induce? I really have no idea. It’s one thing to take a few seconds to figure out what an Engrishy song title like “I can’t get over your best smile” is trying to convey, but a completely different thing when you are smacked in the face by a title like “Sentimental Graffiti”. Huh?
Of course, Japanese songs aren’t the only ones guilty of this. It’s just that I don’t listen to anything else.
Lol @ Chao Tokyo.
The lyrics to Red Fraction make even less sense!!!
haha.
Love A Riddle
Suppuration – (oh my. formation of pus)
one of the most prominent series featuring this stuff: Gravitation:
Spicy Marmalade
Shining Collection
Blind Game Again
Add SCRYED’s Drastic my soul to that list.. :)
How about DRAMATIC GIRLY?
How about
1) Fantasista (Shimatani Hitomi)
2) Dear My Friends (arashi)
3) Easy Crazy Break Down (Arashi)
4) Arizona (lawl Inaba Koshi)
I don’t see what’s wrong with:
resolution of soul. I think it’s resolution like a New Year’s resolution. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=resolution&x=0&y=0
Face of Fact. Personification.
To lose in amber. Amber as in “The glowing ambers in the fireplace”. Don’t see what’s wrong with losing something in a fire.
WHITE STATION. A station painted white. Train or bus? Who cares.
Chao Tokyo. Probably meant to be Chaos Tokyo, which you can in turn take to mean Chaotic Tokyo.
I don’t know what the lyrics mean to each of these songs – I haven’t even heard half of them – but the titles do make sense if you’d just bend the normal rules of English a little. For one thing the Japs have no idea how to use articles, so you need to insert those for them.
I can argue half pain, SAKURA difference, Wing My Way and Red Fraction, but my arguments don’t sound persuasive even to myself. There are worse… like Gamble Rumble by Do as Inifinity, for one.
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I’VE Girls always come ups with the best song titles in engrish. Maybe they do that on purpose.
“I’ve” is a pun, you all know that right? Like how “Do As Infinity” was crafted out of the DAI initials.
I think for many lyricists penning songs with English but lyrics in Japanese they just look up what they want in a giant dictionary/thesaurus and pick out words they like. I know for a fact that’s how the hell we have songs like “Suppuration -Core-“.
And a lot of them do make some sense even if incredibly Engrishy. Lupus has it.
IMO no matter how it is a cultural thing, it’s still incredibly lame…
Re-sublimity! Such an odd sounding word; I had to look it up. The process of “re-entering a sublime state” doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the lyrics, though.
How about “Run Rabbit Junk” (Yoko Kanno) or half of the tracks in GITS:SAC? :D
how bout D-technolife by UVERworld…no sense? a partner to fire.com i suppose..It turns out to be some kind of firefighting website with anti-fire stuff.
I’d second the GITS:SAC comment.
Also, if I recall correctly, “chao” is spanish slang for “goodbye”, maybe that’s what it’s meant to say?
I just recalled another gems such as the pillows’s “Skeleton Liar”, “Vain Dog (In Rain Drop)”, “Biscuit Hammer”, “Naked Shuffle”…
Ah, engrish, lovely engrish.
I think that it’s more that I’ve has an obsession with Engrish.
Two things I noticed(I read all the comments)
Lupus – To Lose in Amber: Amber, like the color or rock, my guess is you’re thinking Ember, and Anonymousie, do you mean the italian Ciao? Or is there really a chao and I’m stupid? Ah well ^_^;
And engrishy titles are lots of fun
One I don’t understand is IT’S from Tsubasa Chronicles. It oddly seems to fit it well though, regardless of a lack of logic. o.o
A lot of engrish one’s make sense regardless of lack of logic, though there are the really strange ones too. ^_^ IT’s fun though.
how about m-flo’s songs?
their lyrics doesn’t make any frickin sense
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