Puns or clever worldplay in Ayu lyrics?
 

I've been really interested in this recently~ While the translations of Ayu's lyrics are masterpieces themselves, we do tend to lose something by not knowing the native language they're written in.

So I was kinda wondering if anyone who knows japanese noticed certain idioms/phrases/puns/wordplay that might be interesting to note in Ayu's songs, that we might lose when the lyrics are translated to english.

We lose ALOT. Some of it is easy to notice, some not so easy. Some have been mentioned in translations, others are things I've had to notice on my own.

Moments uses the japanese saying "kachoufuugetsu (flower-bird-wind-moon, meaning something like natural beauty)" for the choruses ("hana no you ni (like a flower)", "tori no you ni (like a bird)," "kaze no you ni (like the wind)," "tsuki no you ni (like the moon)."

Connected uses alliteration, which is common in English lyrics but REALLY rare in Japanese, especially for the length of almost the whole song. Every word in the chorus starts with "mi." Ayu's written the lyrics all in katakana as well, probably to make the alliteration more visual and thus more obvious.

"onna gokoro to nantoka no sora wa..." at the end of Sexy little things (I totally never said "Microphone" here, totally, nope never happened heh ^^;; ) is a reference to a japanese saying about "onnagokoro" (women's hearts) and "aki no sora" (the autumn sky) being impossible to predict. I can't remember the full phrase though.

Those are just from memory, when I think of more I'll post them. :)

I like that one! It's really connected. :laugh Thanks for sharing!

I knew about moments but not those others. I would LOVE to hear more. I really feel we lose so much by not knowing Japanese.

Oh this is very interesting!! :)

I believe the phrase is '女心と秋の空は変わりやすい'. Something along the lines of 'A woman's heart and the autumn skies are fickle.' Then ayu proceeds to say that a woman's heart and whatever skies are things no one can read. heh.

Just to add: 男心 (a man's heart) and　春の空 (spring skies) are also used interchangeably with the expression.

This is interesting. I think we really miss out on a lot through translation unfortunately.
You'd probably have to write an essay or something to get the full meaning haha.

i think you're thinking of Sexy little things, not Microphone. :yes

Oh you guys know what I mean when I'm half-asleep. lol gomen :) *edits post.... nothing eeeevvver happened, nothing to see here folks, move along!*

Such an interesting threaD ! If anyone remembers anything, please post, I guess we all want to know about these wordplays !
And thank you so much Delirium-Zer0 for those you already posted !

Yes quite interesting ^^
I really like connected lyrics, very creative.

Nope, a threat is rarely interesting :ybiggrin
But a thread yes ^^

Mh... I don't know what I can have in mind to do such a slip of the tongue :D
Thank you for noticing xD

in Sparkle...she says 'いつまでそこでそうやって指をくわえてるつもり？'　(itsu made soko de sou yatte yubi wo kuwaeteru tsumori? / how long do you intend on standing there with your finger in your mouth like that?). '指をくわえる' (yubi wo kuwaeru) literally means "to hold your finger in your mouth" but is an idiom that has a meaning along the lines of 'thinking about something enviously but doing nothing about it'.

Hope nobody stone me to death or something... But Ayu lyrics never were known for wordplay or puns... on this aspect, she is very straightfoward... Even the examples cited here are mostly use of japanese idioms

^lol, but they still provide a lot of insight as to her meaning, that definitely gets lost in translation.

It's more, plays on ideas, that is transferred through language, yes? I guess, in her case.


I always :heart the connected alliteration. Interesting stuff ^^

This is why I'd lurrrrrrve to further study Japanese....it would bring a whole new meaning to the lyrics if I could understand the wordplay properly.

It's really interesting to see the real poetry of Ayu's lyrics come to life.

We still don't know Japanese idioms, so it helps to know.

Well, yeah... but I wouldn't take them as "puns" or "clever wordplays"... not saying this make her lyrics bad or anything... just that, as a songwritter, she usually doesn't go for it...

It's still clever wordplay, at least in the case of Moments.

PS you seem to not be understanding the point of the thread. It's to bring attention to things that non-native Japanese speakers would have a hard time getting. Subtext and insinuations, deliberate choices of words that go beyond the basic "meaning" on the surface level. Not just puns. So stop being antagonistic and let us educate one another plz.

I think I was answering to the thread, considering he/she (sorry^^') asked for puns, wordplays too ;) Stop being so sensitve, it's not like a kitten is going to die just cuz I said most of her lyrics don't use clever wordplays besides the idioms...

Well, as u said, they didn't know, so they asked if there are any... and I aswered that as far as I know, she doesn't use many of them... What's the big deal? So "is there example of wordplays or puns?" "Well, she is not really known for using them", isn't that an answer to the question? Even if I don't know japanese myself, I know that when there are this stuff on a text, the translator tends to point it on a side note so the reader can properly understand what was being said on the text, to avoid lose of meaning and cuz usually those stuff make the translation harder anyway... And usually, Ayu lyrics translations don't have those... Even if u compare translations from different people...

You guys are too sensitive! Relax, I'm not replying to this thread anymore

I recall wordplay in the last lines of "because of you")

Do you mean "kimi ja nakya dame de"? That's really just an example of a line that's hard to translate, since "ja nakya" and "dame" don't really have straightforward english equivalents. As a result, there's subtext we can only glean from the previous lyrics. Masa's translation of "I can't think of anyone but you" is a BIG leap from the data we've actually gotten from the line, and he's based that translation on the story of the lyrics up to that point. It's more literally "if not you, useless/bad." Needless to say, there's alot you can do with that.

If you're referring more to the "doushite tokidoki... etc" part, lines with similar structure is a technique many lyricists use to emphasize a point or hammer in a message, and also (on a more cosmetic level) to make lyrics easier for themselves and their fans to memorize (although it often has the opposite effect, lol). But she's used that idea in other songs too, like "Moments", "A Song for XX", "Will," and several others.

I can see it.
thank you for the info ^^

Adrenekoi is right. Seriously people, chill out. Just because s/he's saying there aren't any puns or such in Ayu's lyrics doesn't mean s/he isn't contributing. It's a contribution, but clearly not the one you were hoping for.

I've always found the title 'monochrome' as a pun because in the song 'mo' and 'mono' appear a number of times in the lyrics. I don't know if this was just a coincidence or on purpose.