CLEVER SONG TITLES OR JUST SPELLING MISTAKES?

[kotora]

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....

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

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.

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.

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

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.

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

Originally Posted by Ayu-me

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.

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.

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. 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.

[kendelle]

Originally Posted by Livey~

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

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.
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.

Because of Ayu "grateful" always seems wrong to me "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

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by kendelle

Because of Ayu "grateful" always seems wrong to me "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

[Sandy]

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

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

[kotora]

Originally Posted by Sandy

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

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

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

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

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

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by Sandy

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

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

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

[panda♥]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

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

[tsumekaze_]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

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

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

[J0nB0yH88]

Originally Posted by Sandy

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

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

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?

[Ashen Twilight]

Originally Posted by Sandy

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

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

[kotora]

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..."

[Surreal17]

Originally Posted by kotora

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

[Andrenekoi]

Originally Posted by J0nB0yH88

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?

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

[tsumekaze_]

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

[Sandy]

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

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

[Andrenekoi]

^Ayu + Naoya = AN = ANother song

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

[Sandy]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

^Ayu + Naoya = AN = ANother song

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!
Thank you for clearing the "smoke"...

[mi|kshake]

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