Haruomi Hosono

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!

It's one of those sneaky actually-it's-YMO albums, with YT on drums and Sakamoto credited with keyboards, Matsutake on computer...

that Drip Dry Eyes is so smooth. I didn't realize it predated Takahashi's own.

surprised it hasn't been repressed yet. admittedly I haven't heard the whole thing but I will have to rectify that soon.

Its a real favourite of mine. I managed to pick up a cheap copy of the 2nd edition in Tokyo about 10 years ago.

okay I've got it on now, definitely wilder than I was expecting. "Alive" is such a cool song

Artists with similar names that you get mixed up

Sandii & the Sunsetz
Sheena & the Rokkets

so good. 'zoot kook' still sounds like it was beamed in from the future.

Zoot Kook feels like it launched a whole genre -- Yoko Kanno did a lot more good work within it in the '00s (and specifically sought out Chris Mosdell to help). Alive is wonderful.

mmmm, that's awesome -- not the greatest cover art, but I'm all for great albums in unassuming sleeves.

the thing about the cover art is it just looks like all those 50s and 60 exotica albums with a hot girl on the sleeve. its not like say the Miharu Koshi albums which hint at the oddness of the music. wonder how many people bought it for that reason, put it on and were like what the hell am I listening to.

zoot kook: song of the week

i haven't heard Yoko Kanno - will be checking that out today i hope

damn, there's too much music. artists should only release one album, preferably just one song

apparently this is getting a reissue? never heard of this, apparently it's just a demo album but with songs written by a bunch of familiar names. Hosono produced it, apparently there are just a couple test pressings out there (one of which sold for 2 grand!)

https://www.discogs.com/release/9974042-Linda-Carriere-Haruomi-Hosono-Produced-%E7%B4%B0%E9%87%8E%E6%99%B4%E8%87%A3-%E8%A3%BD%E4%BD%9C-%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A8%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB

some of the tracks are available on YouTube, but not the Hosono-penned ones (unless I just can't find it). here's one...sounds great

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

oh, that's funny that this is getting a reissue. I listened to some of the stuff on YT a while ago and thought, "pretty cool, guess I'll never hear it all tho." guess again!

1977! That's the year of Our Connection, isn't it? -- for me, one of the peaks of Hosono's songwriting discography. I had no idea he'd done another five songs for someone else that year.