When dealing with Japan, it’s natural to encounter some “WTF” moments, like seeing a strawberry & whipped cream sandwich for sale in a convenience store for the first time; that first encounter with an ita-sha, a car decked out as a mobile shrine to an anime character; or being asked if having blue eyes meant I saw the world through a blue tint. I remember being confused by the tendency of Japanese songwriters to put seemingly random English phrases in Japanese songs. Reading through my old CD liner notes, I’d see bizarre phrases like HEART CHECK or BLUE RAY LEMON or GET CHANCE AND LUCK or FAD, FAD, WITH SOMETHING COOL, LIKE A HIDDEN LUMINARY. After a while I came to appreciate that to the Japanese, English represents an emotional investment of (usually) six years of hard work spent memorizing grammar and vocabulary, and songwriters can use English to bring out feelings in listeners that couldn’t be accessed otherwise. Plus, English is just so darned kakko ii (cool), so adding a splash of OH PLEASE BE FREEDOM into the middle of a song gives it a special mystique. Another theory might be that the Japanese songwriters are putting bizarre English phrases into their songs to mess with the minds of foreigners who try to comprehend their language…
Did you think I was kidding about the strawberry and whipped cream sandwiches?
