- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
- Single released 02/29/1996
Original Lyrics
暗い部屋で一人 テレビはつけたまま
僕は震えている 何か始めようと
外は冷たい風 街は矛盾の雨
君は眠りの中 何の夢を見てる?
時代は裏切りも悲しみも 全てを僕にくれる
眠れずに叫ぶように からだは熱くなるばかり
Good Night 数えきれぬ Good Night 夜を越えて
Good Night 僕らは強く Good Night 美しく
儚なさに包まれて 切なさに酔いしれて
影も形もない僕は
素敵な物が欲しいけど あんまり売ってないから
好きな歌を歌う
キラキラと輝く大地で 君と抱き合いたい
この世界に真っ赤なジャムを塗って
食べようとする奴がいても
過ちを犯す男の子 涙化粧の女の子
たとえ世界が終わろうとも 二人の愛は変わらずに
Good Night 数えきれぬ Good Night 罪を越えて
Good Night 僕らは強く Good Night 美しく
あの偉い発明家も 凶悪な犯罪者も
みんな昔子供だってね
外国で飛行機が墜ちました ニュースキャスターは嬉しそうに
「乗客に日本人はいませんでした」
「いませんでした」「いませんでした」
僕は何を思えばいいんだろう 僕は何て言えばいいんだろう
こんな夜は 逢いたくて 逢いたくて 逢いたくて
君に逢いたくて 君に逢いたくて
また明日を待ってる
Romanized Lyrics
kurai heya de hitori terebi wa tsuketa mama
boku wa furute iru nanika hajimeyou to
soto wa tsumetai kaze machi wa mujun no ame
kimi wa nemuri no naka nan no yume wo miteru?
toki wa uragiri mo kanashimi mo subete wo boku ni kureru
nemurezu ni sakebu you ni karada wa atsuku naru bakari
Good Night kazoe kirenu Good Night yoru wo koete
Good Night bokura wa tsuyoku Good Night utsukushiku
hakana sa ni tsutsumarete setsuna sa ni yoishirete
kage mo katachi mo nai boku wa
suteki na mono ga hoshii kedo anmari uttenai kara
suki na uta wo utau
kira kira to kagayaku daichi de kimi to daki aitai
kono sekai ni makka na jam wo nutte
tabeyou to suru yatsu ga ite mo
ayamachi wo okasu otoko no ko namida geshou no onna no ko
tatoe sekai ga owarou tomo futari no ai wa kawarazu ni
Good Night kazoe kirenu Good Night tsumi wo koete
Good Night bokura wa tsuyoku Good Night utsukushiku
ano erai hatsumeika mo kyouaku na hanzaisha mo
minna mukashi kodomo datte ne
gaikoku de hikouki ga ochimashita news caster wa ureshisou ni
“joukyaku ni nihonjin wa imasen deshita”
“imasen deshita” “imasen deshita”
boku wa nani wo omoeba ii n darou boku wa nante ieba ii n darou
konna yoru wa aitakute aitakute aitakute
kimi ni aitakute kimi ni aitakute
mata ashita wo matteru
Translated Lyrics
Alone in a dark room with the TV left on
I’m trembling and thinking of getting something new going
Outside the wind is cold, and the rain on the streets is inconsistent
What are you dreaming of as you sleep?
Time will give me everything, including betrayal and sadness
With no sleep, my body just keeps growing hotter, as though screaming out
Good night, we pass through a countless, good night, number of nights
Good night, in a way that’s strong, good night, and beautiful
Embraced by ephemerality, and intoxicated by misery
And there’s no trace of me left behind
I want something beautiful, but I can’t find anyone selling it
So I just sing my favorite song
I want us to be in each other’s arms on this glimmering earth
Even if someone tries to cover this world in
A deep red jam and eat it
A boy who makes a mistake, a girl with tears running down through her makeup
Even if the world ends, their love will remain unchanged
Good night, we pass through a countless, good night, number of nights
Good night, in a way that’s strong, good night, and beautiful
That great inventor and that horrible criminal
They were both just kids, a long time ago
There was a plane crash overseas, and the newscaster on TV so happily said
“There were no Japanese passengers on board”
“No Japanese passengers” “No Japanese passengers”
What am I supposed to think about that? What am I supposed to say to that?
On nights like this one, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you
I really miss you, I really miss you
Once again, I’m just waiting for tomorrow to come
Notes
If The Yellow Monkey were a country, Jam would be their national anthem. Four Seasons may have been the band truly becoming a number one seller, but Jam is what allowed them to find their purist expression of themselves as a band. No matter what the concert, they’re basically guaranteed to play it (particularly since their 2016 reunion). It’s one of their biggest and longest selling singles, second only to Burn in terms of sales.
But it isn’t so well loved just because it’s a ballad. It’s also one of the best examples of Yoshii’s ability to mix every day thoughts and feelings with the abstract, which would basically become his house style. It might be a bit “overplayed”, but it earns every bit of praise that it’s ever received through near perfection composition. It’s one of the biggest mixes of emotion in their catalog, and it manages to come together in a way that’s so good as to be almost unidentifiable. There’s quite a bit to say about the creation of it, since it’s such an important song for Yoshii:
Jam’s melody was ad-libbed, apart from the chorus. The part where I start singing the first verse has a completely different melody from what it eventually turned out to be. And I really did write the lyrics in the studio, just before recording the demo. I thought I couldn’t do it, but that was only half true: The lyrics weren’t sticking in my head during the demo recording, so I thought about changing the melody. And that;s when I came up with the “Alone in a dark room…” part. This song has a real special place in my heart.
The whole “There was a plane crash overseas, and newscaster on TV so happily said ‘There were no Japanese passengers on board'” wind-down part in the second half had no real melody at that point. I ad-libbed the lyrics during a rehearsal, and knew all I had to do was figure out that melody. The song was recorded in one-take though, I just went in and did it. And I haven’t been able to replicate that feeling of elation ever since. I choked up at the final “I’m just waiting for tomorrow again” though, I was too overcome with emotion. That’s the only part that had to be re-recorded, which is why the energy is a bit different there. It was such a huge song for me…
To be honest, I was really happy when Jam sold so well. The best thing about it was that we finally had a song that represented us as a band. One we could play anytime and anywhere.
Kazuya Yoshii, In Search of Lost Love (Ushinawareta Ai wo Motomete) (2007)
Though it’s such a simple thing, the part Yoshii mentioned about the plane crash lyric is what’s stayed with me the most over the years. There’s just such emotion in his voice (particularly on the original recording of the song) that it’s hard not to feel it. He’s mentioned that Jam was him trying to write his own version of Mott the Hoople’s All The Young Dudes, and that some of the lyrics were commentary on the absurdity of society. And it was around this time he felt like he started becoming more aware of his shifting views on society in general:
It was probably the start of my awareness that I had to fight against society. Before that I didn’t really care what politicians were doing or what crimes were happening where, as long as none of it impacted me. And that’s because I was young. I’m not sure why, but when I was able to actually make direct contact with people who support me through various campaigns or programs, I felt like I couldn’t help but write songs that were full of these kinds of themes. I wondered if I couldn’t write more songs that spoke to younger people, or would inspire courage in people when they heard them. Because that’s exactly what “All The Young Dudes” was to me. I ended up writing this kind of a song even though I liked that kind of journalistic style rock from a more desperate time. I guess that’s the moment I turned into what I am now!
Kazuya Yoshii, interview from So Young (1999)
And though he doesn’t really elaborate on why, Yoshii has also mentioned an interesting relation to another song from way back:
We’d had success with Smile and Four Seasons, but we didn’t feel that they really represented the core of what the band was. Jam may have been the song that broke through on both fronts, and I felt it was an alluring song that was packed full of all of the band’s different musical influences. It also felt a bit like a remake of “Silk Scarf ni Boushi no Madam”.
Kazuya Yoshii, In Search of Lost Love (Ushinawareta Ai wo Motomete) (2007)
Their record company at the time sat on this song for awhile before releasing it, and clearly were not confident in it being a success. This resulted in a minor scandal when Ongaku to Hito had an interview with Yoshii specifically calling this out. It even made the cover of the magazine:
Yeah…I’d really like for them to release it. It’s really rough. Of course the people involved with the single are thinking it will all work out okay, but it seems the difficulty is with the way people other than them feel. And so I was thinking about starting a revolution over it through this interview! (Laughs)
Yoshii Kazuya, Ongaku to Hito Interview, 02/1996
Later on in 2013, their manager at that label would give more details about just what happened:
We had a lot of conversations about it, and in the end it resulted in just letting him give it a try. But there was a big meeting about it at the record company. Columbia’s marketing department was really against it at first. They said things to me like “Are you trying to ruin everything we’ve worked toward in marketing?”, “They’ll never get on TV shows with a song like this”, and “It’s too early to put everything on the line with a ballad”. The Triad (the affiliated record label that the band was in) side was all in support of it though, so the best I could tell them was “I talked to the band members about this, and they won’t change their minds. Please do the best with this that you can”. It didn’t feel like it was going to be a huge hit during recording either. I remember very well when Yoshii was getting ready to record the vocals, Mr. Oomori asked me where I thought this single was going to chart. When I answered “Maybe somewhere in the top 30…?” he said “You think it’ll get that high, huh?” (Laughs)
Hiroyuki Munekiyo, Natalie.mu Interview (2013)
I’ve always been in awe of Yoshii’s style of being able to write not too abstractly but not too straightforwardly, and that really only came to be with the release of Jam onward. And even if you can’t understand a single word being sung, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t an A+ vocal melody. And in terms of arrangement, it was also a great move to make the intro feature only the organ. In fact this may have also been the gateway into Yoshii’s frequent use of organ in The Yellow Monkey’s songs, as well as his own solo music later on.
Jam was also used as the ending theme to popular TV music program Pop Jam from 01/12/1996 to sometime in 03/1996, which no doubt helped with its popularity. The band’s 2017 re-recorded greatest hits collection, “The Yellow Monkey Is Here: New Best”, also featured a newly recorded version of Jam. It’s a perfectly good version, and I even like some of the small arrangement changes made to the music a bit more. But to me Yoshii’s new vocals don’t quite manage to capture the same emotion as in the original.