TSUNAMI, featuring Kuwata’s vocals, is a song that everyone will love when they hear it. It was also my favorite song, but it is also famous for its beautiful lyrics. Even if it is not filled with just plaintive lyrics, you can feel the texture of dignity and emotion. Among the lyrics sung calmly in this song
Hito Wa Daremo Aimotomete Yamini Samayou Kamome
Sosite Kaze Makase Oh My Destiny
Namida Kareru Made
Anybody if they are human they seek for love like flying seagull
And I let my body blown from winds Oh My Destiny
Until my tears dry
A seagull appears in the phrase of focus in this lyrics.
The seagull is a flying animal that flies over the sea, has the image of a wanderer, and is a bird that eats scraps in front of a market dock. It is an animal that often appears in photos symbolizing freedom. As everyone knows. The emotional characteristic of the poem is that it connects the image of animals, which is usually considered as an independent fact, with beautiful images of sadness and regret, and asks the reader or listener to feel the feeling of the poem. Normally, when I listen up the lyrics in TSUNAMI, I agree to feel its deep meanings and share feelings of empathy.
However, this poetic meaning is simply more than a request for sympathy from the listener or reader, so some poetic lyrics from other songs are sometimes considered a peaceful cliché and does not have a stronger meaning. In that sense, in amazarashi’s Bokuga Shinoto Omotanowa, it is sung as follows.
Bokuga Shinoto Omottanowa
Uminekoga Sanbashide Naitakara
Namino Manimani Ukande Kieru
Kakomo Tsuibande Tondeyuke
The reason why I desire to die
black-tailed seagull is crying at the dock
Tides come and out, which is disappearing
The past, eat this up and go away by flying
These lyrics even specify Kamome’s species, and although it feels a bit pejorative, it seems to imply that they should be leisurely while being fed. By specifying Kamome’s species, I feel like I want to get closer to the black-tailed gull while feeding the childlike tastes, limitations, and regrets that are somehow tied to the past that come from knowing dinosaurs. We can sympathize with a person’s past and feel an appeal for it. Why he is dying himself while he is losing self to see seagull at the dock?
Whether it is called a seagull or a black-tailed gull, the meaning is up to the readers and listeners, but the reason we react and feel emotions to these song lyrics is the same because poetic language is a symbol.
A sign is a medium between the interpreter and the path connecting meaning, and is a linguistic creation in which our experiences, feelings, impressions, moods, attitudes, etc. are mixed and the meaning is thought of in multiple ways. Since lyric writing is also based on taste, its explosive power increases when something fresh and new is attempted. When you listen to lyrics that are permitted in a field where you cannot see them in reality but feel that something implicitly sings about a person’s life, you can hear each person’s daily thoughts, experiences they have encountered, and unconscious impressions, feelings, and attitudes they have had about them. This determines the general language characteristics of poetic words.
The seagull sung by TSUNAMI sings of a boy with warm emotions, and the seagull sung by amazarashi sings of the tragedy of a boy for whom the typical seagull metaphor does not apply same way. Both seem to be common words, but they both convey their meaning to us with a unique personality that touches people’s hearts. Above all, the importance of keeping lyrics important even if they are common words lies in the technique of conveying the meaning of sympathy to listeners and readers by putting meaning in symbols and suggesting how the meaning should be understood. I also feel like this is the reason why songs become hits, not to be cliché.
Even if the intention of conveying meaning to a symbol is good, with contributory condition that it is ordinary and it is not just an everyday conversation, it can feel boring. However, by showing good intentions in this way, it is not a cliché, but rather leads to poetic imagination and sensitivity that resonates even more. If a song resonates with you even without using difficult words, the song will be talked about forever.
I was curious as to why people sympathize with the poetic characteristics revealed in the lyrics.
Poetry is based on the use of words that are deviant and also break rules that are rigid and tyranny. From this breaking up, we feel freshness and newness and fall in love with the taste. As I do so, I remember the time when I jumped into a cool rivers and played with swimming in the water… Still, the two lyrics above seem to be relatable symbols that feel new the more I listen to them.