- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
セミが鳴き叫ぶ夏の終わり 不良が死んだ
色白で20才 瞳はブライアンジョーンズ
盗み、レイプ、人殺し 最高の腕前
確実に地獄に落ちるセンスバツグン
昨日もいらなきゃ 明日もいらない
「スー、ハー」が大好きで支離滅裂な目で
手あたりしだい女の子を追いかける
女の子は隠れたドキドキしながら
真実は知りません
昨日もいらなきゃ 明日もいらない
父親は新しい女をつく
数年後事故で他界 酔っぱらい運転
神の歌をつぶやいて 鉄格子をくぐる時
真っすぐなセミの声に少しだけ愛を感じた
ミーン ミーン ミーン ミーン
群集の罵声は性的な興奮につながる
もしもマシンガンを持っていたら一人残らずハチの巣だ
最後のタバコを２口吸って お礼を言って
目隠しされる
本当の自由が本当の自由に殺される
神の歌をつぶやいて 死刑台に昇る時
ブルースに似た青空 それを感じほほえんだ
セミが鳴いている夏の終わり セミと変わらない短い人生
周りはあいつが死んでよかったと喜んだ
けれども母親はまるまって泣いてた
周りはあいつが死んでよかったと喜んだ
周りは……
セミが鳴き叫ぶ夏の終わり 不良が死んだ
Romanized Lyrics
semi ga naki sakebu natsu no owari furyou ga shinda
irojiro de ni juu sai hitomi wa Brian Jones
nusumi, rape, hitogoroshi saikou no udemae
kakujitsu ni jigoku ni ochiru sense batsugun
kinou mo iranakya ashita mo iranai
“suu, haa” ga daisuki de shirimetsuretsu na me de
teatari shidai onna no ko wo oikakeru
onna no ko wa kakureta doki doki shingara
shinjitsu wa shirimasen
kinou mo iranakya ashita mo iranai
chichioya wa atarashii onna wo tsuku
suunen ato jiko de takai yopparai unten
kami no uta wo tsubuyaite tetsugoushi wo kuguru toki
massugu na semi no koe ni sukoshi dake ai wo anjita
miin miin miin miin
gunshuu no basei wa seiteki na koufun ni tsunagaru
moshi mo machine gun wo motte itara hitori nokorazu hachi ni su da
saigo no tobacco wo futa kuchi sutte orei wo itte
mekakushi sareru
hontou no jiyuu ga hontou no jiyuu ni korosareru
kami no uta wo tsubuyaite shokeidai ni noboru toki
blues ni nita aozora sore wo kanji hohoenda
semi ga naite iru natsu no owari semi to kawaranai mijikai jinsei
mawari wa aitsu ga shinde yokatta to yorokonda
keredomo chichioya wa marumatte naiteta
mawari wa aitsu ga shinde yokatta to yorokonda
mawari wa……
semi ga naki sakebu natsu no owari furyou ga shinda
irojiro de ni juu sai hitomi wa Brian Jones
Translated Lyrics
The cicadas cry out at the end of summer, a bad kid has died
20 years old and fair-skinned, he had eyes like Brian Jones
Theft, rape, murder, he was great at them all
He had a great sense that he was going to hell
If you don’t need yesterday, then you don’t need tomorrow either
He follows a girl at random
Loving the sound of deep breathing, with crazy eyes
Hiding her nervousness
The girl doesn’t know the truth
If you don’t need yesterday, then you don’t need tomorrow either
His father has a new woman in his life
The previous one was killed several years ago in a drunk driving accident
When he passed through the iron bars, muttering the song of god under his breath
He felt a little bit of love in the honest voices of the cicadas
Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp
He gets sexual excitement from the jeers of the crowd
If he’d had a machine gun, he’d pump every one of them full of holes
Taking two drags off of his last cigarette, he says thank you
And is blindfolded
True freedom killed by true freedom
When he climbed up to the gallows, muttering the song of god under his breath
He felt the blue sky, so similar to the blues, and smiled
The cicadas cry out at the end of summer, a life just as short as those of the cicadas
Everyone was happy that he died
But his father was sobbing so hard
Everyone was happy that he died
Everyone…
The cicadas cry out at the end of summer, a bad kid has died
20 years old and fair-skinned, he had eyes like Brian Jones
Notes
This was an unreleased song for which the lyrics were featured in the 1998 published “So Young – A Collection of Yoshii Kazuya’s Lyrical Poetry”. It was written and was being recorded during the stadium tour that was taking place for the “Sicks” album, and before Punch Drunkard was released. No recording of the actual song has ever been released or featured on anything that I’m aware of.
I guess the timing was just never right. I was thinking of announcing it at our stadium tour last year (1997). It was about 80 percent to the point where it could be performed, but it just wasn’t good enough. And the timing was just before Punch Drunkard, so you could say I was in my first pessimistic period in a long time. At that point I was constantly taking jabs at myself like “Who do you think you are, you asshole”. I was under the delusion that we’d come so far in terms of Japanese rock. But at the same time when I’d think something like “Eh just quit while you’re ahead and retire”, I’d compulsively react with “No, no, no, no!”. Those strange feelings aren’t really evident in the song, but they’re the circumstances under which it was made. I was drinking a lot too.
I obviously haven’t heard the complete song, but just based on the lyrics I’m glad that Yoshii decided to scrap this. If you look at it on the surface level, this all covers VERY well tread territory. Sure it raises some questions about prison systems and the death penalty, and how society as a whole thinks about it (though to be fair I think those thoughts were much different when this song was written than they are now) that are always worth discussing. It even has some reasonably good imagery, comparing the short life of an executed youth to that of a cicada, etc. However, I just don’t know that painting someone who was thief, murder, AND rapist so sympathetically if ever a particularly good look for anyone. I’m not saying that someone is troubled enough to do all of those things should be put to death, I just think there are better way of examining their situations. At this point Yoshii’s lyrical quality was WELL beyond what we have here, and dealing with far more complex and interesting subjects.
What I can appreciate a little bit more (though I still don’t think this aspect was worth saving the song for), is that a certain amount of this was tied up in Yoshii’s feelings of aging at the time.
And the whole time I was wondering if this was me. Did I need to kill off this bad kid? Those are the kinds of things you sometimes think when you get into your thirties, at least that’s what friends of the same age told me. I think rock is full of harsh people who end up not knowing where they belong when they’re not so harsh anymore. But as people get older, they don’t like the idea of being weirdly harsh forever (Laughs) Do I kill him off, do I let him live, or do I just do nothing and let time pass. So I just ended up scrapping the song, and just decided to myself that there was nothing I could do about it at this point.
And for those who don’t know, Brian Jones (who Yoshii likes to reference every now and then) was a founding member of the Rolling Stones, who supposedly formed the band, picked the name, and chose all the members himself. He was a multi instrumentalist, though primarily known as a guitarist, alongside Keith Richards. He developed a drug problem and became increasingly more unreliable as a musician, and the rest of the band asked him to leave. He died less than a month later, drowned in the swimming pool at his home, under the influence of drugs. Yoshii is no doubt trying to draw a line between Brian Jones dying so young, being a talented musician that was cast aside because he was troubled.