- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
胸をしめつける恋心のかけら
わずかな記憶で思い出すのさ
明日も会えるか僕には分からない
天使と女神と悪魔のしぐさで
刺激するのさ紙一重の罠で
本当の事は何一つ喋べらない
使い慣れた女の武器 君の思うままに
辛すぎるこの胸騒ぎを眠らせて
淋しい夜には裸になって
愛してくれ求めてくれ無邪気な手口で
このまま夜空の宝石になって
崩れそうな壊れそうな世界に火をつけて
あとは君の真っ赤な嘘に染められて燃えるなら
笑うしかないね
君はシネマのヒロインみたいに
爪跡残してさよならさ
まるで我が身はむせび泣くギター
罪と罰におびえながらどこまでも行こうよ
身も心も果てる前に強く強く鮮やかに
淋しい夜には裸になって
愛してくれ乱れてくれ誰もいないから
このまま夜空の宝石になって
崩れそうな溺れそうな世界に火をつけて
空は歌う希望の歌を僕は嫌う君の涙を
何もないさ好きなだけさそれしか分からないさ
あとは君の真っ赤な薔薇の微笑みに魅せられたら
笑うしかないね
Romanized Lyrics
mune wo shimetsukeru koigokoro no kakera
wazuka na kioku de omoidasu no sa
ashita mo aeru ka boku ni wa wakaranai
tenshi to megami to akuma no shigusa de
shigeki suru no sa kami hitoe no wana de
hontou no koto wa nani hitotsu shaberanai
tsukai nareta onna no buki kimi no omou mama ni
tsura sugiru kono mune sawagi wo nemurasete
samishii yoru ni wa hadaka ni natte
ai shite kure motomete kure mujaki na teguchi de
kono mama yozora no houseki ni natte
kuzuresou na kowaresou na sekai ni hi wo tsukete
ato wa kimi no makka na uso ni somerarete moeru nara
warau shika nai ne
kimi wa cinema no heroine mitai ni
tsumeato nokoshite sayonara sa
marude wagami wa musebi naku guitar
tsumi to batsu ni obienagara doko made mo ikou yo
mi mo kokoro mo hateru mae ni tsuyoku tsuyoku azayaka ni
samishii yoru ni wa hadaka ni natte
ai shite kure midarete kure dare mo inai kara
kono mama yozora no houseki ni natte
kuzuresou na oboresou na sekai ni hi wo tsukete
sora wa utau kibou no uta wo boku wa kirau kimi no namida wo
nani mo nai sa suki na dake sa sore shika wakaranai sa
ato wa kimi no makka na bara no hohoemi ni miseraretara
warau shika nai ne
Translated Lyrics
A fragment of love presses down on my chest
I remember it all in faint recollections
I have no idea if we’ll be able to see each other tomorrow or not
The actions of angels, goddesses, and devils excite me
And in a trap that’s paper-thin
Not a single thing that I say is true
Freely using the weapons that women have become accustomed to
Calm the excitement in my heart that’s just in too much pain
Getting naked on a lonely night
Love me, want me, in your own innocent way
Becoming a jewel in the night sky, just as you are
Set fire to this crumbling and breaking world
If I end up colored by your deep red lies and burned
All I’ll be able to do is smile
Just like the heroine in a movie
You dig your nails into me to leave marks, and say goodbye
Leaving me like whaling guitar
Let’s go as far as we can, being afraid of crime and punishment
I want to be strong and brilliant before my mind and body die off
Getting naked on a lonely night
Love me, confuse me, because there’s no one else here
Becoming a jewel in the night sky, just as you are
Set fire to this crumbling and drowning world
The sky sings a song of hope, and I hate the tears that you cry
I don’t know anything else other than what I like
If I end up charmed by your smile made of deep red roses
All I’ll be able to do is smile
Notes
Love Communication was the second single released from “Smile”, it went on sale about six months before the album on 01/21/1995. This was a song very explicitly written to be a hit:
It wasn’t all darkness, we could finally see the light. And after the Jaguar Hard Pain tour ended, we managed to get ourselves on the books for a show at the Budokan, which I was thrilled about. But that made me think that since we were going to be Budokan-playing artists, we kind of need ourselves a hit song. So that’s when I wrote Love Communication.Actually, when it came to song writing, I was really in a big slump during “smile” (our fourth album). Love Communication was me heatedly saying “You want pop songs?! I can make as many of them as you want, whenever you want!” in a very frantic way. When actually, that song was tacked on: It wasn’t originally supposed to be on “smile” at all. I said that I wanted to make Venus no Hana the single, but everyone else said it wasn’t strong enough. I thought “It isn’t strong enough!?”, and lost my temper. I said “Alright, you just wait and see!”, then I wrote it.
In 2013 music entertainment site Natalie held an interview with a few people who’d been involved with the band over the years, one of which was Hiroyuki Munekiyo. He met the band in 1991 helping promote their indie album Bunched Birth, and would continue to be involved with the band as a producer for some time after. Munekiyo debunks some of the thinking around this being a “big hit”, but ultimately reinforces that it was what really put them on the path to the best selling band that they’d become:
I can see why you’d have that impression now, but that actually wasn’t the case. Love Communication wasn’t that big of a hit, and “smile” didn’t just suddenly sell 100,000 copies: It stalled out at around 40,000 at first. But since they were a band that we were never sure would even get to 10,000 at that point, it was a big hit for them. Even Love Communication was a song that was just barely released: Yoshii wanted to release “Eden no Yoru ni” as a single, so Love Communication didn’t even exist until the recording for the album was over. There was no way that “Eden no Yoru ni” would have worked as a single, so I told him to write a song that was more like Kanashiki Asian Boy. Yoshii’s reaction was “But we’ve already done that, and you saw how it turned out. We want to go in a different direction”, but I persuaded him that something more like Kanashiki Asian Boy was the path that they’d succeed on. And I was amazed at what Yoshii came up with! He bought me a demo that was exactly what I had in mind, so we hurriedly recorded it.
(Love Communication at the KIT Pop Hill music festival in 1995)
And musically speaking, Love Communication is a near perfect blend of the more pop direction the band was taking for “Smile” and something that was true to their roots. It’s also very organ heavy, which I think is when up-tempo Yemon songs are at their best. And while it may not be particularly dark lyrically, it still has some of the Yoshii-isms and lyrical insight that long time fans of the band crave. It’s basically just a big ball of emotions that act as a snapshot of Yoshii’s life at the time:
So then my daughter was born, and my wife never left her side. I’d always let her hear the songs that I wrote up until that point, but then I stopped because we were both so busy. That led to me feeling like I was surrounded by people who didn’t understand me. I’m not really sure who it was I was looking for though? Ha ha. But there was this woman who ended up filling that role for me. She was very stylish, and I started thinking “This is like how I’m supposed to be!”. So as I told myself to not let things turn into anything bad, I began to use her to sort of validate my own existence…I was the worst! I threw all of this into Love Communication. That’s why it turned into such an enthusiastic and strange strong. As an album it feels very much like I’m going full throttle, but there’s a strong feeling of me forcing myself to do it in there too.
And it may only be because it was a hit, but Love Communication acted as some long sought self-validation, as Yoshii eluded to earlier:
I wasn’t completely convinced that I could actually write songs, that wouldn’t happen until Love Communication (our fifth single). It’s a rather embarrassing thing to admit, but I was really desperate at the time. Because if I didn’t race toward finding a character to write from the perspective of, or some amusing set of lyrics, my sense of being a singer would completely disappear. It was too embarrassing for me to just say “I’m a singer”, so I said “I’m a musician”. Come to think of it, I’m still a little embarrassed to call myself “a singer” even now.
Yoshii also mentioned in an interview found in the photo book “15 Years” that he was originally trying to write Love Communication as a song with a disco feel, but ended up changing it to more of a rock song in the end. He acknowledges that he finally achieved what he was setting out to do with the 1998 single My Winding Road, and that it ended up being better that Love Communication was released as it was.
The music video is notable for being directed by Yoshii himself:
I directed my first music video with Love Communication. I really didn’t like the feel of most Japanese music videos at that point, so I proposed doing it myself…just like usual.
(The official music video for Love Communication)
Love Communication has been performed live a good bit, but isn’t necessarily guaranteed to be in a set. The song was heavily played during the tours for Smile and the subsequent Four Seasons, then was largely put away until after the group reunited in 2016. The version played during the later part of the Four Seasons tour features part of the song being performed as a blues jam, before going into the song proper. There are no rips of it on YouTube, but it’s a part of the “true mind” DVD set (specifically the 07/21/1996 show at NHK Hall in Tokyo). It was also selected as the opening theme to the TV Asahi late night music entertainment program “MEW” (Music Entertainment Wonderland).