Well, I gotta say...for a Japanese music listener who's faced his fairly large mountain of English expressions within lyrics for decades, I was truly surprised by this one. I didn't think I would ever hear any singer utter the words "shrewd" and "forestall" separately, let alone within the same kayo kyoku. Mind you, when I heard "forestall", it came out more like the name for a famous American aircraft carrier.
Yes, I am talking about Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Shrewd Fellow", a track from her 16th album "Manjuu Shaka"（曼珠沙華）from December 1978. In fact, it follows right after the first track and one of my favourite Momoe songs of all time, the poignant "Ii Hi Tabidachi" (いい日旅立ち), and yet I had never heard of "Shrewd Fellow" until within the last few months. The lyrics by Hiromi Kanda（神田広美）under her pen name of Rika Nohara（野原理香）tell of one really hot romance...the second line of the song has a lady pretty much jumping onto her paramour's lips on his second word! Personally, I usually like to go it a bit slower through a few dates and dinners before that step. Anyways, the melody by Yusuke Hoguchi（穂口雄右）and its arrangement by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）is good ol' downtown City Pop and disco. Once again, Momoe gives it further swagger through the delivery of her own vocals.
Till now I had also never heard of シュルード・フェロー! Momoe Yamaguchi always seemed to be the cool and mature type of Aidoru, but this song even goes beyond that. I wonder why this song does not seem have have gotten a lot of air time? Anyway, it is disco with some literature English words I do think I have heard used in English songs all that often. What an interesting find this was!
ReplyDeleteシュルード・フェロー
「限りがあるから燃えてしまう」 forestall
“Because there’s a limit, it all burns out” — forestall
二言めには彼の口をついてでる forestall
By his second word, it slips right out of his mouth — forestall
遠くをみつめさりげなく世間話に
栞のように はさむわ
Gazing off into the distance,
he slips it into our small talk,
like tucking in a bookmark
Shrewd fellow
駆引きに負けて 爪を咬むわたし
Shrewd fellow
Losing at this game of wits, I end up biting my nails
Shrewd fellow
「あの人と同じね」
Shrewd fellow
“You’re just like that person,” they say
追わない方が利口と
等閉(なおざり)にした
Deciding it’s smarter not to chase,
I left it all neglected