Chatmonchy on life's (lack of) meaningTheir name sounds silly, but serious up yourself
A stiff mix of adorableness and unflinching honesty. What? Two-piece Chatmonchy's
best performance of "On the Night the World Ends" at YouTube. This is recorded from
TV at the lowest resolution possible. There are other versions that rock harder,
but after I saw this I didn't have any patience for a 4-piece dance band.
This is a pretty decent piece of songcraft, walking you down quite a desolate little
corridor to a dead end with lots compassion and zero comfort. They don't mean to
leave you there, but they'll certainly take you for a look.
Chatmonchy - Sekai ga owaru yoru ni2013 JAN 15 by harinezumizzz (06:03)
I found translated lyrics all over. Half-assed translations that don't make sense.
I thought I would see what more effort could do.
I got interested after I came across an interview explaining the song's origins.
[interview] Chatmonchy for Purple Sky Magazine2010 April 15 by by Victoria Goldenberg, translation by Ryu Takahashi
purpleskymagazine.com/2010/04/interview-chatmonchy/ “Because nobody knows how long we’ve got…” It’s pretty heavy stuff for
a Top 10 hit, but that’s precisely why Chatmonchy is so popular…
Fukuoka wrote “Sekai ga Owaru Yoru ni” after someone fell in front of
the subway she was riding and died. “I was upset that passengers were
disappointed about being late to work,” she explains. “It was my first
weird experience in Tokyo.”Well, okay… that's not really what the song says, and jumping is more
like it than randomly happening to fall.
It's usual for everyone else to get angry at a train jumper, but Akiko went
home and tried to apologize for the public indifference, understanding that
it's not so far from the private anguish of wanting to stop living one morning.
〜〜〜〜〜
Artist: Chatmonchy
Lyrics: Akiko Fukuoka (Ba./Dr./Vo.)
Music: Eriko Hashimoto (Vo./Gt.)
First release 20 June 2007,「
Tobi uo no butterfly」/「
Sekai ga owaru yoru ni"」
Sekai ga owaru yoru ni
[-A-]
Tatoeba kodoku na yoru ga sugi
Wari to yoi asa ga kuru
Douse kawari ya shinai no ni
Min'na nanika ni te wo awaseteru
Tatoeba munashiku toki ga sugi
Nare nareshii seijaku ga kuru
Shimatta! Mou sekai wa owatteita
Ano ko mo sono ko mo fuan buttobashite sa
Iketenai JŌKU de Hey Hey Hey
[-CHORUS-]
Watashi ga kamisama dattara
Kon'na sekai wa tsukuranakatta
Ai to iu na no omamori wa
Kekkyoku karappo datta nda
[-A-]
Tatoeba sabaku de hana ga saki
Mata fukou no tane ga naru
Douse sodachiyashinai kara
Min'na nanika ni me wo sorashiteru
Tatoeba yasashiku kaze ga fuki
Koukai no heitai ga kuru
Shimatta! mou kokoro wa ana darake da
Ima mo dokoka ga ironna riyuu de
Koware hajimeteru Hey Hey Hey
[-CHORUS-]
Watashi ga akuma dattara
Kon'na sekai wa tsukuranakatta
Inochi no sunadokei wa
Kekkyoku karappo datta nda
[-BRIDGE-]
Himatsubushi dekiru wadai wo kudaranai waraigoe to uso wo
Sagashitsudzukeru no watashi karappo dakara
[-CHORUS-]
Watashi ga kamisama dattara
Kon'na sekai wa tsukuranakatta
Ai to iu na no omamori wa
Kekkyoku karappo datta nda
Watashi ga akuma dattara
Kon'na sekai wa tsukuranakatta
Inochi no sunadokei wa
Kekkyoku karappo datta nda
| On the Night the World Ends
Let's say, after a lonely night
A relatively good morning comes
Even though nothing's different anyway
Everyone joins hands over something
Let's say, after a fruitless season
The too-familiar silence comes back
That's done it! Already the world has ended
That girl over there, that girl beating back anxiety
With lame jokes Hey Hey Hey
If I were God
I wouldn’t have made a world like this
The amulet called Love
It's empty in the end
Let's say there's a flower in the desert, blooming
Later there'll be miserable seeds
Because they won't grow anyway
Everyone averts their eyes over something
Let's say there's a gentle wind blowing
The soldiers of regret come back
That's done it! Again the heart is a hole
For various reasons, somewhere even now
She's starting to break Hey Hey Hey
If I were the Devil
I wouldn’t have made a world like this
The hourglass of a lifetime
It's empty in the end
Topics of interest to kill the time lies and worthless laughter
I go on seeking them because I'm empty
If I were God
I wouldn’t have made a world like this
The amulet called Love
It's empty in the end
If I were the Devil
I wouldn’t have made a world like this
The hourglass of a lifetime
It's empty in the end |
〜〜〜〜〜
That's done it!Shimatta! Is translated as anything from "shit!" to "oh dear!" But it's the past tense
of the verb
shimau, meaning to finish up, stop, close down, put an end to.
The literal sense is obviously important for the song.
She's starting to breakAkiko said,
koware hajimeteru, which is "starting to break" without any he, she, it,
me or them. It could mean any or all of those. You can get away with this in Japanese
but in English it sounds uncomfortably incomplete, so I tied it back to the earlier couplet
because they have the same melody and form. And anything else is even more arbitary.
In March of 2016, Takuma Sato released a short youth film he wrote and directed, not
accidentally titled
Starting to Break, Hey Hey Hey. Since I haven't seen it, again I can't
tell who or what is starting to break. It's probably the female lead, having a grow-up
crisis. The end theme "I See, You See" played by the soundtrack band Tomoko Ikkaku
and sung by Saki Tsutsumi
is on YouTube. The wandering girl with the good baseball
throw is the movie's star, Yukino Kishii.
The amulet called LoveAmulet is
omamori, the package of charms to ward off evil and bring good fortune
dispensed by shrines in return for donations. It's generally a small silken bag of
stuff supposed to have power. If the bag is empty... then it won't protect you.
Lies and worthless laughterKudaranai is for things that are really trivial, inferior, or a useless waste of time.
Sometimes translated as "stupid".
Empty as a matter of factIn Japanese you can assert a basic fact by ending your sentence with
no desu,
or
nda for short. Very handy. When Akiko says love is an empty amulet,
you could call it whining, but it's got a certain finality.
