- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
Please yesterday 悩殺の Everyday
開拓者のLabyrinth
未来図のストロボ さかしまなBaby face
道しるべは No thanks 君と Close my eyes
Ah, snail job……
Night snails & plastic boogie
はがい絞めのStory
Night snails & plastic boogie
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
願い事が神秘を抱きしめたら Let’s start again
泥だらけのSensational beginners
かたつむりは今夜モザイクを映さない
泡まみれのSpiritual game
MindのRoller star
Stand up invaders!
Night snails & plastic boogie
腐りかけのMusic
Night snails & plastic boogie
群れなすかたつむり
Snail……
殻を破るStatus
Snail……
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
Romanized Lyrics
Please yesterday nousatsu no Everyday
kaitakusha no Labyrinth
miraizu no strobe sakashima na Baby face
michishirube wa No thanks kimi to Close my eyes
Ah, snail job……
Night snails & plastic boogie
hagaijime no Story
Night snails & plastic boogie
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
negai goto ga shinpi wo dakishimetara Let’s start again
doro darake no Sensational beginners
katatsumuri wa konya mosaic utsusanai
awa mamire no Spiritual game
Mind no Roller star
Stand up invaders!
Night snails & plastic boogie
kusarikake no Music
Night snails & plastic boogie
mure nasu katatsumuri
Snail……
kara wo yaburu Status
Snail……
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
Translated Lyrics
Please yesterday, everyday is so enchanting
A pioneer’s labyrinth
A strobe light projecting the future, an upside down baby face
A signpost to guide me there? No thanks, I’ll just close my eyes with you
Ah, snail job……
Night snails & plastic boogie
A story of a full nelson hold
Night snails & plastic boogie
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
If our desires hold on to mystery, let’s start again
As muddy and sensational beginners
The snails won’t be projecting a mosaic pattern tonight
A bubble covered spiritual game
A roller star of the mind
Stand up invaders!
Night snails & plastic boogie
Half-rotted music
Night snails & plastic boogie
The snails form a pack
Snail……
With a status of breaking out of their shells
Snail……
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
Please yesterday
Notes
As an album opener, Song For Night Snails is far more successful than the song Bunched Birth from the previous album by the same name. It’s easily the weirdest song lyrically on Night Snails and Plastic Boogie, and the flow from it into Subjective Late Show works way better than that of Bunched Birth into Welcome To My Doghouse, even though they were both designed to do the same thing. Song For Night Snails is a great indicator that not only is The Yellow Monkey going to dive headfirst into being even more lyrically abstract than before, but also that they’re going to be much more musically varied.
As just a song, I think it stands as not too much more than a weird comedy piece. It’s comedic not only because of how off the wall the lyrics are, but because Yoshii is singing them in a falsetto that we’ve never heard from him before, and hardly ever will again. To top it off there’s also a piano and some strings playing behind all of this ridiculousness to give it a contrasting sense of seriousness. I have very fond memories of putting this album in for the first time late at night after having only listened to much later music in Yemon’s catalog, and just laughing. I like this song a lot. Though it’s not even on the list of Yoshii’s most impressive or important lyrics, it’s just goofy fun without much meaning behind it. This is something we don’t often get from his writing.
Lyrically there isn’t much here to dissect but some sexual stuff: A “snail job” is almost certainly meant to be what it sounds like, and mosaic pattern that the snails won’t be projecting tonight is probably in reference to the mosaic pattern that’s often displayed over genitalia to partially censor a lot of Japanese porn (this is done by law, though there have been very few arrests due to the violation of it). It isn’t all sex though: “If our desires hold on to mystery, let’s start again
as muddy and sensational beginners” is a good lyric, even if it’s not quite as abstract as Yoshii usually is. With what the music is doing in that first post-chorus verse, and the way Yoshii sings it, it just comes off as sounding very nice amidst a lot of the other random weirdness. Not to mention “night snails and plastic boogie” is just a great phrase.
The phrase “hagaijime” is describing what’s really just a full nelson hold. While it’s been made most popular by professional wrestling, the same hold is also used prominently in judo, and is referred to by the same name. This is probably where Yoshii is pulling it from, since he practiced judo for a time when he was young.
Though I didn’t realize it before the lyrics to this song made me look it up, a group of snails can be referred to as either a “walk”, a “route”, or an “escargatoire”. Since that’s hardly common knowledge though, I stuck to just “pack”.
This song seems to have only been played live a few times: The first time was sometime in 1996 during the Four Seasons tour when just Yoshii and Emma (guitar) played it between other songs. I don’t think this was a regularly reoccurring thing for that tour, since none of the footage I have from that tour shows it. Though to be fair, it could be included on the now fairly expensive True Mind “Naked” DVD set released after the band’s breakup (if it is, it isn’t included on the official track list), which I do not have. The second time was in 1998 as the opener to the concert “Mekara Uroko 9” (a part of the “Mekara Uroko” concert series in which they focus on playing their older music), and third during the fan club exclusive tour “Super FC Party 2017 -Drastic Holiday-” in 2017.