X no Sei to Shi: 3.20 Voiceless Screaming
Jul. 21st, 2011 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darcencielOn the topic of the loss of my favorite rocker to suicide last week, I've decided to finish translating his autobiography into English. Back in my 20s (hahaha) I was big on improving my Japanese. I was also big into Japanese rock music, so the two collided when I realized that a lot of my favorite band members had released autobiographies and that I could do the rest of the world a favor by translating them into English.
I only ever finished one full book translation (Gackt's Jihaku, which can be found here) but I did a bunch of partial translations of articles and chapters of other books. Taiji's book was one of those, but I stopped doing any sort of translation around the time I moved to Boston.
But I figure, this is as good a way as any to pay tribute to an awesome musician. I'm going to try and do one chapter a week. This will help improve my Japanese again anyway, as I've slipped since I moved back to the US.
The rest of the chapters can be found here: http://seventhmoon.org/taiji/
X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
20. VOICELESS SCREAMING
"Voiceless Screaming" carries something nameless invited in by people's tears. This thing crosses boundaries of gender and nationality.
I haven't said anything about this until now, but this is a song that I wrote.
My motivation then was that I realized that the X of that time needed a song like this. Saying that word, "Realize," sounds easy, but this realization was actually a kind of self-enlightenment, I think.
"Is this kind of thing okay?" Whenever I asked myself this question, the results of my soul-searching would feel natural to me.
At the time I wrote the song, I didn't forget to give credit to the others. I wasn't that arrogant as to say that I did it all entirely on my own.
Of course, it did require a lot of effort to write that song, but I think that a lot of that help came from the invisible strength around me that began to join in.
"Voiceless Screaming" was written because Yoshiki's physical condition was deteriorating, so he couldn't play and had to rest. It was originally thought up between me and Toshi, but eventually it became an opera-ish piece.
We were going to put together a really really simple song, but it couldn't be helped that we ended up making it a Toshi-esque song. In the end, its scope became really broad. [trans note: literally "above all, inserting Toshi into the song"]
Before we recorded the song, Toshi would confide in me: "I'd like to sing it like this, but what would you do?" It was such a Toshi-ish question, so I'd snap: "Don't worry about what I'd do!"
The truth was, I think he knew the song was fine as it was, but Toshi didn't know how to leave it alone. After I snapped at him, Toshi kept worrying.
The origin of his question was serious, and he thought long and hard about the way in which it should be sung. "Voiceless Screaming" was that kind of a song into which the two of us poured our souls.
The question of why Toshi put so much of himself into the song was that he wrote the lyrics about the troubles he was feeling.
At that time, Toshi had lost his voice for a short period. A vocalist who can't sing is useless. All of the hurt and bitterness he felt was poured as sadness into the song.
We made the recording of the song while crying. The tears just naturally flowed.
Perhaps it was then that Toshi first began to put his true feelings into songs when singing.
I don't think there will ever be another song like "Voiceless Screaming." It is not an exaggeration to say that with that song, Toshi was singing about his own life.
For those of you who have no idea who Taiji is, you might have heard of X Japan, one of the most influential Japanese metal bands of the 80s. They're still active and have long moved past their metal stage, but Taiji was their bassist from 1985-1992.
I only ever finished one full book translation (Gackt's Jihaku, which can be found here) but I did a bunch of partial translations of articles and chapters of other books. Taiji's book was one of those, but I stopped doing any sort of translation around the time I moved to Boston.
But I figure, this is as good a way as any to pay tribute to an awesome musician. I'm going to try and do one chapter a week. This will help improve my Japanese again anyway, as I've slipped since I moved back to the US.
The rest of the chapters can be found here: http://seventhmoon.org/taiji/
X NO SEI TO SHI: STEP 3
20. VOICELESS SCREAMING
"Voiceless Screaming" carries something nameless invited in by people's tears. This thing crosses boundaries of gender and nationality.
I haven't said anything about this until now, but this is a song that I wrote.
My motivation then was that I realized that the X of that time needed a song like this. Saying that word, "Realize," sounds easy, but this realization was actually a kind of self-enlightenment, I think.
"Is this kind of thing okay?" Whenever I asked myself this question, the results of my soul-searching would feel natural to me.
At the time I wrote the song, I didn't forget to give credit to the others. I wasn't that arrogant as to say that I did it all entirely on my own.
Of course, it did require a lot of effort to write that song, but I think that a lot of that help came from the invisible strength around me that began to join in.
"Voiceless Screaming" was written because Yoshiki's physical condition was deteriorating, so he couldn't play and had to rest. It was originally thought up between me and Toshi, but eventually it became an opera-ish piece.
We were going to put together a really really simple song, but it couldn't be helped that we ended up making it a Toshi-esque song. In the end, its scope became really broad. [trans note: literally "above all, inserting Toshi into the song"]
Before we recorded the song, Toshi would confide in me: "I'd like to sing it like this, but what would you do?" It was such a Toshi-ish question, so I'd snap: "Don't worry about what I'd do!"
The truth was, I think he knew the song was fine as it was, but Toshi didn't know how to leave it alone. After I snapped at him, Toshi kept worrying.
The origin of his question was serious, and he thought long and hard about the way in which it should be sung. "Voiceless Screaming" was that kind of a song into which the two of us poured our souls.
The question of why Toshi put so much of himself into the song was that he wrote the lyrics about the troubles he was feeling.
At that time, Toshi had lost his voice for a short period. A vocalist who can't sing is useless. All of the hurt and bitterness he felt was poured as sadness into the song.
We made the recording of the song while crying. The tears just naturally flowed.
Perhaps it was then that Toshi first began to put his true feelings into songs when singing.
I don't think there will ever be another song like "Voiceless Screaming." It is not an exaggeration to say that with that song, Toshi was singing about his own life.
For those of you who have no idea who Taiji is, you might have heard of X Japan, one of the most influential Japanese metal bands of the 80s. They're still active and have long moved past their metal stage, but Taiji was their bassist from 1985-1992.
