- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
気絶するほど遠くまで来た
見た事もない景色に僕はクラクラさ
満ち足りてる とりあえず今は
異国の大空の下でRock’n Roll, I love you
時が流れ いずれ僕が
ただの灰になっても
嘆かないで Father
荒れた海のような恋もするだろう
越えられない山も死ぬほどあるだろう
そこに咲いてるキレイな花を
つかむため泣きそうになる日もあるさ
ああ眠りたいぐったりと君と手をつないで Father
子供の頃のように
今僕は奇跡のかけらの指輪を探してる
愛してるよ Father
I feel alright
呑み込まれそうな大きな大地に
耳をあてたまま目を閉じる
僕には聞こえてる全てが生きてる
息吹を聞きながら生きている
どこの空も夕日はキレイさ星空もキレイさ
本当だよ Father
今僕は奇跡のかけらの指輪を探してる
どこにも売ってない
もしも僕がただの灰になっても
嘆かないで Father
愛してるよ Father
I feel alright…
Romanized Lyrics
kizetsu suru hodo tooku made kita
mita koto mo nai keshiki ni boku wa kura kura sa
michitariteru toriaezu ima wa
ikoku no oozora no shita de Rock’n Roll, I love you
toki ga nagare izure boku ga
tada no hai ni natte mo
nagekanaide Father
areta umi no you na koi mo suru darou
koerarenai yama mo shinu hodo aru darou
soko ni saiteru kirei na hana wo
tsukamu tame nakisou ni naru hi mo aru sa
aa nemuritai guttari to kimi to te wo tsunaide Father
kodomo no koro no you ni
ima boku wa kiseki no kakera no yubiwa wo sagashiteru
ai shiteru yo Father
I feel alright
nomikomaresou na ooki na daichi ni
mimi wo ateta mama me wo tojiru
boku ni wa kikoeteru subete ga ikiteru
ibuki wo kikinagara ikite iru
doko no sora mo yuuhi wa kirei sa hoshizora mo kirei sa
hontou da yo Father
ima boku wa kiseki no kakera no yubiwa wo sagashiteru
doko ni mo uttenai
moshi mo boku ga tada no hai ni natte mo
nagekanaide Father
ai shiteru yo Father
I feel alright…
Translated Lyrics
I’ve come from so far away that I could faint
I’m giddy from sights that I’ve never seen before
For now, I’m happy
Beneath the sky of a foreign country, Rock’n Roll, I love you
Time passes, and when
I turn into nothing but ashes
Don’t grieve for me father
I’ll probably fall in a kind of love that’s like a stormy sea
And there are probably so many mountains I can’t climb that it’s soul-crushing
There are days when I feel like I might cry from trying
To get one of the beautiful flowers that bloom on them
Ahh, I want to sleep up against you, hand-in-hand, father
Just like when I was a kid
Right now I’m looking for a ring made of fragments of miracles
I love you father
I feel alright
I close my eyes with my ear pressed
To the enormous ground that could swallow me up
I can hear the sound of everything living
Living as I listen to their breaths
No matter where you’re looking at them from, the setting sun and the starry sky are beautiful
It’s true father
Right now I’m looking for a ring made of fragments of miracles
But it’s not sold anywhere
Even if I into nothing but ashes
Don’t grieve for me father
I love you father
I feel alright…
Notes
If you’re familiar with Yoshii’s history with his own father, a natural reaction to this might be surprise that it took him this long to write a song about him. However this isn’t a song explicitly about Yoshii’s father, but rather any father:
I guess I wrote it when I thought about the fact that everyone in the world has a father. Of course I have my own feelings toward my father, but I knew that I also had my own style of rock that this fit into: Rock where I can sing about how everyone in the world has a father.
Kazuya Yoshii, Bridge Interview (April 1997)
But there’s so much more to this song than just being about a father, whether it be Yoshii’s own or anyone else’s. It’s about Yoshii’s own feelings of finally being able to experience going to England for the first time (to record Four Seasons), something he’d almost certainly been dreaming of for much of his life:
Well I was really happy about going to record the album in England. Yeah. I was so thrilled about recording there. And because of that, I was thinking about how grateful I was.
Kazuya Yoshii, Bridge Interview (April 1997)
Four Seasons was a real turning point album for us, and “Father” was a fairly refreshing tune for the band. The rest of the members were really surprised, they told me they didn’t think I’d write a song with these kinds of themes. Because I hadn’t done anything like it when I typically write songs and we rehearse them here in Japan. I was just so happy to be actually recording an album in London, and that’s what came out of me as a result. Anyway, I guess the keyword “father” came out of the hope I was filled with from living right there in the moment. It ended up being a time where I wanted be seen as just a regular person who had a child.
Kazuya Yoshii, In Search of Lost Love (Ushinawareta Ai wo Motomete)
Anyone who’s experienced finally getting to go to a place they’ve wanted to go all of their life can recognize those feelings here immediately. I experienced very similar feelings when I first got to go to Japan, and some of them still every time I go back. The sunnier disposition Yoshii started allowing himself to experience again around the time of Four Seasons really shines through here more than almost any other song on the album. Heesey even gets some more prominent bass licks than usual throughout the song, all of this making for a song that feels very refreshing.
Yoshii mentioned in interviews after the release of Four Seasons that there were some songs on the album that he thought had great lyrics when writing them, but afterward came to see them as a bit embarrassing (he didn’t identify specifically which songs). I could maybe see this being one of them, just because of how direct some of the lyrics are instead of being hidden behind his usual obfiscation: “I love you father”, etc. I don’t think they’re embarrassing though, and are a genuine reflection of a real moment in time for him. That sort of thing is hard to capture well in lyrics, and isn’t something Yoshii even particularly attempts to do very often.
Father hasn’t had a lot of live performances, which I guess makes sense for a song with quite a bit of personal meaning for Yoshii. In terms of recorded performances it was played inconsistently throughout the Four Seasons tour (1996), and wouldn’t surface again until the Super Japan Tour 2016 -Subjective Late Show- (the smaller second leg of the tour they had just after they reunited). It would also be played during Mekara Uroko 27 (2016), the Nagoya 30th Anniversary live (2019), and the Budokan 30th Anniversary life (2020). Interestingly, it’s often (but not always) gone into directly after Suck Of Life.
