Haruomi Hosono

Now for Shimendoka (Song of Four Directions) -- a few months back I stumbled on the Chinese translation, and was moved me to tears (which is normally more Takahashi's ballpark). While reading, I forgot how happy a song it actually is. But it's got that core of desperate longing. Lately I've been listening to it every morning, as a prayer and a pick-me-up. Great way to begin the day. (Though I should admit I stole the idea from the song's YouTube comment section. YouTube also supplied the video I'll link to after the lyrics.)

Delving into the Japanese was great fun. The full translation that the dictionary supplied for the term I rendered "wicked demon" is "demon who hinders Buddhist training / demon who obstructs sentient beings from maintaining moral behaviour."

...

In the morning I'll set out
from my west-facing door
for Bhārat, where lotus flowers bloom,
going to meet the gods.

The way may be full of flowers or full of storms,
but it doesn't matter, I'm going.
I'm shaking off sad words and heading out.

When the flowers are in bloom, I'll set out
for southern seas,
where the hot winds are blowing --
to bask in Caribbean sunsets.

The way may be full of flowers or full of storms,
but it doesn't matter, I'm going.
I'm shaking off sad words and heading out.

Wicked demons, get lost.
Evil devils, get lost.
Wicked demons, get lost.
Evil devils, get lost.
Out of my way.

When the wind comes blowing, I'll set out
towards that eastern sky,
to Chaldea, country of the magicians --
to bask in moonlight.

The way may be full of flowers or full of storms,
but it doesn't matter, I'm going.
I'm shaking off sad words and heading out.

And when night falls, I'll arrive
at that northern island
and find you pursuing the phoenix
down the streets of your city.

You need to be a little careful
when you're trying to catch that thing,
it's so easy to get burned by its flames!

Wicked demons, get lost.
Evil devils, get lost.
Wicked demons, get lost.
Evil devils, get lost.
Out of my way.

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RRsX35pyEA

A simple one today -- though the background is rich enough -- Japanese Rhumba. It's a so-called "GI song"," copyrighted 1951, written by an American soldier stationed in Japan, surnamed Miller (no agreement about his first name). From an essay by Minako Waseda:

Some GI songs also employ the so-called "Bamboo English" -- a form of pidgin characterized by a crude mixture of English with Japanese words and phrases, often in corrupted pronunciation and with limited syntactic possibilities. It was a language developed in the relationship between GIs and their Japanese girlfriends.

So the Japanese is full of simple phrases that you probably know anyway (precisely correct and in their polite form, like "oyasuminasai" instead of just "oyasumi" for "good night"), but the grammar is kind of wonky and the sentences halting. stroke of Hosonian subversive genius was assigning lead vocals to Tib Kamayatsu, a jazz singer of the previous generation, 67 years old in 1978. As I hear it, these lyrics delivered by that so evidently old voice makes it less of a song about how people fumble towards love, or motions of love, even in unusual and politically incorrect circumstances, and more a song of love boiled down to its absolute, core, universal essentials.

...

Where are you go...? Here, welcome, yeah?
Excuse me. Uhh. Good morning.

Japanese rhumba, ay ay ay.
Japanese rhumba, ay ay.
Japanese rhumba, ay ay ay.
Good morning!

What is it, Mama-san? Hurry up, Papa-san. Yes.
Excuse me, young lady. Wait a moment, please.

Japanese rhumba, ay ay ay.
Japanese rhumba, ay ay.
Japanese rhumba, ay ay ay.
Wait a moment, please!

What, uhh, I mean -- beautiful, yes? Your make-up. Yes.
What do you... I mean, hi. Good afternoon.

Japanese rhumba, ay ay ay.
Japanese rhumba, ay ay.
Japanese rhumba, ay ay ay.
I mean, hi! Good afternoon!

Good evening.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Good night.

There are a couple of mostly incomprehensible English versions of Asadoya Yunta floating around. I thought I'd give it a shot myself, but the lyrics are a poem from the 1930s and I have enough difficulty with contemporary Japanese.

One thing, though; the chorus, which is so old that nobody (Japanese or western) has a clue as to its meaning, has the word "Hari" ... both Paraiso and Bon Voyage Co were released as "Harry Hosono" records, and it makes me wonder to what extent that Hari in Asadoya Yunta helped make it a candidate for Paraiso.

With Paraiso done, I'll probably be jumping around a bit. I definitely want to do all of Hosono House soon. I'm scared of Bon Voyage Co -- my impression is that the album is Hosono Wordplay Central.

I wanted to work on Hurricane Dorothy today, but someone beat me to it, back in 2021:

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/hurricane-dorothy-hurricane-dorothy.html

The same someone also did Akiko's Rose Garden: a metaphor for her creative process! Maybe. I'm always reading metaphors for the creative process into things.

https://lyricstranslate.com/en/rose-garden-rose-garden.html

So here's Androgena from SFX instead. Such a cool song. Miharu Koshi singing harmony. SFX in general is one of my favorites -- though, what does that mean when talking about the Hosono catalogue...? They're all my favorites. He's my favorite artist. I'd have a miserable time trying to pick a Hosono top five, even.

Still! SFX has a vibe and atmosphere like nothing else I've ever heard. Maybe except John Frusciante's Enclosure -- the mad scientist locked away in his lab tower, shutting out the rest of the world, kind of sound.

I have no idea what the reference to Agatha's miracle is. All that a search turned up was a Japanese listener mentioning that those words confounded them too -- in a welcome way.

...

Lunatic Androgena!
Lunatic Androgena!
Shining inside the gods' hand-mirror.
You employ white magic
and let your silhouette
reflect the sky.

Lunatic Androgena.
Lunatic Andro-genius.
Dazzling Eros of the moon!
Hiding your winged body
in garments made of dazzling light.

Gena, Gena!
Agatha's miracle,
a sad kind of joy.
Gena, Gena!
Where are you going, Gena,
vanishing now, like an angel?

(repeat second verse)

(repeat chorus)

I wonder with the repeated references to androgyny, the line is alluding to Saint Agatha whose breasts were cut off in her martyrdom.

Oh, right on! I didn't even make the androgyny connection -- I was thinking Hosono was playing on Andromeda.

I don't have any albums in hard copies and today got a torrent that included artwork from a Paraiso reissue... which came complete with English translations. So I feel a little silly -- though I don't regret doing it, since there are shortcuts taken here and there by the official translator. But also a couple of grammar mistakes in mine, the kind that affect the meaning: in Worry Beads, we're being ENCOURAGED to count the seeds as a way to illumination, instead of what I understood -- the suggestion that counting them won't be of much use since it won't make your worries go away. And in Shimendoka, it's the narrator who's going to chase the firebird in that town on the northern island, and not the old friend he mentions. But it's also encouraging that I've made so FEW mistakes. Onwards!

Do the Light in the Attic LP reissues come with lyric translations?

Here's the song with which the Tropical Trilogy originated, track 4 on the almighty Dandy, Nettaiya (Sultry Night). Hosono has said that he was originally envisioning a more Band-esque, "Hosono House 2" arrangement for it. That would have emphasized the city scenes. Instead, with ole Martin Denny in mind, he decided to go tropical, leaning into the fantastical/imagined elements of the lyric -- the things that AREN'T present, that need to be summoned by his imagination. No wonder Paraiso is such a spiritual record (or that Chow Chow Dog is apparently about Nirvana?!).

...

The submerged sea.
The floating island.
The moon that makes
the stillness full.

In Tokyo, at about this time,
the asphalt is melting,
the streets becoming
streaming rivers.

In Shanghai, at about this time,
the pots of fish will be at rolling boils
and the wind wandering the city.

Mm mmmmm.
Mm mmmmm.
Close your eyes.

Fragrant water.
Drowsing ferns.
This is the Pure Land.
Hot as hell.

At about this time, in Minnesota,
the eggs will have boiled through.
At night, it's impossible to sleep.

I think of Trinidad
and it hurries across the world to me.
It must be so lovely there tonight.

The submerged night.
The floating dream.
A full heart holds
the wind within it.

I've got some of the LitA reissues. though I think they were actually made by Great Tracks in association with Alfa...either way pretty good repressings. but I don't think there are any translations of the lyrics. in fact I think the Paraiso liners are all in Japanese despite that pressing being mostly for Western markets. the Philharmony and OSS ones have extensive interviews in them which are very nice. I can send photos of them but I think they're all on Discogs anyway.

I'd love to see photos of those English pages, Frog! I'm not too adept at Discogs but all I found was some super lo-res scans of the Hosono House bits, impossible to actually read.

Decided to face my fears and tackle something from Bon Voyage Co., specifically Tokyo Shyness Boy, because it's short. The middle verse was tricky because it plays off (as far as I can tell) stereotypes about Tokyo -- first that Tokyoites make a lot of money and spend it all as soon as they get it, the second an old saying, from Tokugawa Shogunate times -- "fistfights and fires are the flowers of Edo," because there were so ridiculously many major fires (read into this! it's wild!). Still not positive I got that line quite right. But the first and third verses were easy.

...

Bright red spreads fast over my face from my neck: I'm shy!
Moreover, when I talk, I tend to stammer: I'm shy!
No doubt about it,
I'm an authentic Tokyo Shyness Boy.

I spend all my money overnight. Afterwards, I regret it deeply.
As far as fistfights and fires go, I prefer fireworks.
As a matter of fact,
I'm a Tokyo Shyness Boy.

In the warm sunlight, I will catch a cold and blow my nose.
At the height of summer, my heart will suddenly grow numb with cold.
To be frank with you --
achoo -- Tokyo Shyness Boy.

An obscure one today, from Chu Kosaka's '75 Horo, an album with a great backstory. Hosono after Hosono House really wanted to make a funk/soul/R&B sort of record. Each time he picked up a bass, he would go right into funk riffs. His band (still called Caramel Mama then, later Tin Pan Alley) excelled at funk. So he wrote a bunch of songs in that mode, only to discover that when he put his vocals over that sound, the effect was ruined. Naturally, Hosono was upset, and when he was talking with friend/collaborator Makoto Kubata about it, Kubata told him, "Are you really that surprised? We all know you're just a tropical dandy at heart." -- that bit of lore has been documented in an interview on the English internet somewhere, but what I discovered on the Chinese side is that Hosono felt his old Apryl Fool bandmate/vocalist Chu Kosaka DID have the right voice for the task, and so the '75 Kosaka album Horo came to be. Hosono produces. The band is Tin Pan Alley with Akiko Yano on piano and Minako Yoshida, Taeko Ohnuki, and Tatsuro Yamashita as backup vocalists. There are four new Hosono songs, two remakes of songs from the last (and best!) Happy End album, a good if string-drenched Yano tune, and two solid Kosaka originals. Two of the four new Hosonos appear on the 20th Century Pops Box and kick unholy amounts of ass. Another two don't (appear on there, or kick quite as much ass), but they're good too.

So, today's translation is a Horo song that's not on the Pops Box, called Ryusei Toshi (The City of Meteors).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBUi6R52oRs

Hosono's tune, with lyrics by Takashi Matsumoto of Happy End, who probably just around this time was giving up his drumming and beginning his work as a full-time lyricist. At his best, Matsumoto is sublime, one of the best lyricists I know. At some point in the '70s or '80s, Japan's record labels began to treat him as a hit-making factory, and I'm not sure how his quality control has been over the years. Kimi ni Mune Kyun has nice touches but is nothing revolutionary, yeah? The City of Meteors, for its part, is a simple, sweet love song.

...

Your skin is pale flame in the light of the moon.
The city spreads out from your fluttering skirt.

I'm madly in love, always.
I'm madly in love with you.
I'm dozing off with my head in your lap
and we'll stay just that way until morning.

A dream is being woven by your curly hair, your lips.
H. G. Wells' submarine floats by outside the window.

I'm madly in love, always.
I'm madly in love with you.
Captain Nemo plays a melody on the Hammond organ.

Like a meteor shower raining down on the city,
I am trembling as I hold you,
and in this way, the night goes by.

I'm madly in love, always.
I'm madly in love with you.
And with warmth in my heart,
I doze off.

(followed by the first chorus three times through)

Oh! Also! I wanted to ask -- does anyone on here have Miharu Koshi's Parallelisme on LP? I'm crazy about that record (who wouldn't be, Miharuomi forever) and curious about the words, but most of the lyrics aren't available online. Discogs suggests that there IS a lyric sheet in the LP, but the scan is too lo-res for me to make much out.

thanks again, these are fun to read :)

would appreciate if you could figure out what he was thinking on the scat-singing section of Tokyo Shyness Boy...by far the funniest moment in his catalogue if you ask me. I have to think he realized how funny it sounded.

as for the liner notes - I have Hosono House, Paraiso, Philharmony, Omni Sight Seeing, and Medicine Comp. I can try to take pictures of them when I've got some time.

I have to think he realized how funny it sounded.

He even went as far as to multi-track!

I didn't expect the answer would be so easily available. Turns out that, lyrically, the song is about Keiichi Suzuki, and that Hosono wrote it as a response to Moonriders' sleazy late-night-alley song Hinotama Boy (Fireball Boy), off their own '76 release, which was written about Hosono. And what do you think the Moonriders song ends with...

I have to think he realized how funny it sounded.

He even went as far as to multi-track!

I didn't expect the answer would be so easily available. Turns out that, lyrically, the song is about Keiichi Suzuki, and that Hosono wrote it as a response to Moonriders' sleazy late-night-alley song Hinotama Boy (Fireball Boy), off their own '76 release, which was written about Hosono. And what do you think the Moonriders song ends with...

hah, never would've made the connection. haven't listened to Tropical Dandy in a while...they desperately need to reissue those

Here is Track 3 on Side B of Tropical Dandy, Sanji no Komori Uta (3 o'Clock Lullaby), the solo acoustic song that's followed immediately by its own, lushly arranged instrumental version.

In the Tropical Trilogy era, Hosono was really outdoing himself with album closers (or... well, I don't know what to call this, sort-of-closers? it's the last song with vocals, at least, and everything after feels like one long and ingenious epilogue). Exotica Lullaby is similarly beautiful, lyrically. What a spirit a person must have to write songs as sweet, tender, and wistful as these two (and Honey Moon, that one's outstanding too, as the music would lead you to imagine).

...

Dream thee now, here on my lap
while an old record is playing.
And you, wind; and you, light; outside my window there.
This is the three o'clock lullaby.

Until somebody knocks on the door,
we'll be stuffing this old magic bottle
full of tea and full of stories
here beneath a cold tin roof.

When we've discussed the town gossip
and when we've sung that hit song even though it's a hit song,
tell me about the rest of your dream.
That will be my lullaby.

Not a lot of people on this thread gravitate to Happy End or the early Hosono like I do, so I don't know how much interest this stuff holds for you folks, but now that I've been translating it, I'm addicted to Tropical Dandy all over again. I'll fill in the blanks in the coming days (sans mostly-Portuguese opener).

Here's Honey Moon. Beautifully sparse in Japanese, the personal pronouns vaguely implied rather than stated. The ending's open to interpretation: is he talking about death? There's such blissful relaxation in Hosono's delivery when he sings that penultimate line (1:31 to 1:45 or thereabouts).

...

My heart is the setting sun.
The honey moon is in the sky.
At night angels will come to earth.
Our dreams are the sway of their hair.

A serenade like the touch of silk.
The honey moon is in the sky.
My chest is a pegasus, trembling,
its mane swaying.

Shall I captivate you with a love song?
The full moon is approaching on tiptoe.
You and I will head back up to the moon --
but not quite yet, it's still too soon.

Oops, missed the last line: after some more humming, there's:

Here we sway.

Dandying on. Track 1 on Side B, Hyouryuuki (The Castaway's Song). People talk about that feeling of liberation in Hosono's music, of "anything is allowed" and "anything is okay." Lyrically, it's much the same thing, as I'm learning daily. Harry felt like writing a song from a castaway's perspective? Well...

...

The phantom of the town I'm from
comes floating underneath me.
I'm not going anywhere.
I'm on a raft.

(Chorus)
At last I make it to a deserted island,
the merest shadow of a man.
Entrusting my life to the heat,
I start to whistle,
as out of tune as ever.
Some things never change.

The town floats onward, underneath me.
I pole the raft along.
If I dive down, I'll remember very clearly
the town that I was born in.

(and the chorus again)

Last track on Side A of ropical Dandy, Peking Duck. Didn't expect this to literally be about a Peking Duck. The red shoes presumably being the fire as the roasting commences. A song of Buddhist sympathy, then? (Chow Chow Dog, the song on Bon Voyage Co with all the references to nirvana, is about a dog kept for meat -- sensing a bit of a theme here).

...

In Yokohama, rain falls on a brightly lit street.
It's just like that old movie "Singing in the Rain" --
the rain, the man, his song.

You're wearing red shoes,
you're in the company of three foreigners,
you're stuck in a cage and bewildered.
Chinatown is an ocean of flame.

(Chorus)
Escape, duck, hurry!
The fire is bouncing, crackling, howling.
Escape from this city that burns bright red!
You're clearly the so-called Peking Duck.

In Yokohama, on a brightly-lit street,
the fire climbs higher.
It's just like it would be in a dream:
Chinatown is an ocean of flame.

(Chorus)

The rain and the burning flame are buffeting your back.
Escape!
Your chest is getting firmer.
You're becoming that so-called Peking Duck.

The last Tropical Dandy song: Kinu Kaidou (Silk Road), Track 3 on Side A, my favorite on the album. It's like Asatoya Yunta on Paraiso, I could play it a hundred times in a row and not get bored.

...

I swagger through the magic wasteland,
carrying strange artifacts.
Malevolent demons, make way for me!
If not, I'll slap you down.

(Chorus)
As I go, I call out to the clouds
and in one bound soar over a hundred thousand leagues.
The Silk Road goes to the ends of the earth,
unto even the markets of Persia.

Worthless scum,
I'll knock you flying!
Have a taste of this karate chop
and flee, tail between legs.

(Chorus)

The road leads on
to the great cities of the west.
I will find you and challenge you
though it takes all my strength to do it!

(Chorus)

Have a taste of this karate chop

lol

The new work term at uni is looming so I won't be able to keep this pace up for long, but on the bright side, there's not much left of the stuff released under Hosono's own name. Happy End translations are a project I'm looking forward to passionately but Matsumoto has his own tricky sides (less pure wordplay, more poetic/literary elements), and I'll probably want to boost my language skills first. The Happy End lyrics are phenomenal.

Speaking of poetic/literary elements, here's another Hosono song from Horo, this time with his own lyrics: the great, chilled-out, mildly eerie Bon Voyage Hatoba (Bon Voyage Pier). Here's the Horo version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhaOJlEB81g

And the re-recorded version on Kosaka's next album, 1978's Morning. Sakamoto's on record as a fan of this version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcBQinNKy7A

It may not sound like much at first, but it works itself under your skin.

The second verse was practically incomprehensible to me. Casting around for help, I found a Japanese poet singling out the second verse as a sign of Hosono's lyrical skills. So there you have it, Matsumoto wasn't the only literary one! (That poet also quoted a segment of an interview in which Hosono was asked why he didn't become a professional lyricist. The answer: "Well, Matsumoto was around.")

...

We're twenty kilometers away from the dead of night:
dripping darkness, oozing sky.
Come along, come along.
Soon the city will break the surface.

The wandering city -- love's hidden home --
unable to settle itself in time.
Come along, come along.
Together we'll step right over the night.

(Chorus)
Bon voyage.
Midnight in the harbor of the heart.
Bon voyage.

We're twenty kilometers away from the pier:
waves dripping, made of memories.
Come along, come along.
Soon the sea will fall asleep.

(Chorus)

We're twenty kilometers away from the dead of night:
dripping darkness, oozing sky.
Come along, come along.
Together we'll fly straight across the night.

Exotica Lullaby: another song that makes me cry now that I know the lyrics. The words off the page alone don't do it, but man, when that prechorus hits, with its shift to minor, and Hosono comes in singing those lines!

...

A boat is flying across the moon.
I wonder where it's going.
Behind the clouds, on the floating island,
the gondola sways,
and sways, and sways, and sways,
carrying children's dreams on board.
Every night, it comes to meet us.
Can you see it?

(Prechorus)
If you're crying -- if the tears won't stop --
how about we go up there together?
We need only sprinkle a little fairy powder,
and look, we're floating!

(Chorus)
This is your and my lullaby.
An exotic lullaby, lullaby, lullaby.

(repeat second half of the verse)
(repeat prechorus)
(repeat chorus)

Every night, the gondola comes to meet us.
Let's get on.

https://fruitandgroovescollective.com/2024/02/21/stones-throw-records-announce-haruomi-hosono-tribute-album/

that's a cute little acoustic guest room cover

thanks so much for these translations, hopefully they can all be archived somewhere. though ILX is pretty safe ;)

is there a tracklist for the tribute album out anywhere? wonder if it's gonna be mostly Hosono House stuff or if it's gonna dig into the weeds a bit. there's such a variety of stuff to choose from.

Thanks Frog! I'm slowly collecting them on my own site/blog (grainsparrow.blogger.com), which is technically no safer than anywhere else on the internet, but it'll be where I make revisions -- the words to Focus are in much better shape already!

The album Mare linked to being linked to celebrations of Hosono House's 50th anniversary (I looked around for a tracklist too and got nothing) makes me wonder whether Light in the Attic might be saving reissues of Tropical Dandy and Bon Voyage Co for 2025 and 2026.

I did a translation yesterday but ran out of time to post it. Here's Black Peanuts, a Tropical Dandy outtake that ended up on the immaculate Side B of Bon Voyage Co. I figured it was a novelty number... not exactly. It's part-tribute to Charlie Parker's Salt Peanuts, and part political satire -- about something called the Lockheed Scandal, which apparently involved lotta big-name government figures in Japan getting bribed by an airline company, something along those lines. A "peanut" was code name for the bribes, one peanut amounting to $3333.

Love Hosono's vocals on this.

...

(Verse)
Black peanuts!
You can buy a poor man with one.
Yum, salt peanuts!
Do come and buy one on occasion.
Black peanuts!
Pick a peanut you like and bribe someone with it.
Magic peanuts!
They're perfect for purchasing the poor.

(Chorus)
Oh shopkeeper, you're making so merry.
You hawk your fares resoundingly
in a voice that's so, so loud.
It's going to be a problem, you know.
"Come on in! Come on in!"
Fine, but -- through the back door.
And say it in a subdued voice:
"Go ahead, please -- take one!"

(repeat verse and chorus)

(Except dot blogspot dot com for the translation/revision archive.)

Huh. I thought the song was really about peanuts.

Frog has written elsewhere that

1. Sports Men sounds to him kinda like Hosono doing Takahashi,
2. the BGM song Happy End is like Sakamoto doing Hosono,
3. and Mass is like Hosono doing Sakamoto.

There's actually a track on Coincidental Music, Normandia, that is *literally* Hosono doing Sakamoto. The guy who commissioned the song asked Hosono to write him a Sakamoto song. This was post-YMO, summer '84, and Sakamoto heard it in a commercial on TV and thought, "Wow, that sure sounds like me." And then discovered the composer was Hosono.

So, I think Pom Pom Jyouki (Pom Pom Steam) is Hosono doing Eiichi Ohtaki. It's lighthearted, fast, fun -- like merton on RYM describing Ohtaki's solo debut, "it's there, it makes you happy, it's gone" -- and like a lot of Ohtaki, it's a quirky rewrite of a fifties song, in this case Sea Cruise -- no one's trying to hide it, the whole chorus line of Sea Cruise gets quoted. Hosono takes the song far away from its origins but the skeletal structure is the same.

And these lyrics! My respect for Hosono just keeps growing. It's so playful, but Hosono leans in to the scenario with 100% commitment and 100% warmth. And it works so well with the arrangement. I kept cracking up as I worked on this.

...

Bopping along to this old man rhythm,
in the night breeze, in the harbor light.
How about goin' to the pier? (Yeah, let's go.)
So it's decided. Stylish and dapper, we set out in large numbers.
About time to head back.
Are you crazy, no way!
We get on board gladly.
Pom pom steam!

(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
A fair wind moves us along: swoosh.

(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
It's so comfortable, pom pom steam.

The semi-diesel engine eggs us on.
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire.
That girl over there is really cute. (Yeah, really cute!)
So it's decided. Stylish and dapper, we set out in large numbers.
About time to enjoy the night breeze,
which can only be done on deck.
Pom pom steam!

(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
A fair wind moves us along: swoosh.

(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
(Swoosh swoosh swoosh.)
Pom pom steam!
Pom pom steam!
Pom pom steam!
Pom pom steam!

Down on the street it's pretty crazy, some band's playing boogie-woogie.
Won't you let me take you on a sea cruise?
One of us got jilted. (Yeah, jilted.)
So it's decided. Stylish and dapper, we're all going to dance.
About time to head back.
Are you crazy, no way!
It's so comfortable.
Pom pom steam!

Swoosh swoosh swoosh...

Here is the twice-teased Chow Chow Dog, written after encounters with dogs destined to be killed for food, in the same Chinatown in Yokohama that inspired Peking Duck.

Tin Pan Alley was so good at reggae. Tatsuo Hayashi forever!

...

Inescapable jail.
Inescapable jail.

Shortly before dawn,
I will bid this world farewell.
But before that
I will sleep like a log
and dream.

I am a chow chow dog.
I am the carefree Prince of Woof.
I'm the hero of the story!
Like, for instance, Rin Tin Tin.

(Chorus)
You are a chow chow dog.
You must wake up
if you wish to know
the road to heaven,
You are a chow chow dog.
Prajñāpāramitā.
Chant it, and nirvana will blossom in your heart.
(Nirvana I say, you chow chow dog!)

(Bridge)
The locale? The far end of China --
far, far, far away.
Tied in chains.
Inescapable prison.
Inescapable jail.

Soon the day will break.
I will bid this world farewell.
I forget anything and everything
and dream.

You are a chow chow dog.
You are the carefree Prince of Woof.
The hero of the story.
Like, for instance, Rin Tin Tin.

(Chorus / What goes around must come around.)

(Bridge)

And then the footsteps of the demon
gradually get louder.
Break through the cage!
And, escaping, make straight for your distant hometown.

Ah, but this chow chow dog,
this carefree Prince of Woof,
is merely dreaming he's a hero,
that Rin Tin Tin that he adores.

(Chorus)

(Chorus / What goes around must come around.)

music from memory recording artists the zenmenn have done their own brief versions of 'Asatoya Yunta', 'Shimendoka' and 'Saigo no Rakuen' in tribute to harry...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xllQpdOavBA

Finally had time for a new translation: Bon Voyage Co's opener, Chouchou-san (Mister Butterfly).

...

Please teach me how to fly,
oh Mister Butterfly.
She ran away from Tokyo,
now she's an ocean liner girl.

The captain sails away.
Wait! Wait just a moment, please!
She boarded a ship out of Tokyo.
I need to go to her side.

Mister Butterfly -- captain, sir --
show me how to fly away with you.
As soon as I meet that girl,
we'll say farewell -- bye bye --
Mister Butterfly.

Please teach me how to fly,
oh Mister Butterfly.
The ocean liner ship is flying
from Tokyo to the ocean's end.

Captain, sir, wait!
Just for the sake of it,
wait just a moment, please!
Mister Butterfly flies off.
The ocean's end is paradise.

Mister Butterfly -- captain, sir --
show me how to fly away with you.
As soon as I meet that girl,
we'll say farewell -- bye bye --
Mister Butterfly.

Love this version, listen to that lovely draggy drum intro, so good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFXJNCVRDrU-

Yeah, that's an amazing version. Tin Pan Alley were (are? I think they reconvene now & then, still) one of the best bands to ever roam the earth. Thank God they recorded, like, 100000000 albums.

Peak Kermit The Frog vocals from Harry too (not a criticism)

Hosono's post-YMO '80s are absolutely insane... SFX and the Apogee & Perigee record from '84 rule, and I'm just now realizing that the Making of Non-Standard Music EP is top-notch too, a preview of what's to come with Monad (at least, on the B-side). The Monad records -- I can't even comprehend... Nokto is beyond beautiful, most of us know that already, so let me emphasize how generously Paradise View starts rewarding close, careful listens. Sounded samey and hard-to-fathom on first several listens, but just give it time. The Endless Talking feels like one of the wildest and weirdest ideas for an album ever: like a Best Of of the same year it came out in, and the one before; but deconstructed/remade into something new and unlike anything else in Hosono's discography -- as dark and nightmarish as Hosono gets. Sex, Energy and Star from '86 is more of a production job than a Hosono solo album, but it's fantastic all the same: it's very much the spirit of SFX carried forward into still more sublime realms of the insane. I had no idea digital drums could sound so good, so massive. Hosono did always know how to choose his collaborators. Echo de Miharu is a wonderfully nuts crossover between Koshi's chanson leanings and Hosono's deep ambient stuff. The Tale of Genji blows me away every time I listen, now -- the melodies are so slow and patient it can be hard to tell they're there. But they are, ohhh how they are. 1988 has the Marginal soundtrack which I'm still pretty new to (up on YT! It isn't all Hosono, but the other guy's tracks are great too). And then you get 1989 and Omni fuckin Sight Seeing. Comments on this thread got me pretty hyped for Omni and it *still* managed to exceed expectations. I haven't even got to the 20th Century Pops stuff from these years, there's probably a bunch of incredible stuff tucked away in there too...

at one point a bunch of those were going to get reissued! look:

oops, I Jimmed it. this is what i meant to post:

https://lightintheattic.net/products/mercuric-dance

https://lightintheattic.net/products/the-endless-talking

and so on. I think just the Monad records though.

luckily I have a copy of Coincidental Music. the others I really want. there were times when I thought I might win one from eBay at a not terrible price, alas they always get sniped at the last second.

The Endless Talking feels like one of the wildest and weirdest ideas for an album ever: like a Best Of of the same year it came out in, and the one before; but deconstructed/remade into something new and unlike anything else in Hosono's discography -- as dark and nightmarish as Hosono gets

it's genuinely bizarre. part of the reason I want a reissue is because sometimes they come with interviews and I'd really like to know what he was thinking with some of this. amusingly there are so many vaporwave artists who go for this unplaceable nightmare vibe using just synths and samplers but somehow Haruomi Hosono is the one who captured it better than any of them. probably before any of them were born too.

yes, i too would love reissues of the Monad releaes for notes / insights into what he was thinking when making them. i was lucky to pick up the originals when they were still affordable but would happily replace them with reissues.

The Tale of Genji is my favourite.

Apogee & Perigee isn't a Hosono release is it? I thought it was Jun Togawa, though my favourite track, Hope is by the mighty Testpattern.

x post

There's two Hosono compositions on Apogee & Perigee (both sung by Jun), I don't know whether he actually plays on anything -- but surely the arrangements are 90% his own? And it must have been him picking the people involved. Who else do Jun Togawa, Miharu Koshi, and Takashi Matsumoto have in common? (Hosono as puppetmaster!)

The lack of context is bewildering, yes, and sometimes I get really curious... but other times, it can feel liberating too. When music so amazing seems to rise up out of absolutely nowhere, it makes me feel like anything is possible.

I'll have to give that one another listen - I do think HH's production style is pretty easy to identify. when "Scandal Night" came up on Pacific Breeze 3 I could instantly tell there was Hosono involvement despite not actually knowing what the track was

Coincidental Music is a huge favorite too. I'm not sure any other Hosono record has quite so many catchy things in one place. And even though everything on there was commissioned, and spans four years, I find it goes down real smooth as a start-to-finish listen. I guess when your creative spirit is burning as bright as Hosono's was at the time, it doesn't matter what you're doing stylistically, everything you do will sound of a piece.

God that's weird, I could've sworn I saw the production credit for Apogee & Perigee go to Hosono, but now that I actually look it up again, I'm wrong, it's Kazusuke Obi (who was apparently involved with EVERYTHING YMO-family from BGM on to Wild and Moody... after which he crossed over into the VGM world and was involved with, for example, the soundtrack to Super Marip Brothers 3?! Who is this guy?!

Apogee & Perigee seems to be shrouded in even more mystery than most YMO-adjacent stuff. Discogs notes that the releases had no songwriting credits until some many-decades-later reissue identified *some* of them. So it could still be that Hosono did arrangements for everything but Queen Glacier. It sounds to me exactly like a sister record to Parallelisme, just poppier.

Oh yeah, there it is!

https://galapagos-rec0rds.com/products/apogee-perigee-アポジー-ペリジー-超時空コロダスタン旅行記?variant=33050887553127

Other Japanese-language sites/blogs credit Hosono as producer too, and mention he drafted the storyline.

I don't think that link came out right. Here's the English-language blurb on that site:

"Nikka Whisky's commercial project by YEN all-star lineup including Yuji Miyake, Test Pattern, Yoichiro Yoshikawa, Miharu Koshi, Jun Togawa, under Haruomi Hosono's production. A gorgeous techno-pop album consisting of an A-side incorporated into a story that goes to the moon. It is a total conceptual album including inserts."

And "細野晴臣 プロデュース" comes up a lot. Seems only Discogs has Obi credited with the production.

‘Translation changes the original meaning’: how 70s psych rockers Happy End ended the ‘Japanese rock controversy’

In 1969, Takasshi Matsumoto and Haruomi Hosono opted to defy rock trends by singing in Japanese, not English – paving the way for ‘city pop’ and J-pop

Thanks! Great detail about Hosono jotting down new band names on his commute. Somewhere I read/watched Hosono say that breaking up bands is a hobby of his.

And: "...and at 76 he continues to create, saying he’s hoping to start work on a new solo collection soon." Good news, but hasn't he been saying he's about to start work on a new solo collection for years now? Hosono, you magical old man, write us some new songs dammit!

Man, I'm seriously digging Eating Pleasure, the 1980 Sandii (and Makoto Kubota) record produced by Hosono. It's got five Hosono originals and a version of Drip Dry Eyes that predates Neuromantic. On first however many listens it sounded like there was too much bland of-the-era pop between the summits of Hosono's Idol Era and Zoot Kook. I am here to tell you this is NOT TRUE. They wove the atmosphere real thick on this one. A much weirder and vibey-er record than it pretends to be!