Hellos and welcome, dear readers! :)
Long time no write...!
So this summer has been somewhat interesting. I started hiking religiously on the weekends to get back into shape. Having gone on my trip to Japan made it starkly obviously that I was completely out of shape.
Which meant less screen time.
On top of that, unrelated to hiking, I pulled something in my back badly enough that sitting at the computer was extremely painful to a point that it was a torture.
I'd done something similar before, so I figured it'd get better and go away eventually... and well, it's definitely not gone yet, but I am just a teensy bit better, at least well enough that I can actually sit and type... to an extent. My left hand kind of gets numb so it's a bit awkward to type.... :P
So anyway, I had actually been working on this entry since the beginning of July, and am now finally able to wrap it up. Still gotta take it slow, unfortunately.
But even though I might be slower than a slug at this pace, I'll continue on with my translyrics explanations since that's always been my goal with my activities...!!
So here goes!
My explanation of translyrics for my English cover I did way back in May...! xD
English Cover Video
Original Song Info:
Anime: 「鬼滅の刃」遊郭編 (Demon Slayer: Entertainment District Arc)
Title: 朝が来る (Asa ga kuru)
Artist: Aimer
Composer/Lyricist: 梶浦由記 (Yuki Kajiura)
Cover Info:
Instrumental Track: Mick @micknroll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdvhP_zSmg4
Mix: _Soma
English Lyrics & Vocal: Taka Pen
Comments on the Making
First off, I think this might be the first time I borrowed an instrumental track from someone on YouTube. I didn't know people created these tracks so other people can use them! Kudos to them, because I, for one, cannot make them!! And thanks to them, hopefully I can up my upload pace. Maybe. I'll try, at least. Maybe. I still need time to translate the lyrics and practice the songs, so maybe I'll still be as slow as a snail! lol
Regarding the cover itself, it's like omg finally a Demon Slayer song!! They're all great songs, just that so many people have already translated and covered them, I don't feel the need for another translated cover. lol
"Asa ga Kuru" though, I've kind of liked it from when I first heard it, so when I was looking around for instrumental tracks I could sing to, and saw this, I was like I gotta do this one! I like how most Demon Slayer songs are so very uplifting! I mean they might be set in a dark tone but the songs convey the message of silver lining, which matches my motto. :)
So despite the difficulty with the melody and the rhythm in some places, I highly enjoyed doing this English cover!
On Translating the Lyrics
- Original Japanese lyrics
- Original Japanese lyrics in ro-maji
- My translated English lyrics
朝が来る
asa ga kuru
The Morning Is Coming
Kind of very briefly debated between "is coming" and "comes" for the title portion.
Japanese doesn't have the same time tenses as English, so for this one I think you could make arguments either way.
I went with "is coming" to mean the morning is imminent in coming, which feels more suited to the tone of the song, where it starts with the darkness and sings about the imminent dawn as hope.
傷だらけの世界の頭上に
闇が重たくもたれかかって
覚めない時の中
kizu darake no sekai no zujou ni
yami ga omotaku motarekakatte
samenai toki no naka
Right above a world full of wounds and misery
Darkness weighs down heavily and ominously
Within a time that’ll never wake
I had to put in a lot of fillers to have the translated words fit the melody, so words like "misery" and "ominously" are kind of extraneous. And since I had to add something to match the melody lines, I thought I might as well make them rhyme a bit. lol
悲しみは何処までも追いすがって
それでも空は夜明けを探して
取りに行く未来
kanashimi wa dokomademo oisugatte
soredemo sora wa yoake wo sagashite
toriniyuku mirai
Grief and sorrow come chasing after no matter how far
Even then the sky will go out to search for the daybreak
And to grab hold of the future
Again fillers. In the original lyric, the first line mentions "sorrow" only once, but because I needed more syllables I turned that into "grief and sorrow". lol
Because of the syllable differences when translated, I can't do a literal "word for word" translation, but in English, "grief and sorrow" is pretty commonly used as a set, so it doesn't seem too excessive, imho.
The second line, "go out to" is the added bit of extra syllables, but very much necessary to fit the melody!! At first when I was working on this line, I couldn't figure out the rhythm at all, so I kept on muttering it over and over and over and over again. Sometimes counting on my fingers, writing down how many syllables per phrase, etc.
Gimme a music sheet to read, any day, please!
僕らは弱くも儚くもないよ
信じて愛して燃え尽きて行く
bokura wa yowakumo hakanakumo naiyo
shinjite aishite moetsukite yuku
We are not weak neither are we so fragile that we would break
We will believe and we will love until the flames burn out
The first line here actually came to me pretty quickly, even though I've paraphrased from the original lyrics. The literal translation of the first line would be something like:
We are neither weak nor transient
8 syllables when 16 syllables are needed. lol
Also, singing "transient" to me is kind of blah. So I paraphrased it to "so fragile as to break" which seems more poetic, at least to me. Of course, my choice of words might be a bit old. lol
The second line I had to think a bit. "燃え尽きる (moetsukiru)" might be translated as "burn out" which can mean when the flames die out, but when applied to a person, that would have more of the meaning to be mentally burnt out, like just totally exhausted.
Secondly, the word for word translation here might be something like "until we burn out" but again, applied to a person, that means more like when someone gets worn out from a job or something, and not very poetic, not to mention, probably different from what the lyric is trying to convey.
I tried thinking of other phrases, but couldn't think of any that was really fitting, so I improvised by adding that "the flames" would be the ones burning out, not "we".
繰り返し 繰り返し 血を流すたましいが
夢を見るその先に
輝いて 輝いて
新しい朝が来る
希望が棚引く方へ
君を呼んでいる黎明へ
kurikaeshi kurikaeshi chiwo nagasu tamashii ga
yume wo miru sono saki ni
kagayaite kagayaite
atarashii asa ga kuru
kibou ga tanabiku hou e
kimi wo yondeiru reimei e
Repeatedly, repeatedly, the soul that runs a river of blood
And beyond the dream that it’s dreaming
Shining dazzlingly, shining dazzlingly
The brand new morning it’s coming
Head to where hope is trailing in the wind
To the break of dawn that is calling out to you
I have to say Japanese lyrics seem to favor the concept of "again and again" as I seem to be translating this for each song I'm doing. Either that or I just happen to like the songs that contain this or similar phrases. lol
Whenever I come across this, I just pick and choose from one of the followings:
again and again
repeatedly
whichever fits the melody and the meaning of the lyrics best.
The next half of the first line would literally translate to
The soul that sheds blood
5 syllables in English, whereas the melody needs 11 syllables, so I add a lot of fluff to it and turned it into "the soul that runs a river of blood" although the original lyric doesn't indicate how much blood is shed... :)
Then the second line also became a problem because in the original lyrics, the sentence actually carries over from the first line, except if I try to do that I would have to flip the phrase order in English, and that's one of the things I'm trying to avoid with my translations. I'm trying to stick to the literal translation as much as possible without deviating too much from where the words and phrases are in the melody.
It's not always possible, and usually in shorter chunks of phrases, I do flip the word orders around, but I do want to avoid flipping so much that they're on different lines.
So, long story short, below is the literal translation of the second half of the first line going into the second line:
Beyond the dream that the soul that is shedding blood is having
First of all, how unexciting is that phrase in English, and how much more convoluted can you get! I get my head all twisted in a knot trying to figure out what that says! lol
Second of all, the phrase order is completely flipped. I need to have the blood shedding soul part come in the beginning, not at the end. Otherwise, I have a pretty big placement shift compared to the original song, which I want to avoid.
So, I ended up dividing the sentence into two parts, just so they can be placed more or less similar to where the original lyrics are.
Anyhoo, moving on.
The third line would translate to "shining brightly" and that's what I had as my initial place holder, but as I really dug in, I realized that the syllable count was different, so I switched it to "shining dazzlingly" which isn't too bad.
The rest of the stanza was pretty much straight forwad, other than the fact that it's like nearly impossible to sing in some places. They've become like tongue twisters. lol
失うことで堕ちて行くか
それとも光を追いかけるか
選んで来た道に散らした
涙も傷も遠くなって
ushinaukoto de ochite yukuka
soretomo hikari wo oikakeruka
erandekita michi ni chirashita
namida mo kizumo tooku natte
Will it be a descent, a downfall by losing
Or will it be running after the light and chasing
On the paths I’ve chosen I have strewn all over
Tears and scars, and even they’re far away now
I swear the one thing I enjoy about English is that we can be redundant without being redundant! That's the saving grace for me as I try to translate as close as possible to the meaning of the original translation, because seriously, when translated word for word, there just aren't enough syllables to fill in the melody. lol
The first line would literally translate to something like:
Will I fall by losing
6 syllabes while 8 syllables are needed, and while normally I might be able to stretch out like two words in there to span the eight syllabic melody, I can do that only if there are pitch shifts in the medloy, which this line has like almost none.
So since I couldn't fudge it with only 6 syllables, I needed to rephrase it to have either exactly 8 syllables or at least 7 syllables. I made do with 7 syllables and stretching "losing" to meet the 8 syllable requirement.
Same thing with the second line. Literal translation:
Or will I chase the light?
6 syllables when 9 are needed.
So you rephrase and just kind of become a bit wordy. lol
The following two lines are pretty much the same story.
Just that there is one thing I would like to note.
I did kind of mistranslate a word in there...! The first part of the last line should have been translated to "tears and wounds" not "tears and scars" but because of the flow of the lyrics, basically "leaving far behind (in the past)", I kind of healed the "wounds" by mistake and turned them into "scars" without thinking at all. Totally my bad! XP
"Scars" sound better than "wounds" anyway... :P
息を殺し追憶の影に焼かれ
それでも鮮やかに風を切って
手に入れる未来
iki wo koroshi tuioku no kage ni yakare
soredemo azayakani kaze wo kitte
teni ireru mirai
Holding my breath still and burned by the shadows of my recollections
Even then holding up my head I’ll go forth vibrantly
So I can make the future mine
When the Japanese lyrics use figurative language, then that's one place I can't translate word for word. It kind of just sounds bad/weird/doesn't make sense.
For example, a word for word translation of the first part of the first line:
Killing my breath
Yes, your morning breath might be killing, but you don't normally kill your breath. Sorry. Couldn't help it. :P
But yeah, you might just be able to figure out what that means, but much faster to translate it to "holding my breath" which is what it means. Of course, in English "to hold one's breath" could mean two things, literally to hold in your breath to stay quiet, or figuratively to mean waiting in anticipation. This kind of unintentinally might have added an extra layer of meaning, which was not my intent, but couldn't be helped, given the limits I'm working within, melody and syllables-wise.
The second figure of speech took place at the last phrase in the next line:
風を切って - kaze wo kitte
I'm assuming that this comes from the Japanese idiom, "肩で風を切って歩く (kata de kaze wo kitte aruku)", the word for word translation for which would mean "to cut the wind with one's shoulder and walk" which really doesn't make sense in English. The phrase basically means "to strut" which could be taken in a both positive and negative way.
Here, obviously the term is used in a positive way, so I translated it to "holding one's head high" just leaving out the "high" part. For one reason, there wasn't enough room, and secondly, the original lyric is leaving out parts of the full phrase, so I figured it'll match even better to use the English phrase partially as well.
And lastly, the last line also has kind of an idiom, "手に入れる (te ni ireru)" when translated word for word would be "to put into one's hand" which would mean something different than what the Japanese phrase actually means. In simple terms, it means "to get" or "to obtain." So I kind of fancied that up "to make something one's own."
情熱がいつだって灯火になるよ
天高く上れと狼煙を上げて
jounetsu ga itsudatte tomoshibi ni naruyo
ten takaku nobore to noroshi wo agete
Passions can and will always become the beacons of light
Sending up high signals for you to rise up to the heavens
For this part, in the first line, the only filler part is "can and". Take those two words out and it's pretty much the literal translation. (Not word for word, since I fancified up "灯火 tomoshibi" which basically means a light or a lamp to "beacons of light.")
The second line deviated slightly from literal translation. The line basically means:
Raising smoke signals (to tell you) to climb high to the heavens
For one thing, smoke signals in English sounded a bit too down to earth to me for this part, so I changed it to just "signals."
Secondly, in English without explicitly stating who the message is for, in a short phrase like here, you can't show that it's a message.
Word for word translation would be: Raising smoke signals to climb high to the heavens
If you saw that in English, you'd assume that the signals are doing the climbing, whereas the Japanese lyric is trying to say that the signals are sending a message for somebody else to climb up high.
So, I had to insert "for you" to separate the signal and the message.
風になり 花開き
たましいを掻き鳴らす
僕らが急ぐ場所へ
華やいで 華やいで
新しい朝が来る
光が棚引く方へ
kaze ni nari hana hiraki
tamashii wo kakinarasu
bokura ga isgu basho e
hanayaide hanayaide
atarashii asa ga kuru
hikari ga tanabiku hou e
Becoming a breeze, making flowers bloom
and strumming all the strings of the soul
To the place where we hurry to get to
Blooming cheerfully, blooming cheerfully,
The brand new morning it’s coming
Head to where light is trailing in the wind
I have to say that the lyrics for this song can get pretty convoluted when trying to translate literally into English...
The first line was fine, straight forward.
The second line, sure I added "strings" when the original lyrics didn't have that word in there because I needed the additional syllable for the melody, but the third line...
If I translate word for word, I can only do what I did, "To the place where we hurry to get to."
Google translate gave me "to where we hurry." lol
Succinct but for one, I kind of feel that it misses out a bit on the original nuance as well as it's too succinct that I don't have enough syllables for the melody. So I ended up with what I have, but it does sound kind of convoluted, especially when sung. Maybe in a written sentence, it's not too strange, but to sing it sounds a bit weird.
The second spot that gave me pause was "華やいで (hanayaide)."
I think the phrase basically means "to make more cheerful, to brighten" with some sprinkling of "cheerful noise" in there. And I kind of threw in a pinch of flowery essence because sometimes the word "華 (hana)" can be used for "花 (hana)" which means flower. So I translated the part to "blooming cheerfully" since I didn't want to be singing something like "Brightening things up" or "Making things more bright".
Everything else is an okay literal translation without too much deviation from the original lyrics.
夜のもう一つ向こうまで
どうしても届かない手のひらを
支えてくれる声が
いつの間に こんなに
響いてた
yoru no mou hitotsu mukou made
doushitemo todokanai tenohira wo
sasaetekureru koe ga
itsunomani kon nani
hibiiteta
On the other side of night and still one more beyond
However I try there’s no way to reach, but this palm of mine
There’re many helping voices
That out of the blue, so strong they were
Resounding
My favorite section to sing, but maybe not so much when translating. lol
The whole stanza is one connected long phrase, almost like a run-on sentence.
夜のもう一つ向こうまでどうしても届かない手のひらを支えてくれる声がいつの間にこんなに響いていた
yoru no mou hitotsu mukou madedoushitemo todokanai tenohira wo sasaetekureru koe ga itsunomani kon nani hibiiteta
Literal translation would be something like:
Voices that support my hand that cannot reach however I try were resounding so, without me realizing, one more beyond the night
And the exact phrase order according to the original would be:
one more beyond the night
my hand that cannot reach however I try
Voices that support
without me realizing so
were resounding
if you compare the broken up phrases vs the one long run-on sentence, you'll see that some parts just won't connect. But one of the things I'm trying is keeping the phrases in the original positions as much as possible, because that's the order they want you to hear the words in.
Of course, that's impossible to do word for word, so I'm keeping at least the phrases in the original locations, and within that location, I twist around the words to make them fit the melody as well as have them somewhat make sense when read/heard in English.
And I think I kind of managed to convey the original meaning more or less.
君の行く場所に 光あれと祈った
全ての心のため
kimino yuku basho ni hikari are to inotta
subete no kokoro no tame
To the places that you may go, “Let there be light” so I prayed
For all your heart and mind out there
The fun part was the "Let there be light" part since that's already an established phrase in English. Just a matter of placing it so that it'll flow with the melody.
The not so fun part was the second line.
One of the biggest differences in English and Japanese is the plural nouns or lack thereof. English has singular and plural nouns, wherease Japanese nouns are just nouns, there's no differentiation of singular or plural.
Oh, and don't forget. You don't need articles either in Japanese. So nouns can be completely stand alone, while in English you have to specify what kind of noun and who that noun belongs to.
So when you have something like 「全ての心 (subete no kokoro)」 which can mean any of the below and likely more:
all parts of my heart
heart belonging to all
everyone's hearts
all your hearts
Poetically, it's a great gimmick. The Japanese phrase can be interpreted in many ways according to what the reader/listener is feeling like.
When translating to English, it sucks because I don't know which route to take! lol
So I tried taking as much of a middle route as possible by "all your heart (singular)".
Unfortunately, this excludes the possibility to interpret the part as "all of my heart" but I figured it was nicer to send the message to "you" than to "me" so I went with "your" and went with singular... You could interpret it as the heart belonging to each and every one of "you"... maybe. lol
The "mind" I had to throw in there due to the lack of syllables.
繰り返し 繰り返し 血を流すたましいが
夢を見るその先に
輝いて 輝いて
新しい朝が来る
もうすぐ始まる歌
君を呼んでいる黎明へ
kurikaeshi kurikaeshi chi wo nagasu tamashii ga
yume wo miru sono saki ni
kagayaite kagayaite
atarashii asa ga kuru
mou sugu hajimaru uta
kimi wo yondeiru reimei e
Repeatedly, repeatedly, the soul that runs a river of blood
And beyond at the end of its dreams
Shining dazzlingly, shining dazzlingly
The brand new morning it’s coming
A song that is about to start right now
To the break of dawn that is calling out to you
Only the first four lines of this stanza repeated the chorus from before... but that's four lines I didn't have to translate! :)
The last two lines kind of stands out in the song, so for this part it was a mix of direct translation and taking into consideration what sound to put in for the long tones.
The fifth line was great because the direct translation fit in well with the sound. The line ends with "a" from "uta" and although a completely different sound, "now" is more or less an open vowel so it's vaguely similar to the Japanese "a."
The next line didn't go too well, but at least it ended with "you" which is an easy vowel to sing on a long tone. Would've been better if it was more of a closed vowel to match "e" in the original lyric, but I went more for the direct translation.
傷だらけの世界の頭上に...
kizu darake no sekai no zujou ni…
Right above a world full of wounds and misery
And finally the last part...!! Guess what!!! It's a repeat of the very first line of the song!!!
And also guess what!!!
The first line as I had it originally would not fit this melody. lol
I was like dang!!! And here I thought I was home free and didn't need to translate anymore!!! lol
I forgot what I had initially, but I tweaked the phrasing a bit so the phrase would be able to match the melody for the first part of the song and the last part of the song.
And that's it!
Thanks for getting this far! I'm not even sure how long this has become, I've been writing it for literally months now. lol!
I think I've uploaded three English cover videos since this song, so I have a lot of catching up to do...! Maybe if I could just shortern my blabbing a bit... lol!
Anyway, thanks again! And hope to see you in my next article, or anywhere you find me!
Taka, out! (of this article, finally lol)
P.S.
I have not been able to proof read this entry yet, so please forgive the typos and any phrases that sound weird...!
