- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
雨色のワルツと、玉虫色の羽をしのばせ
リボンでむすんだ宇宙まで
銀河よりもすてきなオマエに
抱かれた花の葉でペチュコートがニヤついている
「我 自由なり!」と叫んでごらん
俺には不可能な事など何もない
さあ! ピリオドのピアスを付けて
抱きしめてくれ!
空中楼閣のモラリティスレイブ
ライムライトの光を集めて指を鳴らして
悲鳴のようなオペラを
麗しの多淫娘 情熱の厚い口唇を
濡らし歌うのよ
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
真珠をかじって可愛い子猫の踊りと
今宵はしゃれこみましょうよ
ナチスのお帽子サスペンダー
レザーパンツ バストは89
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT
I NEED YOU TO NEED ME. HOW DO YOU FEEL?
(ロボトミー ロボトミー) 花散る夜をかいで
(ロボトミー ロボトミー) 改造ペニスのロボトミー……
あたしは瞳で体を売るのさ
下手な小細工をするのはおよしよ
イヤリング ブレスレット アンクレット
魂のサングラス全部外すのよ
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
妄想、憧れ、神秘は羅針盤の指す
ほら穴道徳の楔……
ピアノ線のロックンロール、マイクを
つかんで高層ビルのバタフライ
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
REALITY CLAIM
ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT.
I NEED YOU TO NEED ME. HOW DO YOU FEEL?
(ロボトミー ロボトミー) 花散る夜をかいで
(ロボトミー ロボトミー) 支離滅裂と泣いて……
(ロボトミー ロボトミー) 君を機械に変えて
(ロボトミー ロボトミー) 改造ペニスのロボトミー……
Romanized Lyrics
ameiro no waltz to, tamamushiiro no hane wo shinobase
ribbon de musunda uchuu made
ginga yori mo suteki na omae ni
dakareta hana no ha de petticoat ga niyatsuite iru
“waga jiyuu nari!” to sakende goran
ore ni wa fukanou na koto nado nanimo nai
saa! period no pierce wo tsukete
dakishimete kure!
kuuchuu roukaku no morality slave
lime light no hikari wo atsumete yubi wo narashite
himei no you na opera wo
uruwashi no tain musume jounetsu no atsui kuchibiru wo
nurashi utau no yo
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
shinju wo kajitte kawaii koneko no odori to
koyoui wa sharekomimashou yo
nazi no oboushi suspender
leather pants bust wa 89
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT
I NEED YOU TO NEED ME. HOW DO YOU FEEL?
(lobotomy, lobotomy) hana chiru yoru wo kaide
(lobotomy, lobotomy) kaizou penis no lobotomy……
atashi wa hitomi de karada wo uru no sa
heta na kozaiku wo suru no wa oyoshi yo
earring bracelet anklet
tamashii no sunglass zenbu hazusu no yo
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
mousou, akogare, shinpi wa rashinban no sasu
horaana doutoku no kusabi……
piano sen no rock n roll, mic wo
tsukande kousou biru no butterfly
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
MORALITY SLAVE
REALITY CLAIM
ALL DAY AND ALL OF THE NIGHT
I NEED YOU TO NEED ME. HOW DO YOU FEEL?
(lobotomy, lobotomy) hana chiru yoru wo kaide
(lobotomy, lobotomy) shirimetsuretsu to naite……
(lobotomy, lobotomy) kimi wo kikai ni kaete
(lobotomy, lobotomy) kaizou penis no lobotomy……
Translated Lyrics
Concealing your iridescent wings and a waltz the color of rain
You head into space, which you are bound to by a ribbon
Petticoats smirking with leaves on a flower
Held by you, more wonderful than the galaxy itself
Shout out “I am free!”
There’s nothing that I can’t do
Put a piercing in this period!
And hold me tight!
The morality slave in a castle in the sky
Basking in the limelight, I snap my fingers
To an opera of screams
Sung by a beautiful and lustful girl
As she wets her thick, passionate lips
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
Gnawing on pearls, let’s get dressed up tonight
To the dance of a cute kitten
A Nazi hat, suspenders
Leather pants, a bust size of 89
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
All day and all of the night
I need you to need me. How do you feel?
(Lobotomy, lobotomy) Taking in the scent of the deflowering night
(Lobotomy, lobotomy) A reconstructed penis lobotomy……
I sell my body with my eyes
I don’t need any cheap tricks
I’ll take off my earrings, bracelets, anklets
And even the sunglasses from my soul
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
Delusion, yearning, and mystery are the lynchpins
Of the morality cave that the compass points to
Piano wire rock ‘n roll, grabbing the mic
I’m a butterfly on a high-rise building
Morality slave
Morality slave
Morality slave
Reality claim
All day and all of the night
I need you to need me. How do you feel?
(Lobotomy, lobotomy) Taking in the scent of the deflowering night
(Lobotomy, lobotomy) Crying nonsensically……
(Lobotomy, lobotomy) I’ll turn you into a machine
(Lobotomy, lobotomy) A reconstructed penis lobotomy……
Notes
The musical intro to Morality Slave is the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 14, more popularly known as Moonlight Sonata. The garbled speech that you hear partway through said intro is Yoshii saying something, but played backward to make it sound more strange menacing. It’s never been revealed what exactly he’s saying here, but Yoshii has mentioned that it’s rather vulgar. The somewhat difficult to make out woman speaking the first part of the lyrics (everything before the “lime light” line) is actress Kyouko Muramatsu, of the Shinjuku Ryouzanbaku and Daisan Erotica Theatre Troupes.
This song makes a very impactful album opener, even though the intro portion should have been cut down by at least 50%. It actually discourages regular listening because it just takes too long to get to the song proper. I can appreciate the artistic intent behind putting the intro there the way it was, but it’s the kind of thing that doesn’t really work after the first time.
My feelings on Morality Slave are split. If you like the dark version of The Yellow Monkey that we got to hear a little bit of back on Welcome To My Doghouse from Bunched Birth, you’re in for a real treat: This is probably peak dark Yemon. In fact I think they actually take it a little too far. The riff that’s played throughout this song is clearly an attempt to build on the dark feel, but comes off as a tiny bit corny. Even the title of the song comes off as being a little bit “high school edgy”.
Lyrically there are some real highs and lows. The verses contain some really great lyrics that paint a pretty vivid and interesting picture: “Basking in the limelight, I snap my fingers to an opera of screams”, “Gnawing on pearls, let’s get dressed up tonight”, the “sunglasses from my soul” line, and “I’m a butterfly on a high-rise building”. Even if the first one is a maybe a bit more from the horror movie school of lyrics, the others are just very interesting turns of phrase (maybe even some of the best we’ve heard from him up until this point). My problems are almost exclusively with the chorus, where the lyrics get almost too direct. The standout lyric, “A reconstructed penis lobotomy”, was probably not only just inserted for shock value, but also doesn’t even make a lot of sense stated the way that it is. A lobotomy can’t really be performed on anything other than the head, since it’s an operation that involves the brain. Truth be told, the intention behind the lyric may have been slightly different than I translated it, since the “reconstructed penis” isn’t actually the object of the sentence. But making the lobotomy the possessive of the reconstructed penis just doesn’t make any great sense grammatically.
The meter that the vocals are delivered in also very unique, and this specifically brings a lot to the song. It’s actually a fairly difficult song to sing properly if you don’t space your breaths out properly, because so much is being spit out at one time, with no real opportunities for a breath in between. The composition of the vocal part of the song really shines above everything else, and is what makes this song really worth listening to.
Penises aside, I don’t even really like the explicit statement that the victim is being made into a machine during the final chorus. It takes a lot of the mystery as to what’s actually happening here that was present throughout the song up until that point, and the lyrics would have been better off without it. It’s certainly not a crime, but the best quality of Yoshii’s best weird and creepy songs are always that he keeps things just vague enough.
The perspective seems to shift from a creepy victimizer to a prostitute (who perhaps was the victim of the uh…actions taken later in the song) after the first chorus. The song may even have begun from a different perspective, and shifted to said victimizer in the third verse (before the first “Morality Slave” is sung), but it’s honestly difficult to tell. I think the lyrics purposefully go all over the place to give the song a more overwhelming and confusing feel.
I took a bit of a liberty with the phrase “hana chiru yoru” in the chorus, translating it as “deflowering night”. “hana chiru” itself literally means “scattering flowers”, or “falling flowers”. But given the sexual context of the song, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to interpret it in the way that I did. It’s also worth mentioning that I didn’t include what Yoshii sings just before the guitar solo and at the end of the song, because it doesn’t appear in the lyrics. To me it sounds like “abracadabra” though.
Morality Slave has become a little bit of a darling among old Yemon fans over time. It was understandably what they opened the concert with during their concerts for the Experience Movie album, and was promptly put away. This may have been due to what they had happening on stage during a particular show from this tour.
During that concert at Nippon Seinen-Kan Hall…we had topless women with bags over their heads on stage with us during the opening song. We played some footage from the movie “Santa Sangre” (a 1989 Mexican-Italian avant-garde horror film) as the opening too. That movie is the story of a boy with a mother complex, for a mother who’s had both of her arms cut off by the father. I don’t know why, but that’s just the image that I had in my mind for that concert.
…
I thought about rubbing one of their breasts during a break in the song, but I didn’t because I thought my wife would get mad if I did. I really wanted to, but just for show! But I just sort of writhed around instead. Those sorts of things are what I used to energize me while making this second album.
It was S&M on full display at that Nippon Seinen-Kan Hall concert, it was really intense. It felt kind of like…being back in our indie days. But if too many fans see this kind of thing, it might drive a lot of them away. That’s probably what made me back off of it.
After this, it made an appearance once again as the opener at Mekara Uroko 7 in 1996, the first in what would be a series of concerts that celebrated their older material. This one in particular marked 7 years from their debut. It was the opener once again at Mekara Uroko 27 in 2016, marking 27 years from their debut (and 20 years from Mekara Uroko 7). Both concerts featured a more toned down version of the stage show that they had during the original performance of Morality Slave.
