- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
君と僕は過去と未来よりも強く結ばれて 未来永劫に出会い続ける
Oh…oh…boy…baby!
虹の出るマシンガンと声を出してカンヴァセイション-Psyche neuron
ヒステリック・カウボーイはランダムにシューティング-Gimme your neck
ラム・レーズンを軽く噛むのさ BABY
モノクロームの夢の中に色をつけてテンプテーション
抱いてユートピア消えろディストピア-Psyche neuron
ハングリー・サヴァイバーハートはスレンダー-Gimme your neck
レモネードのように拡がるキスの味と蜜の味で
体中の骨を溶かすテンプテーション
そして夜は全てこの手の中 アルカロイドは君の中
鐘が鳴るまでロマンティスト・テイスト
背中のネジをフルに回そう
ラヴ・ポーションで強引にシャドウ
夢を喰らうスパイダー 爬虫類のコネクション-Psyche neuron
奇抜を抱いた吠え面のスピーカー-Gimme your neck
モラリストが泣いてすがる イデオロギーはこけおどしさ
色メガネを踏みつぶしてテンプテーション
そして夜は全てこの手の中 アルカロイドは君の中
鐘が鳴るまでロマンティスト・テイスト
背中のネジをフルに回そう
ラヴ・ポーションで強引にシャドウ
ラヴ・ポーションで妖艶にシャドウ
ラヴ・ポーションで強引に Psyche neuron
その恥らいを指で押してみよう決められた毒が飛び出して
濡れたまぶたもふいてあげよう終らない為に僕の為に
君の好きな赤い花の雄蘂と雌蘂もキスを交し
いつかくれた謎のクローバー火で燃やし淡い夢を
抱いてユートピア 消えろディストピア
あり余る裕福なPsyche neuron
そして溶け合うグラデーション
いましめられるフラワー
ラヴ・ポーションで強引にシャドウ
ラヴ・ポーションで妖艶にシャドウ
ラヴ・ポーションで強引にシャドウ
ラヴ・ポーションで妖艶にシャドウ
Psyche neuron!
Romanized Lyrics
kimi to boku wa kako to mirai yori mo tsuyoku musubarete mirai eigou ni deai tsuzukeru
Oh…oh…boy…baby!
niji no deru machinegun to koe wo dashite conversation – Psyche neuron
hysteric cowboy wa random ni shooting – Gimme your neck
rum raisin wo karuku kamu no sa BABY
monochrome no yume no naka ni iro wo tsukete temptation
daite utopia kiero dystopia – Psyche neuron
hungry survivor heart wa surrender – Gimme your neck
lemonade no you ni hirogaru kiss no aji to mitsu no aji de
karada juu no hone wo tokasu temptation
soshite yoru wa subete kono te no naka alkaloid wa kimi naka
kane ga naru made romantist taste
senaka no neji wo full ni mawasou
love potion de gouin ni shadow
yume wo kurau spider hachuurui no connection – Psyche neuron
kibatsu wo daita hoezura no speaker – Gimme your neck
moralist ga naite sugaru ideology wa kokeodoshi sa
iro megane wo fumitsubushite temptation
soshite yoru wa subete kono te no naka alkaloid wa kimi naka
kane ga naru made romantist taste
senaka no neji wo full ni mawasou
love potion de gouin ni shadow
love potion de youen ni shadow
love potion de gouin ni Psyche neuron
sono hajirai wo yubi de oshite miyou kimerareta doku ga tobidashite
nureta mabuta mo fuite ageyou owaranai tame ni boku no tame ni
kimi no suki na akai hana no oshibe to meshibe mo kiss wo kawashi
itsuka kureta nazo no clover hi de moyashi awai yume wo
daite utopia kiero dystopia
ariamaru yuufuku na Psyche neuron
soshite tokeau gradation
imashimerareru flower
love potion de gouin ni shadow
love potion de youen ni shadow
love potion de gouin ni shadow
love potion de youen ni shadow
Psyche neuron!
Translated Lyrics
You and I are bound together more tightly than the past and future, we’ll keep meeting one another for all eternity
Oh…oh…boy…baby!
Raise your voice in conversation with a rainbow-shooting machine gun – Psyche neuron
A hysteric cowboy is randomly shooting – Gimme your neck
I chew lightly on some rum raisins, baby
Put some color to those monochrome dreams, temptation
Embrace utopia, get rid of dystopia – Psyche neuron
A hungry survivor surrenders his heart – Gimme your neck
With the tastes of kisses and nectar that spread out like lemonade
Temptation dissolves all the bones in my body
And at night everything is mine, and alkaloids are in you
Until the bell tolls, it’s romantist taste
Give the screws in my back a full turn
I’ll force you into the shadows with a love potion
A spider that eats dreams, a connection to reptiles – Psyche neuron
A speaker made of a tearful face that’s held onto fancifulness – Gimme your neck
A moralist cries and begs, ideology is just a bluff
Crush those rose-colored glasses underfoot, temptation
And at night everything is mine, and alkaloids are in you
Until the bell tolls, it’s romantist taste
Give the screws in my back a full turn
I’ll force you into the shadows with a love potion
I’ll bewitch you into the shadows with a love potion
I’ll force you with a love potion, Psyche neuron
Try pushing that shyness away with your finger, the poison that’s been chosen for you suddenly appears
I’ll wipe your wet eyelids for you so that it won’t end, for my own sake
Sharing a kiss with the stamen and pistol of the red flower that you love
The mysterious clover that you gave me that one day burns up my fleeting dreams
Embrace utopia, get rid of dystopia
There are an abundance of psyche neurons
And the gradation all melts together
The forbidden flower
I’ll force you into the shadows with a love potion
I’ll bewitch you into the shadows with a love potion
I’ll force you into the shadows with a love potion
I’ll bewitch you into the shadows with a love potion
Psyche neuron!
Notes
Romantist Taste was The Yellow Monkey’s debut single, and the only single released from The Night Snails And Plastic Boogie (The B-side was Unpleasant 6th Avenue). The single was released on 05/21/1992, just one month before the album. It was also their first officially released music video.
While it isn’t the best (or even my favorite song) song on the album, it is a very good song that was probably the best choice for a single. It’s a well written and very listenable song that not only oozes the glam rock aesthetic that Yemon was so into, but it’s also very representative of where they were as a band at the time. It stated loudly and clearly that they were a glam rock band that wrote songs that were fun to listen to, but were very off kilter and gave you something to chew on if you cared to think about what you were hearing.
I probably sound like a hypocrite when I say that I don’t mind the weird English that appears here, but that’s because I think this is the best sort of use of weird English. It’s nothing but very odd combinations of words (“psyche neuron”), infrequently heard words (“alkaloid”) and phrases used to create images of what might be vampirism (“gimme your neck” and lots of talk of things going on in shadows). And vampires were still cool back in 1992, so it all works for me. Much like other great tracks on the album, such as Pearl Light of Revolution, Romantist Taste is really trying to convey a feeling or an aesthetic more than it is trying to mean something on its own. That feeling/aesthetic is pure glam rock, and it’s wonderful.
There are a few phrases here that are interesting. For starters, the title of the song itself, “romantist taste”. The Japanese like to take English nouns and add “ist” to the end of them in order to use them to describe a person (see also the frequently used “egoist”), so probably what they were going for here was “A romantist’s taste”, or the taste of someone who is romantic. Now whether that means how someone who is romantic actually tastes to someone else (see the earlier references to vampirism) or the aesthetic tastes that someone is romantic possesses is up in the air. Maybe a little bit of both? And though it probably doesn’t mean exactly what Yoshii think it means (or he figured the Japanese audiences listening to his songs wouldn’t bother to question it), I like the idea of alkaloids (a group of naturally occurring chemical compounds that mostly contain basic nitrogen atoms) being in someone as being lyric-worthy.
There are other phrases here that contribute to the feeling of the lyrics in a very big way too: “A spider that eats dreams, a connection to reptiles”. But my favorite piece of imagery though is “A speaker made of a tearful face that’s held onto fancifulness”, for reasons that I think are pretty obvious! It’s like something you might find in a high-end Halloween shop or something.
The spoken part during the song’s intro (which I included at the beginning of the lyrics, even though it didn’t appear in the booklet) is actually from a poem called 遠い天の果てで (“tooi ten no hate de” or “At the End of the Faraway Sky”), by Keiko Aoki. Yoshii only seems to insert it when performing the song live (he’s saying something during the intro of the recorded version, and even though it’s basically impossible to make out, it doesn’t sound like this), and I haven’t read or heard Yoshii talk about why he decided to use it, but it’s become just as much of a part of the song as any of the rest of it.
As you might expect from a debut single, Romantist Taste has appeared on a lot of concert recordings over the years. It was played during the tours for Experience Movie, Jaguar Hard Pain, Four Seasons, Sicks, and the reunion Super Japan Tour. Interestingly it’s never been played at a Mekara Uroko concert (a series of concerts in which they focus mainly on playing older material that isn’t often heard during regular tours), despite it being an older song. It’s only been played as an older song during regular tours.
In October 2012 a single featuring a remastered version of Romantist Taste was released called Romantist Taste 2012, in celebration of the 20 year anniversary of Yemon’s major record label debut. The mixing was done by Shuuji Yamaguchi (the same engineer that mixed the song originally in 1992) with the mastering done by New York-based Ted Jensen. Much like the 2013 remaster of Welcome To My Doghouse though, there’s only so much they could do with the original recording, so don’t expect miracles. It does sound a little bit better though.