- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
- Single released 07/10/1996
Original Lyrics
目を閉じて始めよう この夜は誰のものでもない
唇を噛み合って 目眩がするほど抱き合って
確かめたい 生きていたい
銀色の大空に 輝く素敵な星を見た
彼方までもう少し 本当の君の顔が見える
愛してたい
頭の中で絶望の花が咲き乱れても
(Are you ready to spark?)
新しい何かが俺の中で目覚める世界は回る
君とスパーク 愛のスピーク 命は生まれいずれ消えゆく
だから Baby一瞬の火花の中でうごめく獣のように
声を殺して奪い合えれば
永遠なんて一秒で決まる
暗闇の中 すがりつくように
血がめぐるのを確かめている
(Are you ready to spark?)
新しい何かが俺の中で目覚める 世界は続く
君とスパーク 夜はスネーク 心は強くだけど乱れる
真実を欲しがる俺は 本当の愛で眠りたいのさ
恥ずかしいけどそれが全てさ
永遠なんて一秒で決まる
永遠なんていらないから
Romanized Lyrics
me wo tojite hajimeyou kono yoru wa dare no mono demo nai
kuchibiru wo kamiatte memai suru hodo dakiatte
tashikametai ikiteitai
giniro no oozora ni kagayaku suteki na hoshi wo mita
kanata made mou sukoshi hontou no kimi no kao ga mieru
ai shitetai
atama no naka de zetsubou no hana ga saki midarete mo
(Are you ready to spark?)
atarashii nani ka ga ore no naka de mezameru sekai wa mawaru
kimi to spark ai no speak inochi wa umare izure kie yuku
dakara Baby isshun no habana no naka de ugomeku kemono no you ni
koe wo koroshite ubai aereba
towa nante ichibyou de kimaru
kurayami no naka sugaritsuku you ni
chi ga meguru no wo tashikamete iru
(Are you ready to spark?)
atarashii nani ka ga ore no naka de mezameru sekai wa tsuzuku
kimi to spark yoru wa snake kokoro wa tsuyoku dakedo midareru
shinjitsu wo hoshigaru ore wa hontou no ai de nemuritai no sa
hazukashii kedo sore ga subete sa
towa nante ichibyou de kimaru
towa nante iranai kara
Translated Lyrics
Closing our eyes, let’s begin; This night belongs to no one
Biting our lips and being so intimate that it’s dizzying
I want to be sure, I want to feel alive
I saw a wonderful shining star in the vast silver sky
Just a little further, and I’ll be able to see your real face
I want to love you
Even if the flowers of despair bloom like crazy in my head
(Are you ready to spark?)
Something new awakens in me, and the world turns
A spark with you, love speak, life is born and eventually disappears
And that’s why baby, when we keep quiet and fight for it
In a moment’s spark, like squirming beasts
Eternity is decided in just a split second
As though clinging together in the darkness
We’re reminding ourselves that our blood is still flowing
(Are you ready to spark?)
Something new awakens in me, and the world continues on
A spark with you, the night is a snake, my heart is strong but confused
I’m here wanting the truth, and to go to sleep with true love in my heart
It’s embarrassing to say, but that’s everything to me
Eternity is decided in just a split second
Because I just don’t need eternity at all
Notes
How do you follow up a hit ballad like Jam that got The Yellow Monkey finally showing up on all sorts of musical radars? The answer is apparently with a full on rock number like Spark. Some real light bulbs must have been going off in Yoshi’s head at the time, because this turned into their third best selling single of all time, just below Burn and Jam. And just as with those two songs, these days Spark is almost guaranteed to be on the set list of any concert of theirs!
Granted an up-tempo number after a ballad was something that seemed to be pushed onto them by their record company, but it was probably still the right thing to do just to show range:
After Jam, I promised our director Munekiyo and Nakahara that we’d release an up-tempo song next. And so I wrote Spark, which I definitely remember thinking was going to be a hit single. And well…it wasn’t as big of a hit as Jam, but it sold plenty well. And I guess it’s a pretty popular karaoke song, even now.
Kazuya Yoshii, In Search of Lost Love (Ushinawareta Ai wo Motomete) (2007)
And while it didn’t sell as many copies as Jam, it should be noted that Spark debuted at number three on the Oricon charts its first week, whereas the highest Jam ever got was number six.
While the lyrics may not be as interesting or profound as the ones Yoshii wrote for Jam, it’s still a very interesting way of presenting lyrics that are ultimately very obviously about sex. What does most of the heavy lifting here though is the music and the vocal melodies. Since the intro goes full on right from the start, it’s an incredibly versatile song that they can just go into from just about anything, even from quiet moments.
Both the riff used for the intro/outro/between verses and the solo are among some of my favorite pieces of guitar work that Emma’s done, contrasting beautifully with the more muted role the guitar plays during the actual verses. And even though it isn’t up in the mix as I feel it should be, there’s that trademark organ here as well. Between this and Jam, so much of what I love about Yemon’s compositional style was solidified in this era. Everything just works together so well, that this is still one of my favorite songs of theirs today. I realize it may not be a very “cool” choice since it gets so much play, but sometimes popular songs are popular for a reason: Because they’re extremely catchy and well written.
The single also featured a B-side called Moonlight Drive. And apparently before release, there was some debate about which one of these should be the A-side on the single:
I was planning to go with Spark myself, but then the band members tried to talk me into it being the other way around. I couldn’t decide in the moment, so I think we just put it off for a bit.
Hiroyuki Munekiyo, Natalie.mu Interview (2013)
Moonlight Drive is a great song in its own way, but it was very clearly the correct choice to make Spark the A-side here.
Spark also marks the band’s last single on the Nippon Columbia label, who they’d been signed with since their major label debut in 1992. Though the story of them moving from Nippon Columbia to Funhouse is inseparable from this era in the band’s history, it really just represented the boiling point of issues that that had been brewing for quite some time. This is of course the reason why Jam and Spark did not appear on their next album (and first on the Funhouse label) Sicks.
I think at the time, we were feeling that we wanted to move up to the next level. There’d been so many things we just didn’t see eye-to-eye with our current record company on…
Kazuya Yoshii, In Search of Lost Love (Ushinawareta Ai wo Motomete) (2007)
As with Jam, Spark was also featured in the band’s 2017 re-recorded collection of greatest hits, “The Yellow Monkey Is Here. New Best”. And while both versions of Spark are great to listen to, much like with Jam there’s something kind of unidentifiable about that original version that I just prefer. Though it’s hard to argue that the mixing on the re-recorded version isn’t considerably better.
Again once again, Spark was the ending theme song for another popular music program: TBS’ Count Down TV, for the month of July 1997. The previously re-recorded version also appeared in a 2017 Tateru commercial as well. The music video also warrants some discussion: Not only is it one of my favorite videos of theirs, but it was the first of their music videos to be directed by Eiki Takahashi. Takahashi would really hit it off with the band members, and would serve as the director for many of their videos until the band dissolved in 2001.
I don’t remember our first meeting too well, but I think I recall just talking about UFOs the entire time! (Laughs) I think maybe our being basically the same age had something to do with how well we got along.
Eiki Takahashi, Natalie.mu Interview (2013)
This explains why a UFO randomly appears in the music video. Apparently it had originally been conceived as just being a plastic model of a UFO, but it didn’t quite have the image that everyone wanted. Instead one was made specifically for the video with materials from Tokyo Hands, a popular Japanese chain of arts and crafts stores.