Hellos and welcome, dear readers!
Been nearly a month since I've uploaded my English cover song of "Pokettoo karanishite" from "The Vision of Escaflowne" anime!
Things sure have been hectic, not to mention catching a cold over and over again didn't help any. lol
So anyhoo, without much further ado, this is my blog entry where I get to give excuses on my translated English lyrics! :P
My English Cover
Original Song Info:
Title: ポケットを空にして (poketto o karanishite)
Artist: 坂本真綾 (Maaya Sakamoto)
Composer: 菅野よう子 (Yoko Kanno)
Lyricist: 岩里祐穂 (Yuho Iwasato)
Cover Info:
Piano / Arr / Mix: _Soma
English Lyrics & Vocal: Taka Pen
Comments on the Making
I watched Esca when I was in college and I even won the OST at a raffle, so there's a lot of memories associated with the anime as well as the song. For details, please refer to below article:
アニメと私 / Anime and Me - タカペン - Taka Pen's Blurt-Log
Regarding the video itself... I'm not sure exactly why I look like I'd been playing the mud or something. lol
Hope to rectify that in my next cover video! :)
Expalanation on the Translation
So here we go! My explanations and comments on my translation of the lyrics. I list them in the following order:
- Original Japanese lyrics
- Original Japanese lyrics in ro-maji
- My translated English lyrics
ポケットを空にして
poketto o karanishite
Turn All Pockets Inside Out
The title and the refrain, and the most difficult part. lol
Right off the bat, I had to kind of expand on the meaning of the original Japanese phrase.
Literal translation of the title would be something along the lines of "Empty Your Pockets".
Unfortunately, there was no way I could stick with the word for word translation.
For one thing, not enough syllables. Original phrase has 9 syllables where as the English translation has only 5 syllables.
Secondly, "empty you pockets!" kind of sounds like a bandit holding up someone.
So I went with "turn all pockets inside out." Apparently there is an associated meaning with the phrase, to be penniless, but it's also very dated, according to Wiki, so I thought it was safe enough to go with this expression. Besides which, the connotation of being penniless isn't completely off the mark, I felt since I understood the title and refrain to mean "leave all baggage behind" which would kind of indicate throwing away your wealth as well.
So anyway, going on...
風が変われば僕の道さえ少しは
ましになるだろう
「豊かさが君たちをダメにする」なんて
知ったこっちゃない
kaze ga kawareba bokuno michisae sukoshiwa
mashi ni naru darou
"yutakasa ga kimitachi o dame ni suru" nante
shitta kocchanai
If the wind were to change the way it blows, then even my road maybe
It might get a bit better
“Having too plenty means that you will be more than spoiled” is what they say
Too bad, I don’t care
Mostly direct translations here.
Due to the way it sounded as well as the awkwardness of the phrasing, I did change the last word in the first line from "a little" to "maybe" and squeezed in "a bit" into the second line.
Also, the third line would be more like "richness will spoil you, they say" by direct translation, but since that just didn't have enough syllables, I kind of expanded on the meaning. 18 original syllables versus 7 directly translated syllables...! Had to make up for 11 syllables. lol
And I did add the extra "Too bad" in the last line when the direct translation might have been just "I don't care." Of course, the addition is partly to make up for the needed syllables, but also it was a way to express in English the wording used in Japanese.
"知ったこっちゃない(shitta koccha nai)" in without any nuance would be "知らない (shiranai)" meaning "I don't know" which could also mean "I don't care." Because of the style of language used, "shitta koccha nai", though, it gives it an extra artlesness to the tone, a bit of lightness. That was why I added "Too bad" to give that extra playfulness.
夢の法則など
何処にもないはずさ
yumeno housoku nado
dokonimo nai hazu sa
For dreams, such things like rules
I bet you won’t find them anywhere
Here, I changed the grammar a bit in order to keep the word order close as possible to the original lyrics. Directly translated, this part would be something like as follows:
There shouldn't be any rules for dreams anywhere
Which of course doesn't fit into the melody well, neither can I keep the placing of the words close to the original lyrics, so I kind of fiddled around with it.
The second line, I used "I bet you" to keep in line with the tone of the language, just like I did when I added "Too bad" in the previous stanza.
ポケットを空にして
さぁ 旅に出ようよ
目当ても何もないけれど
すぐ ポケットを空にして
さぁ 旅に出ようよ
みだらな気持ち ぶらさげて
poketto o karanishite
saa tabi ni deyou yo
meate mo nanimo naikeredo
sugu poketto o karanishite
saa tabi ni deyou yo
midarana kimochi burasagete
Turn all pockets inside out
C’mon, let’s go on a journey
Even though there are no goals or things like that at all
Quick, now, turn all pockets inside out
C’mon, let’s go on a journey
With some playful feelings hanging freely
And here comes the chorus.
Nuff said about the first line so let's skip to the other parts.
Although, there's really not much to say for most of it since they're mostly direct translations with adjustments to fit into the melody.
The biggest item of concern is in the last line though. This I still can't quite figure out. There's a part in there "みだらな (midarana)" which normally would mean "lascivious" or "sexually indecent/improper", however, the meaning doesn't quite seem to fit into the rest of the lyrics.
Maybe there's a really deep meaning to the whole lyrics that I don't know about but between the lyrics, the tone of the music, and the anime, it didn't seem right to use the surface meaning of the word.
So I looked it up online to see if maybe there were other meanings. Well, I kind of found an obscure place where it seem to imply the word meant "to have fun" but when I go google I can't find the original site anymore, so I'm none too sure I really have the meaning correct or if it was just my wishful imagination. lol
So, this part, I'm a bit iffy about, the "playful feelings."
草むらに寝ころんで
逆さの星くず目を凝らしてた
流れ星見つけたよ
でも願い事がわからない
kusamura ni nekoronde
sakasa no hoshikuzu me o korashiteta
nagareboshi mitsuketayo
demo negaigotoga wakaranai
On a grassy fields of green I lay
And upside down scattered stars, intensely was I staring at
When a shooting star I saw at last
But not a single wish could I come up with at all
Pretty straight forward direct translations with some adjustments, and nothing too much to note.
The adjustments can take a pretty long time because I need to tweak things again and again, to make it look okay as English phrases as well as make them sound okay as music, and this part took its own sweet time as well, but nothing too outstanding, compared to some of the other parts of the lyrics!
人を愛すること
生きてくこと 死ぬこと
hitowo aisurukoto
ikitekukoto shinukoto
To love someone or someones
To live your life and to die
Like this part.
The more simple they are, the more difficult.
In English, you have to be very specific about your nouns. It's either one person or more than one persons. But in Japanese, it's person(s).
So the first line is "to love persons(s)" which can mean loving the one and only or loving the people around you. So to fit the melody, I turned it into "to love someone or someones" but it does sound pretty odd I have to admit. lol
And the second line is a pretty direct translation, but it does feel a bit odd to elongate the word "die". lol
However, even if it's a bit odd, I feel it's within the boundaries of poetic license and still conveys the literal meaning of the original lyrics, which is what I'm aiming for, so I'm more or less satisfied. :)
Next part I'll abbreviate since it's the chorus repeated twice. :)
こんな架空の運命
壊して明日へ旅立つ僕ら
ブリキの街をあとに
高くその旗を振りかざせ
振りかざせ
konna kakuuno unmei
kowashite ashita e tabidatsu bokura
burikino machiwo atoni
takaku sono hata o furikazase
furikazase
This imaginary destiny
We’ll break it and to tomorrow our journey will begin
This town made of tin we’ll leave behind
And to the sky above that flag, raise it high and wave
Raise it high and wave
Last stanza, and definitely not the least!
First line "こんな架空の運命 (konna kakuu no unmei)" would literally translate to "Such a far-fetched destiny as this" which obviously doesn't fit into the melody, so I tweaked it to "This imaginary destiny."
There's not much to note about the way I translated the next line, but I do have to say, when I sang it, I didn't realize how "break it and to to(morrow)" would sounds so much like "break it into two". My bad. lol
And "this town made of tin" went so fast that you cannot possibly make out what's being said.
And lastly, the flag part. There's no mention of the "sky" but I had to put that int there because I didn't have enough syllables to fit the melody. However, it doesn't stray too far from the original meaning, at least imho, so I'm safe.
When I initially thought about doing this song, I was a bit iffy about doing the last phrase "振りかざせ (furikazase)" because I wasn't sure I'd be able to come up with a phrase that would fit and on top of that, stand being repeated. Had to add on a lot of extra words, but it doesn't sound too weird so I kind of made it! :)
And so that's it for my explanation of the English translyrics of "pokettoo karanishite" from the Vision of Escaflowne!!
Working feverishly on my next English cover! February is such a short month...! Hoping to get my cover up early on in March, but no promises!
Anyway, thanks for reading this far as always!
See you in my next blog!
Taka, out!! :)
