No, not that Miku song. But a Miku song nonetheless. Maybe this post is too inappropriate even for Baden Baden Lily.
I was walking home from school today, listening to music as I always do, when Ura-omote Lovers pops in. That’s when the thought crossed my mind: this song is life.
Why are we here? To leave this behind when we’re all gone?
Now, I would be lying if I said this was my first time listening to the song, or that this was the first time I thought it represented life. But it wasn’t until now that the tiny Ningyo mental circuits connected and I decided that it was post-worthy. We needed a filler post anywaysThis song is wonderful. Slick, dark, disenchanting. Miku (barely audibly) sings about fake love, sex, pregnancy, and… Well, what do you think ‘sayonara baby’ really means? Our cute Hatsune Miku, singing about it as gritty as it gets. Take especial notice to the imagery in the PV. Down to the ‘ima sugu achira he tobikonde ike’ – try to catch it – there’s enough imagery to drown in.
Yes, to me, this song very well represents life. Brief, pleasurable, regrettable, infinitesimal. Everything, from the cynical lyrics and imagery to the very pace of the song, rings true to this. It’s where we high school students stand – a maelstrom of popularity, love, sex, regrets. The spoiled middle class children today create their own cage of nonsensical problems to suffocate themselves with. This is what our culture’s life is like.
The song represents me, the naïve adolescent disillusioned about life, but disillusioned about being disillusioned about life and able to look more jovially at it. Where jovially occasionally means cynically.
But I’m not here to spoil your day by imparting doom and gloom. My question is, not ‘what is your take on life’, because that would take a book to answer, but what song do you think best represents your take on life? Perhaps of our culture? Or of life in general, that’s alright too. It doesn’t have to be ultimate; just your views on it now at this current moment is fine. Posting links is good. You could try embedding it, but I don’t think that works. If I see an embedded video not working I’ll fix it.
Edit: You know what, I’ll just embed every link I see.
Anyways, there’s no need to be worried. I’m a healthy youth; I don’t partake in anomie. Society will crumble before Ningyo does, and then this basement shall become a bomb shelter of sorts. At least until the orange juice runs out.
Ningyo
Related posts:
February 24th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Interesting filler post haha. Never heard of this one by Miku…strange song but very apt for your post.
I will say this song represents my simple outlook on life ^^
Simple minded and taking things easy ^^ Thats me haha.
February 24th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Opps forgot to attached the url
Cheers :D
February 24th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
@_@ strange but not strange enough for me tho since I tried vocaloid software before X_X
February 25th, 2010 at 5:33 am
Funny, I just found that particular Miku song in the Weekly Vocaloid Countdown and a lot of other Vocaloid versions, but I didn’t really like it at first. Now it’s something I’ve listened to at least 10 times. Of course it wasn’t until I read your post that I know what it’s about ^^;
I actually researched a little bit of my favourite songs and see if it matches my outlook on life, but to no avail. A lot of my favourite songs seems to be songs about love and that’s something that doesn’t match my life at the moment. The ones that are from my favourite song list that were closest to how I felt were Bouken Desho Desho from Haruhi and My Pace Daioh from Genshiken, but still doesn’t describe how I felt.
The song below was the first thing I thought of, but I thought it might be too sad. Yet after looking through other songs, nothing else seems to match how I feel about life than this song.
February 25th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Feel free to embed this url below my comment since it didn’t work in my initial comment:
February 25th, 2010 at 6:49 am
Never heard this Vocaloid song but i rarely listen to jpop anyway.
Still i do listen a lot of music, well almost anytime i have the opportunity. I may cry or sing loudly on particular tracks ha ha
I have to look stupid very often while walking outside or in my car :D
About a music …. mmm very difficult to find a music that fit my take on life.
After a while i thought about it, i found this one :
February 25th, 2010 at 8:32 am
OMG, Lightningsabre’s Kom Susser Tod struck me so hard. I never would have thought of it but it is just perfect!
Mine? Try this one and be surprised!
February 25th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
wow, there’s alot of songs that represent my life, typically it’s hard to choose maybe due to such loads of emotions, but i guess i can narrow to these few :D
February 26th, 2010 at 6:22 am
Such eclectic tastes your readers have. It’s great to know that anime fans can be this varied with their music.
As for me…
It’s this. Always. ;)
February 26th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
@chubbybots
Inspiring. I had a feeling yours would be something so pleasant, chubbs :)
Simplification really is the way to go – there’d be so much less for one to be worried about. Still, it just seems to be something I can’t do. I recognize the complexity of some things and just can’t convince myself to look at it another way.
@moemoekyun
I do assume it’s very difficult to use…
No song that represents life comes to mind?
@rob
That many times, and it never grew on you? I’m starting to feel off the track for liking it. Not that I mind feeling off the track.
Right, it’s pretty hard ever singling out one song for anything – works like characters, I suppose. Still, the one you chose is an excellent pick. Now it’s going to loop in my head for a while.
Doom and gloom is alright once in a while. We need a standard to appreciate the good.
@Katsura-chan
I was almost certain that song’d be French… Though I’ve completely forgotten what Depeche means now. I do love singing my favorite songs, but I haven’t the gall to do it in public >.< I don’t imagine it being easy just conjuring up a song to represent life, but everyone seemed to manage in the end. I wouldn’t be able to; I wouldn’t have ever made such a connection if this song didn’t just happen to play at the right time.
I like it, but it’s certainly dark. I’m not one to say though, when my choice is that song up there…
@Canne
Indeed. It struck a chord in me as well.
That is… well, I can’t say I’m too surprised, for we’ve all our very varied cups of tea in this matter. It is a very soothing song though, but I can’t quite hear the lyrics. Would you forgive me if I called it ‘psychedelic’?
@mat
The truth of existence, kinship and… I don’t catch Putonghua, but I assume something significant as well ^^; You’ve summarized it well, life. I still can’t say there’s a definite representation of something so complex, but if you were to combine everybody’s songs, there’d be some heavy meaning there. Also, I recall Arigatou being really popular with my friends back in HK, Pinoy and Chinese.
@2DT
Exactly! Musical expressions that contribute to an ultimate definition of life… It’s so diverse, too, I was expecting a lot more Japanese, to tell you the truth ^^; Which you’ve appropriately provided me. It leads me to think you value joviality. I’m thinking maybe too hard about the life implications here. Maybe I’ll just settle for ‘love’.
February 26th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Late to the party… :(
First of all, this was a very good post!
I thought for a bit about what “my song” would be and I really can’t pinpoint one.
I suppose it could be
Though it may be very well just something I enjoy.
February 27th, 2010 at 12:08 am
@Ningyo – psychedelic, that sounds right to me and honestly, I can’t clearly hear the lyrics either…but that’s life, isn’t it? ^^
February 27th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
@Yi
Not at all. The Ningyo party is all day, seven days a week.
Thanks, I was looking for somebody to take notice of the significance of the doom and gloom ;v;
Most of us can’t pinpoint one, just like with favorite characters. But thank you for the Miku. Of course, there are infinite parallels one can draw when comparing anything to life, and though this one can be seen as remarkably bleak… Well, it’s still one of the most amazing Miku songs today.
@Canne
Indeed! So there was latent meaning behind the lack of clarity as well. Impressive ;)
February 28th, 2010 at 11:50 am
@Ningyo
I don’t listen to French music in general, well of course there is in my playlist but they are in very low numbers.
There are very few song that made me shiver and almost cry and the one i choose here is one of those.
I wanted to express my loneliness here because it’s a major component that dictated my whole life.
Oh and i’m afraid to sing in public too but sometimes i forgot where am i and start to sing, not to loudly but i sing … the power of music i guess. :)
February 28th, 2010 at 11:52 am
I read your post the first day but i couldn’t find a song that illustrate my take on life.
And a morning on the road for work…. revelation! It was a song from Moby and Mylène Farmer (half English and half French)
February 28th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Link :
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:33 am
@Katsura-chan
Ah, you’ve just reminded me of the greatest instrumental song! Gentle Jena, from Planetarium. Give it a Youtube, it never fails to make me recall the VN and get me all teary-eyed. It’s definitely on a different page than Ura-omote Lovers, but it’s just as, if not more significant, a solemn tune about suffering, loss, and better times to come.
It seems sometimes one’s primary language isn’t the one that fills the playlists… I listen entirely to Jpop.
Y’know what, I’ll just post it here. It’s too good not to.
@Lyli
Ah, you read it that long ago?
Yeah, I don’t think it’d be easy to single out such a song that ‘encompasses life’ for anybody. I pretty much got Ura-omote lovers the same way you did; chance revelation.
As a result I’m missing half the lyrics of your song, but I must say, there’s some strong imagery there.
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
@Ningyo
Very rare to me to answer a third time to a post but i have to :)
Indeed it’s a very beautiful instrumental song, you know the sound of several classical instruments can make me cry very easily and a Piano particularly.
I can cry without a word or anything just by myself and a piano.
So it’s not a surprise this one created a few tears on my eyes.
@Lylibellule
This a very beautiful song as i love both of the involved artists even if i know Moby a lot more.
Anyway after listening to it i believe you’re stronger than me in your way of taking on life.
March 3rd, 2010 at 3:13 am
I was listening to “my song” again… and I remembered this post. I went back to re-read some of the lyrics and I kind of realized it really does somewhat fit pretty well.
Just thought I’d mention again that this was really a very good post. Made me think quite a bit. ^ ^
Anyway, it’s a lot of fun to check out other people’s.
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:38 pm
@Katsura-chan
It’s great, mm? I implore everyone to read Planetarian. I can honestly say so far it has not ever been topped in emotional value and sheer perfect execution for me. So beautiful, so perfect. Gentle Jena always gets me. The penultimate instrumental for the penultimate game, in my humblest of opinions.
@Yi
Indeed, and it’s unsurprising that a song with such a title would spur up a lot of real-life analogies.
Aw shucks, thanks. That’s what I’m here for, giving people things to mull over a little, yep.
It is; as I’d said, someone’s answer to this post tells a lot about that person, their mood, their personality, taste in music, and most importantly, their general outlook of the world.
March 10th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
Unfortunately, I can’t pinpoint a song that represents life (off the top of my head). But I can tell you that after all these years after high school, these thoughts and questions still persist. Some of the simpler ones, you find your answer to, while others, you’ll just never get the answers to, even having experienced those things that you’ve previously questioned. You’ll come to realizations, but then, more questions. Much more complex ones sometimes too.
Does this mean we learned nothing? Possibly. Does this mean our life is pointless? Possibly. But then you can do what you do, and just enjoy it for what it’s worth, which is pretty good in my opinion. I’d say that if you’ve got the time and resources to blog, you’ve got it pretty good already, so I tend not to fight it.
March 11th, 2010 at 1:54 am
@radiant
Actually, what’s surprising is that in the end you were the only one who wasn’t able to pick out a song… I’d have thought only a select few would be able to say that song was able to encompass life for them.
“We have not succeeded in answering all our problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.”
Despite me saying all that, this one’s still my favorite quote of all time. Looking back, what I said here was a bit of an objective outlook on the grit of our teenage lives; I don’t particularly connect perfectly with this view. I do have it very good; having only instant noodle foods is one thing, but otherwise I’m the happiest guy ever to live underground.
I don’t partake in anomie, and being jovial means I’m really smiling at it all.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:36 am
It seems then that we’re on the same page in terms of what we learn in life. Your quote is pretty much what I feel. Then perhaps I have found my song after all. :)