CLEVER SONG TITLES OR JUST SPELLING MISTAKES?
 

Hey ayu fans!

so i'm sure we've all noticed ayu has some unusual song titles, and that's partly why we love her, but I have to wonder if some titles are deliberately put a certain way or if there has been a mistake in her English...for example:

'my name's WOMEN' as a pose to 'my name's woman' is this deliberate and she's saying she represents all women?

'Greatful days' this is a common mistake in English language to put greatful instead of grateful (meaning to be full of gratitude) but is ayu saying her days are full of greatness?...that would be a very clever song title if she meant to do it.

'Are You Wake Up?' ...no I don't understand this one, is she asking 'are you awake?' I cant see how this might be deliberate but maybe someone else knows :)


thoughts please :)

I personally have always chosen to believe my name's WOMEN was titled that way on purpose, in an attempt to represent women in general rather than just herself.

kiss o' kill is also an odd one. I mean, it technically means "kiss of kill" or "kiss of the kill." I'm curious what her thoughts were when penning this song and giving it that title. It seems to me something like kiss o' pain would be better...? Maybe it's a killing pain. Though I might be missing something clever here. ^^ This is why Ayu's fun, right?

I feel like Are You Wake Up? really is just a bad translation, heh.

Greatful days, I have similar thoughts as yours. I think it's possible it was a common mistake, and it's also possible it was on purpose to emphasize the "great."

"my name's WOMEN" is a quote from some old book

I think she even mentioned in interview that by naming it "my name's WOMEN" she wants to represent all the women. Though some think it was just an excuse :D

"Are you wake up?" might be a pure mistake, or a deliberate one, because it sound like "Ayu wake up" :D

omg I always thought "kiss o' kill" was supposed to mean kiss or kill :D

As opposed to. ;)

I think Greatful days is deliberate. The town I live in has the tagline of "heartful city," which doesn't make since to a native speaker, but I can also see what they were getting at: they assumed that the suffix -ful means "full of," so they were going for the idea that their city is "full of heart." So..."days full of greatness"? :P Having said that, there are a lot of silly Japangrishisms, too...

Me too haha https://31.media.tumblr.com/52f3a708...Edu1qid2nw.gif Honest to God her titles all sound ridiculous if you first listen to her. But then I grew to like them, and it definitely annoys me when someone asks things like "Uhh dude her English is bad, wtf is Greatful days, My name's WOMEN? Pfft"

Heartful does make sense :P
And I always equated Greatful days to something like the difference between go and went. Greatful and goed are both more logical but English doesn't want everything regular.

I find it funny how native speakers are always complaining about "my name's WOMEN", because it not only makes sense, the whole lyrics are sang as "we/us" instead of "I/me".

I also tend to read "Kiss o' Kill" as "Kiss or Kill", but it doesn't make much sense with the lyrics, does it? "Kiss of Kill", as a kiss that kills reminds me of the christian imagery Kiss o' Kill uses, and so, reminds me of Judas kiss on Jesus as a way to betrayl him... But it can be just me reading too much into it...

kiss o' kill is named after the movie Kiss or Kill, so she's abbreviated 'or' not 'of' :)

ah yeah I never thought of 'ayu wake up' that's a good thought! :D ...and yes it does mean kiss or kill, named after a film of that title :)

LOL! I completely missed that, and I was writing about spelling errors too! IRONY!! how embarrassing... lolz

Disco-munication is a weird one but good one.

Mirrocle World is a creative name.

In The Corner ? At the Corner?

Heartplace is not a word

and I heard "M" is not just saying "M", some Japanese fans refer "M" as Maria.

I've always spelled Greatful days as Grateful days on iTunes, then I realized that it was Greatful haha :laugh

To me, it looks like she/they did it on purpose.
I mean.. There must be a meticulous work behind it before they release it. :P
Same thing for Are You Wake Up? I guess.

About kiss o' kill, I've never seen the o' as a of.

And Mirrorcle World... just epic.

yeah I really loved the original Mirror so I was really glad she made Mirrorcle World, and I thought that title was a great idea

Heartplace isn't a world but I really like that, it sounds so sweet <3

Disco-munication I think is very clever also :)

In the original by Sweetbox, Jade sings, "In the corner of my mind".

I used to like the "task-" interludes (takinlude, taskinillusion, tasking, taskinst), but the last ones were meh.... taskebab, task'n'bass.... not so clever

About, taskinst, does anyone else think that the "-inst" is stated for "instrumental" ?

Btw, I don't think it's Ayu who choose the interlude titles, right ?

I ever think that "my name's WOMEN" it's like "my name's Legion"(?) xDD i dunno.

It would sound strange even if the title was "my name's WOMAN." That phrase is just incredibly unnatural sounding to a native ear, whether plural or singular. Whether or not it sounds OK or makes sense to a non-native speaker is honestly, and I mean no offense by this, irrelevant. I guess it's possible to pull some meaning out of it, but you have to actually look at the words and analyze them lol.

Personally, I don't find this analogy entirely accurate, since "heart" is a noun. Adding -ful creates an adjective, whereas "great" is already an adjective. Adding -ful there is redundant. Imo, "greatful" is just a misspelling. It's easy enough a mistake to make.

Also, to the member who asked about "In The Corner" - that phrase is definitely okay as is. You would really only use "at the corner" when describing an intersection between streets/pathways, I think.

This! It doesn't really matter whether or not something is fully grammatically correct or not. It can still sound unnatural regardless. There's a semi-famous example - a paragraph talking about a president's inauguration that a trainer, professor, etc will often show to students studying translation when hammering this point into us. The paragraph is grammatically correct but because of the set-up, it -sounds- wrong anyway. What sounds natural is important. Anyway, uhm...
Though I actually like how the title sounds, I remember it struck me as a little odd at first.

Also, I assumed kiss o' kill was "of" due to other common words like jack-o'-lantern and will o' the wisp being "of." Thanks, jonboy, for that title info. ^^

I've never had any problem with "my name's WOMEN", I found it quite poetic and fitting with the theme of the song. IMO, it's about making a statement, not for one's actual identity, but for one's mission or purpose; she's basically saying she's speaking and fighting for women.
When it comes to "Greatful days", technically "great" is actually a noun, meaning a very successful and/or admired person and it could apply to the song (days spent with great people). "Greatness" is also a noun, and saying "days full of greatness" or worse, "greatnessful days", would be a bit of a mouthful for an Ayu song title so simply shortening it to "greatful" makes sense. Shortening/simplifying words is nothing new in any language.
"kiss o' kill" falls a bit into that same category for me, like shortening "you" to "u". It also made think of the Swedish shortening for the word "och" (="and", pronounced either as "o" or "ock"), which is an "o" with a line under it (my elementary teachers would use it sometimes when writing on the whiteboard) so in my mind the title turns into "kiss 'n' kill", but yeah, it's most likely short for "or".
Honestly, when it comes to Ayu songs I've learned to not expect point perfect grammar, and I've come to not mind it either, it's a creative way to distinguish songs and I'm fine with it as long as I don't see blatant misspellings. "Mirrorcle World" is one of my favorite song titles (and one of my favorite songs overall) and a good example of that creativity. Song lyrics (and their titles) are essentially like a form a poetry, using wordplay and pun-like conjugations is not out of the norm when it comes to the written arts so I think of them more as clever writing tricks rather than actual mistakes.
But as with all art, it's subjective in the end so I'm just as right/wrong about it as everyone else here.

Oh I didn't mention Loveppears. I love this album name. I wish there was a song for it, but I am happy with Love and appears two songs in the album.

The song titles also can reflect the trending of naming a song at the time. E.g. Talkin' 2 myself - at the time, there are many western songs named with numbers. E.g. Madonna - 4 minutes, Give It 2 Me.

I just hope ayu would not come up with a song name with a hashtag....

Well, actually it's irrelevant for native speakers considering it was aimed to japanese people.

Still, I always found it strange how much complain people made of it not making sense... I guess we just work poetry on a different way here on Brazil (and Japan) compared to you guys in the US.

Well, it's not irrelevant for this topic at all, lol. OP was asking whether or not it was intentionally ungrammatical, not whether or not the Japanese audience understood the song title. :P

The reason native speakers complain that it doesn't make sense probably isn't because it's technically ungrammatical or lacking in semantic meaning. If you analyze it, really, the phrase is grammatical enough and there is a meaning to be taken from it. It's just that it sounds unnatural to a native ear; hence, we native speakers like to complain it doesn't make sense. That's really all it is. :)

In this case, being a non-native speaker probably helps in understanding the title. xD

But "great" IS an adjective. Yes, there's a noun with the same form with a completely different meaning, but that word isn't really relevant here. At least, I find it a bit of a stretch to say that the song is referring to days full of successful, highly esteemed people. :P

And yes, "greatness" is a noun. However, it's derived from the adjective "great." The point is, there's already an adjective there. There's no longer any need to make more adjectives; there already IS one. "Greatnessful" is equally redundant to "greatful" - and not only that, but the word "greatnessful" would never actually occur in English. The suffix -ful can't be added after the suffix -ness. :) If she really meant for the song to refer to days full of greatness, she could have named it that: "Days of Greatness" or something to that extent.

As is, it's most likely either a misspelling of "grateful" or she found the word "grateful" somewhere and misinterpreted its meaning. Or maybe she did just think it would be cute to coin the word "greatful" even though it's redundant and unnecessary. :shrug But even the "correct" term "grateful days" doesn't really make sense in English; I always assumed she took it from the Dragon Ash song and misspelled it to be honest.

Because of Ayu "grateful" always seems wrong to me :P "Greatful" is much more natural for me xD

I love Mirrorcle World, my name's WOMEN and Disco-munication

All of her names are pretty cool, even load of the SHUGYO, which I don't think anyone ever worked out what SHUGYO was, right? I really can't remember if we did haha

"Hard training" or something... It's not like it's a mysterious word, it's just japanese xD

I remember people talking about alterna - I'm still confused, anyone want to clarify?

I'd love to know what Ayu felt like when naming her song Heartplace - knowing Ayu, nothing is ever as simple as it seems, hhaha :D

As If is weird for me, I can not put this title together with the song, they just don't go together for me :S

And does anyone know the meaning behind RED LINE? I don't have the lyrics in front of me, so I can't check from there...

And for those still wondering, this is the movie "kiss o' kill" is named after

Red Line has special meaning in Japanese. I see Red Line refers to red string of fate between ayu and her fans? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_string_of_fate

If SHUGYO is a mysterious word, HANA and HANABI will be myths.

If I remember correctly, "alterna" just isn't English. I don't remember what language it might have been though?

I've always assumed "As if..." to be a mistranslation of "tatoeba" from the choruses. I think she was looking for "what if" and missed a little xD

yeah, Load of the SHUGYO means something along the lines of hard training and discipline. we know Ayu is all about that since she's a workaholic. i think this is just harder to translate because IIRC, the title doesn't have a direct translation or anything.

poor babe that's definetely it. XD
About language fails, I'm still waiting for red line ~for TA ventilateurs~

I think the title 'alterna' is just a pet word used instead of 'alternative', I've looked at the lyrics and she seems to be talking about being herself, being unique and being 'alternative' to every one else/other people, could be the case?

Hmm I always though "as if" has a "whatever..." connotation.

I am surprised nobody talks about this song


A Song for ××

One of the most creative song titles

"Girlish", "+", "Humming 7/4" are other underrated songs,yet they have creative song titles, IMO.


another most underrated song "Gut it-pez", what does that mean?

I don't like "STEP you" because when I listened this song first time, I thought ayu singing "1,2,3,4 stab you..."

OMG :roflmao:roflmao

"Alterna" does exist in portuguese and spanish, it's the third person of the verb "alternar" (alternate) on the present tense...

^ same in Italian, 3rd singular person of the verb "alternare" in the present tense!

A Song for XX - I remember Ayu saying that you could determine to who you want to sing this song or play this song to. And the XX is silent, I got o pissed as I just watched a French doc-thingy about Ayu and they pronounced the 'xx' >.<

But Girlish - that's just girlish, it is a word in the english language, I see no weird in that... o.O And there is somewhere here a big discussion about Humming 7/4 - something to do about the rhythm/pace of the song (not good with terms within music)

And thank you for clearing As if... - it makes much more sense to me now :D

Does anyone know the story behind Eyes, Smoke, Magic? Is it a commonly used term in carnicals/circus? Or something else?

I'm a bit confused with Bye-bye darling - is it necessary to put the "-" there?

And ANother Song? Is it because "Another" looks too boring? Or because it is "an other song", which would be gramatically incorrect though... I know she has more titles like that (LOVE is ALL, STEP you...)

But STEP you is a weird name, right? It's not just me? I just ignore it... but yeah, stab you is waaay better ;D

^Ayu + Naoya = AN = ANother song :P

I believe "Eyes, Smoke, Magic" is about ignoring stuff by "summoning" magic trick like smoke in front of your eyes

That AN is really clever! :D
Thank you for clearing the "smoke"... :P

I heard Step You is so called because the thinking behind it was " Step 1, Step 2, Step You"

Yes but what does that mean?? She's stepping on him?
I'm thinking about this now:
These boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you

:roflmao

To me Eyes, Smoke, Magic seems like falling in love. Eyes meet, there's smoke (not literally) and magic happens in the way of love.
When she sings about Mannie it's usually in the form of falling in love and soon falling out of love. Return road, Bye-bye darling, Merry-go-round - they all seem to be about that. The title Eyes, Smoke, Magic might refer to the same feeling of her affection seeming like a magic trick.

I think it's like "steps" of a plan. Like the final goal is to reach "you".

I have a different take for it. I guess the lyrics are from a child point of view seeing a completely disfunctional couple (her parents) and how she's putting some "smoke" to cover messed up things and make it disappear like "magic".

The official Chinese translation of "STEP you" is "追随" which translates to "following, pursuing." I'd say it's supposed to mean following or pursuing your loved one, and that's how the lyrics were portrayed.

(miss)understood
(don't)leave me alone
LOVEppears

These few titles were so cool when they just came out.

I have always read it also as I Smoke Magic hahah
Since that song is somewhat whimsical and satirical?

Personal favourites are definitely
(miss)understood
(don't) Leave me alone
Mirrorcle World
aeternal

does sixxxxxx count hahah

I actually think it plays off the whole “1st base, 2nd base, 3rd base, 4th base” concept that goes along with relationship and sex progression, at least the music video seems to do so.

1 / 1st base = first dates ayu
2 / 2nd base = nervous, hesitant ayu
3 / 3rd base = more comfortable, sexual awakenings ayu
4 / 4th base = full on dominatrix ayu (lol)

All of which, after meeting, unlock all sides to her - nothing is left hidden.

Think about it, 4th base is considered the actual act of sex, which is often thought to be the moment two become one (1, 2, 3, 4 - you + me)