what is "boys and girls" actually about?

[sitara]

well.
the lyrics are rather difficult, what does it mean what is it about?
it is very random to me, where is the connection and what is the story she is trying to tell? pv didn't help either...

[Aga-chan]

It's a song about love, so it seems. About love in general.
This is from masa's article on LOVEppears:

"Boys & Girls" is the song which invites teenagers to love, even if it cannot escape from tricks or betrayals. A very good song, bright and lively, released in July 1999. I suppose this song became a saving for her then. This is the only song among all of three original albums that she does not appear in. I think it is the only fiction she has ever written.

[sitara]

but.. what actually happens?

We began to shine. If it's us we'll grasp tomorrow sometime, right?
We began to flap. If it's them then they'll find a shining tomorrow, right?

I was really expecting it.
I was really doubting it.
What was it? Who was it?
They say he's a good person.
He seems like a person I don't care about.

The morning glow is dazzling.
It pierces my eyes.
My breast hurts.
I was a little confused.


eh...?
just curious.

[Kodayumi]

ooh i see...

for me..it's just a catchy song, great song of course

[Delirium-Zer0]

It's about love taking you by surprise. Like you're suddenly more interested in a guy than you ever expected to be, but at the same time, it makes sense. Lemme grab masa's lyrics and "translate" them XD

Who can stop us starting to shine?
Who had the right to stop them starting to flap?

-I think she means wings flapping here... the japanese tend to leave out anything that's obvious from context, and both shining & wings flapping have that meaning of taking off, being happy, taking to the sky, being proud of oneself.

I often speak
I often dream
We often talk together
"I want to be happy"
How many times? I don't know
What actually I want
What I'm actually not satisfied with
What I'm actually going toward
You ask me
But I have no answer

-Pretty obvious, the two of them are really good friends who talk all the time about their dreams & their futures, but the girl singing doesn't really know what WOULD make her happy.

At the moment I push you on the back
Please don't forget
The promise for this summer
You made for sure...

-More about how close they are. Playful, flirty, committed to each other. But not really in love yet.

We start to shine, and will catch the future some day
They start to flap, and will find the bright future

-The "we" in the chorus seems to be her and this guy, and the "they" is "kanojotachi", specifically a group of girls, which seems to allude to her friends all finding relationships and her still being single. She's kinda saying that maybe if they're all happy with boyfriends, maybe she can be too.

I'm really expecting
I'm really doubting
Anyone is the same, aren't they?
You say I'm "a good person"
But it sounds like "a person you don't care about"

-This is where she starts to really realize she's got feelings for her best guy friend, but she's worried the feeling isn't mutual, or that she SHOULDN'T have feelings for him at all because of their relationship.

The morning glow was dazzling
And made my eyes sting
I felt a pain in my chest
And was perplexed a little

-This is exactly how I feel every time I fall in love... the world seems brighter, but at the same time, being worried about rejection, you have that awful butterfly feeling in your stomach.

Who can stop us starting to shine?
Who had the right to stop them starting to flap?

-The repetition of the first chorus works here because it sounds like she's decided to tell him how she feels.

I'd like to conclude that unlike masa, I don't feel like it's fiction. Maybe "kanojotachi" is the other aidoru girls, maybe they had boyfriends or seemed to be happy in whatever relationships they had, and she didn't have anybody. But then she met Tomoya while making Twins Teacher and this is how she felt. *shrug*

[sitara]

this was a very good translation thank you so much! now it all seems clearer.
i still wonder why the chourus is so complex, i mean, nobody would actually talk like that. i don't know where masa has that fiction idea from, bc why shpuld it? (i read masa's articles often though..)

thanks again!!

[orochicloud]

Awesome interpretation Deli, thanks!

[Delirium-Zer0]

sitara: I think whether any song by ayu is fiction or not is up to interpretation... she has said in the past that she NEVER writes fiction, it's always something that happened with either her or someone she knows, or it's something she's seen happen. But it is possible that one or more of her songs is KINDA fiction, based on things that just plain happen to people normally, or based on a conversation she overheard and she filled in the blanks herself. This might be, it might not be, you'd really have to ask her to know for sure.

And in japanese they actually DO kinda talk like that. Japanese is a language of omission, and if a subject or direct object or something like that is obvious based on the rest of the context, they leave it out entirely. Sometimes it ISN'T obvious, especially in lyrics... that's why jpop lyrics are so hard to translate, and why you often see many very different translations of exactly the same song.