Happy November Igu Day!

It’s been a while, but here we are. We’ve come to the last track on ROYAL STRAIGHT MAGIC. It’s pretty straight-forward, but I was wondering about the choice to call this track “SKY” when the last track on VIRGIN had been titled “SORA,” which means “sky” in Japanese. Fortunately for me, miko addresses this in her November 15, 2016 blog post for this track:

The sound of a jet engine introduces a refreshing feeling, making it seem like you’re really flying across the sky in a jet!

Unlike what I’d done before, the “sky” in this song represents a yearning for an unknown world, the expectations for my future self. I see the sky as that type of motif here. In “SORA,” the last song on VIRGIN, the sky was like a screen unto which fading memories of the past were projected. This time I wanted to show the complete opposite of that, the sky as a screen for the future. So, I titled this one “SKY.”

There was also a funny line about imagining that there were “4 tiny mikos” standing behind Jyou during the chorus, since she sang & recorded the chorus multiple times to combine the recordings into one.

In the lyrics themselves as written on Rock Lyric (here: https://rocklyric.jp/lyric.php?sid=169147), the word リスタート (risutaato, from the English word “restart” and meaning the same thing) is oddly written as り・スタート, which would be like “ri sutaato” or “ri-sutaato.” These dots (・) are usually used to represent hyphens or the spaces between non-Japanese words or names. I see no logical nor poetic reason for this split, so I’m assuming it’s a typo and ignoring it in the lyrics romanization and translation.

The only other note I have is that what I translated as “add your flourish to it” was the idiom 「〜に花を添える」which I previously discussed in the notes for “Psychedelic Black Night,” the first track on this mini album.

As for the image in the header, I took it this past July, somewhere over New York or the Atlantic Ocean, on the way to Italy. Maybe I’ll write about that someday. For now, on to the song!

☆

SKY

moshimo CHANGE YOURSELF kawareru nara
CAN YOU DIVE TO SKY?
miagetatte NOBODY’S THERE
puraido sutete TAKE OFF
kimi rashii risutaato ni hana wo soete
ichido kiri no FLIGHT dare ni mo tsugezu ikou ka

joushou kiryuu de kechirasu koukai hitotsu
“kaerarenakatta kinou”
tachifusagaru kumo tsukinuke hatenai sora wo koete

hirogaru kurayami no nai
doko made mo jiyuuna basho de
kimi wo nurikaeteikou
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
hitori kiri ni natte
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
mayotta toki wa sotto te wo tsunaide

SAY GOOD-BYE kako no jibun ni
YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF
bokura mo sou sa NOBODY KNOWS
sutesatta mono mo ooku
“kiyou ni ikinakya” tte
DON’T NEED TO SAY LIKE THAT
kimi ga kimi rashiku areru basho e to ikou ka

joushou kiryuu de kechirasu koukai hitotsu
“todokenai mama no omoi”
riyuu wa iranai mou furikaeranai
kimi nara koeteyukeru

atarashii kaze ni aorare
chiisaku furueru yoru demo
asu wa kimi wo matteru sa
SO CAN YOU SEE?
kaeru basho nara
SO CAN YOU FEEL?
koko ni aru kara tobidashiteyuke

hirogaru kurayami no nai
doko made mo jiyuuna basho de
kimi wo nurikaeteikou
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
hitori kiri ni natte
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
mayotta toki wa sotto te wo tsunagou

onaji sora no shita

SKY

If it’s possible to change yourself
Can you dive into the sky?
Look up: nobody’s there
Throw away your pride and take off
Restart in your own way, add your flourish to it
Shall we steal away on this once-in-a-lifetime flight?

Scatter away one regret with the rising air currents
“The yesterday that I couldn’t change”
Break through the clouds that block your way and cross the endless sky

In a place of everlasting freedom,
where darkness doesn’t spread,
Let’s paint a new you
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
When you’re all alone,
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
When you’re lost, softly take my hand

Say good-bye to the old you
YOU CAN MAKE YOURSELF
We can too; nobody knows
there are so many things we’ve left behind
“You gotta live skillfully”
No need to say it like that
Shall we go to the place where you can be yourself?

Scatter away one regret with the rising air currents
“The feelings that could never reach you”
You don’t need a reason; don’t look back anymore
If anyone can get past this, it’s you

Stirred up by a new wind
Even on nights where you tremble lightly
Tomorrow will be waiting for you
SO CAN YOU SEE?
Your place to go back to
SO CAN YOU FEEL?
is right here, so take off!

In a place of everlasting freedom,
where darkness doesn’t spread,
Let’s paint a new you
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
When you’re all alone,
DON’T CLOSE YOUR EYES
When you’re lost, let’s softly hold each other’s hands

Under the same sky