Be gentle :3
– –
[ A puzzle that was falling on the ground, and ]
[ A sun that even now seems about to disappear, and ]
[ A sketchbook filled with the color blue ]
[ A rusty swingset in the park on the way home ]
[ A shadow stretches out chasing me wherever I go ]
[ Unable to catch up, it laughs ]
[ A white hand comes out and swipes ]
[ Ripping apart my ashen scarf ]
[ It’s coming any second now. At this rate — ]
[ I wonder, won’t you take me away? ]
[ On a night with no end in sight, ]
(bokutachi wa kudaranai chiisana uso ni odorasareterunda)
[ We dance like puppets to petty lies ]
[ Belieiving in wherever you choose to go in the night ]
[ Riding in a foam-colored car — praying to a whale that swam in the sky ]
[ Highway 24, Footbridge ]
[ A 100-yen coffee and ]
[ Your profile as you wait for the light of day, and ]
[ moonlight shining down on me as I wait for words ]
[ It’s coming any second now. I want to be connected, yet — ]
[ I suppose this is by design ]
[ On a night with no end in sight, ]
[ We dance like puppets to petty lies ]
どこでも行けると信じた夜に
[ Believing in wherever you choose to go in the night ]
[ Riding in a foam-colored car — praying to a whale that swam in the sky ]
[ Until this dream ends surely — I pray for an undending night ]
– –
サーカス (saakasu lit. “circus”) is a song by rising indie three-piece Hump Back. It was featured in their second limited release single 帰り道 (kaerimichi lit. “way home”) back in 2015, and will (at the time that I’m writing this) be coming back as the third track in their second mini-album ｈａｎａｍｕｋｅ.
If there’s one thing that you can call a recurring theme in Hump Back’s songs, it’s dreams. One might say it’s not all that uncommon to sing about dreams and dreaming, but as you might be able to infer from ぎんのうた (gin no uta) for example, “meeting in dreams” is somewhat of a mainstay for Hump Back as far as lyrics are concerned.
For “Circus” in particular, it paints a fantastical adventure through an otherworldly unending night with someone as they try to get away from an endlessly stretching shadow that is trying to grab a hold of them; being made to dance like puppets to its petty lies. So they drive away in a foam-colored car, saying their prayers to a whale swimming in the sky. … I know, weird. But we see that the two make a stop for coffee at a footbridge near Highway 24. The person driving the persona to which the song belongs to is awaiting dawn, whilst “she” awaits something else in obvious disconnect. She wants to be connected this “someone”, so they drive away into the night furthermore — so long as the night never ends, their escape can last forever. So she prays for an unending night together in dreamscape.
Now, I don’t exactly know what “Circus” has to do with the song (lol), but I take as it being just simply a wild and crazy night akin to a circus. Lest there’s a “Night Circus” reference I’m missing here xD
Unlike my previous song translations, I couldn’t for the life of me find the official kanji lyrics for this, so I tried picking the lines up by ear myself (which I’ll probably never do again any time soon because lol that was really hard). So these might not entirely be 100% accurate (I mean, when are they really), but hey, if you’re a Hump Back fan, then it’s something at least 😀 Or, if I’ve made you a fan through this TL, then I’ve done my job, as part of why I do these (other than practicing my JP) is to spread some hype for these vastly underheard bands/artists.
Nice translation!
I have a few comments if you don’t mind to help revise things.
My translations are not intended to be perfect, just to steer you in the right direction.
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グラウンドに落ちていたパズルと
A puzzle that had fallen on the ground
伸びる影追いかけてどこまで
Chasing shadows wherever we go
(Not too sure about this one, but the speaker chasing shadows seems more logical than shadows chasing something else)
追いつけやしないよと笑って
‘You’ll never catch me’, it laughs
(Not sure about the ‘it’ part here, could be ‘he’ or ‘she’ depending on your interpretation)
もうすぐつくからこのままいっそ
We’ll be there soon so just hold out…
(Not too sure about this one, especially the second part)
連れ去ってくれないか
Will you take me away?
どこでも行けると信じた夜に
On the night where we believed we could go anywhere
わざとだったかもな
Maybe it wasn’t intentional…
(‘by’ design’ is a bit too stiff…)
僕たちは泡色の車に乗って空を泳ぐクジラに願うんだ
We ride in a foam-colored car and pray to a whale swimming in the sky
(you had the basic meanings right, but I tried to clean up the grammar and tenses)
夢が冷めるまではきっと 終わらない夜を願うんだ
Until the dream ends, I pray for the night to never end
(the word order of ‘surely’ is a bit akward in your version. I think you can just leave that word out)
Thanks!
And yes, please, I’ll always welcome comments from those more learned in the language (and as always, thank you so much for taking the time to go through these whever you do 🙂 )
~ past progressives, right, still tricky
~ about “the shadow”, that much is true, yes. logicaly speaking, shadows don’t go around chasing people xD
~ 連れ去ってくれないか
Will you take me away?
どこでも行けると信じた夜に
On the night where we believed we could go anywhere
^ will note these
~ I have a bad tendency to cop out with dashes with compounding sentences, mostly because I lose confidence in maintaining the independent clauses when they get too long
~ no way to add きっと in there without making it sound off I guess
One thing I missed:
>もうすぐつくから繋いでたいの
There is a chance this is alluding to “手をつなぐ” (hold hands) but I am not sure…Or maybe it just means “I want to stay with you…”
I initially had it as “I want to be tethered” … which doesn’t make sense at all, so I went with “connected”. Though I guess yeah, when you think of つなぐ more often than not it’s holding hands.
I listed to the video and your lyrics seem pretty accurate. The only part I can’t seem to hear is the くだらない part. It sounds like a different word, but hard to hear.
Also, after some consideration I think your “by design” translation might actually be nice, depending on your interpretation…
I hear the く only half the time to be honest, just went with it in the end, haha!
You think so? I was playing with “I suppose it was on purpose” or something along those lines, but without a persona to attach it to I hesitated