Karaoke Challenge: 踊り子 (Odoriko, Dancer) by Vaundy

I love this song. I play it over and over and get lost in the sound and the lyrics, like I’m spinning around in my head with the chorus hook: 回り出した (mawaridashita, spun around), あの子と僕の未来が止まり (ano ko to boku no mirai ga tomari, my future with that girl stopped) どっかで またやり直せたら (dokka de mata yarinaosetara, if only we could give it a go again somewhere…). 

These lines are followed by repetition of 回り出した(mawaridashita, spun around), あの子 (ano ko, that girl), and どっかで (dokka de, somewhere), paired with 被害者 (higaisha, victims), which mimics the sound of 未来 (mirai, future) in this intriguing section: あの子と僕が被害者面でどっかをまた練り歩けたらな (ano ko to boku ga higaisha zura de dokka wo mata neri aruketarana, if only that girl and I, acting like victims, could wander around somewhere again). 

Here’s the beautiful music video with 小松菜奈 (Komatsu Nana, Nana Komatsu). 

The lyrics create the fragments of a story—temporary love that has left a permanent imprint, a longing for something that existed once and now is only in dreams. 

Vaundy makes unusual choices in intonation that create challenges in karaoke. He lengthens the glottal stop (the small っ) in どっかに (dokka ni [dokoka ni], somewhere) and several 母音 (bo’on, vowels), like the「a」 in ちゃんと (chanto, properly). He also splits the long ō into two distinct 「o」 sounds in 拾っておこう (hirotte okō, let’s pick up ~), all in the first few lines: ねぇ どっかに置いてきたような事が一つ二つ浮いているけど (nee dokka ni oitekita yō na koto ga hitotsu futatsu uiteiru kedo, One or two fragments of what we left somewhere are floating to the surface…) ねぇ ちゃんと拾っておこう (nee chanto hirotte okō, Let’s try to pick them up properly).

Then he sings this light とぅるる (tu ru ru) a few times before returning to the images of lost love in the next verse, where he also lengthens the ō in どうして (dōshite, why) beyond what is normal in conversation. The lengthened vowel creates a deeper sense of longing, like, “Why~~~?” in this line: ねぇ どうして私が好きなの (nee dōshite watashi ga sukinano, Why~~~ do you like me?) appearing in the next verse. 

The rhythm picks up pace as he describes incongruence: 思いを蹴って 二人でしてんだ (omoi wo kette, futari de shitenda, Shoving aside feelings, the two of us carry on) 壊(わす)れない愛を歌う (wasurenai ai wo utau, sing of unbreakable love). And after two lines about an oath taken: 忘れない愛を歌うようにね (wasurenai ai wo utau yō ni ne, singing of unforgettable love, like this).  

Multiple interesting things are happening here lyrically. First, he intentionally uses the reading わすれない (wasurenai, unforgettable) for the kanji 壊れない (kowarenai, unbreakable), blending unbreakable and unforgettable love through the act of singing, expressed by the verb 歌う (utau, sing). Singing itself makes the love unbreakable and unforgettable, and he emphasizes this with a sharp ようにね (yō ni ne, like this) at the end. 

The とぅるるる hook repeats, followed by the chorus, until the end (climax), which is fast and (to me) the most challenging to sing: 

時代に乗って (jidai ni notte, Riding the wave of time) 

僕たちは変わらず愛に生きるだろう (bokutachi wa kawarazu ai ni ikiru darou, we'll continue to live in love). 

僕らが散って残るのは (bokura ga chitte nokorunoha, We fade away and what remains) 

変わらぬ愛の歌なんだろうな (kawaranu ai no utanandarou na, is a song of unchanging love...). 

The song itself is immortalizing a temporal love… it feels like a meditation on love, art, and time, all at once… 

And here I am singing it… Videoing myself singing brought up many new interesting challenges. If I focus too much on getting the Japanese correct, I tend to lose melody (= sound flat). But if I focus too much on the melody, I look stressed and uncomfortable. So I tried to ride the breath, keep the sound in my cheeks and my nose, and not over-exert myself. Singing itself, let alone in Japanese, is quite challenging. I don’t pretend to have done it well, but I’ll share my effort anyway :-)