Bump of Chicken Interview Translations

Fujiwara and Masukawa’s “Mornings on Tour”

How has the band been getting along recently?

Fuji: Thinking about it, I guess our bonds are growing stronger. Some things automatically strengthen, and others automatically weaken. No matter how close we are, no matter how much we understand each other, we have separate minds and separate ways of thinking. We bring them together to face things as one. There are a lot of ways to feel things, to think things! That's alright. But for us, since we're a band, in a way we're closer than friends, closer than family.

I can often understand what one of them is thinking without them having to put it in words. They can do the same to me. Part of me feels like I shouldn't rely on that, so sometimes, even though it's annoying, I'll put what I'm thinking into words.

This is only what’s on the commercial and isn’t the whole song.

New World

When I met you

I knew the reason for my life until now

I'm not smart but I might be a genius

I get why the world is so beautiful

For example

If I turned a street corner and you were there

Just the thought makes me feel like I'm about to open a present

Crying or angry, I want to be closest to you

That little smudge of dirt? I'll embrace it wholly

Baby I love you, baby I love you

I woke up this morning just to laugh with you

If I go to sleep I might not wake up

That's why the present is so bright

If I wake up, you might not be there

Let me hear your voice

Baby I love you

The goal of a fight is to make up

Let's approach it like a three-legged race

If one of us loses the will to go on

We'll wait for each other

Baby I love you, baby I love you

I remember yesterday sweetly because you were there

Crying or angry, I want to be closest to you

No matter how far apart we are, I'll embrace you across the universe

Baby I love you, baby I love you

Tomorrow will come so that I can be alive with you

11/19 My house

It's morning. Actually it's past noon. I woke up three minutes ago. It's pretty cold, and I feel cold easily, so I put on a bunch of clothes to get through it. I'm really sleepy. It feels like winter is here.

Q1. Do you like winter?

A1. I like winter. More than winter I think I like the end-of-year feeling. About halfway through November (right about now, while I write this), the air outside starts smelling like winter. I wonder what it is that causes it to smell like winter, or smell like summer. Christmas decorations are being put up here and there, the trees are wrapped in LEDs, and people are slowly beginning to bundle themselves up in fluffy clothes. I start to get excited, and feel a little rushed. Everyone seems so busy. With work, maybe, or some kind of event.

The closer Christmas draws, the more glittery the streets get, and the more glittery they get, the more excited and lonely and warm and sad I get. It sounds girly when I put into words like this, but I think there are people who feel the same way. The closer we get to New Year's, I get increasingly attacked by a feeling of things coming to a close, and the sadness grows bigger, and I break into a million little pieces. Then I greet the new year with the face of a haniwa*.

I like New Year's for about three days. Three days, and then after that it feels like a long version of the feeling you get on Sunday nights knowing you have to work the next day. I don't like it too much. I like the feeling of the year ending more than I like winter.

Fuji

*

[They’re impersonating effeminate gay men with their tone of voice]

90:00

Fuji:There's something stuck to my mic stand. A pretty, shiny… Wasit you? With just this one…

Chama:It's wonderful.

Fuji:It's just lovely.

Chama:Masukawa-san, won't you put one up too?

Hiro:I forgot.

Fuji:Try putting one up,one of these gorgeous things.

Hiro:Really?

Chama:Masukawa-san, won't you put one in your house? Here, it makes it looklike there were only blue ones.

Fuji:It does.

Hiro:But isn't it nice?

Fuji:Isn't it nice? I feel lighter.

Thanks! They have us believe they’re close. And I mean they are close. But some of that is absolutely cultivated image because that’s kind of their ‘thing,’ to be a band of best friends. Rather than exaggerating their closeness I think they downplay the times they aren’t - the disagreements and the periods where they might not see a lot of each other. So it’s not a lie, exactly, it’s just one side of the story.What I’m trying to say is that it’s not a fairytail friendship like I see some new fans on Twitter believing, but it is about as close of a friendship you can have while still being grounded in reality. Hiro said they’re closer than brothers but less than lovers.

Chama: Today’s weather across the Tokyo region is cloudy with a chance of sun.  The theme this Friday morning is stories of waking up early, or sleeping in.

Fuji: Ah, interesting.

Chama: Do you have any?

Fuji: Yeah, back in our teens, probably when we were in high school - that’s around the age when we started wanting to stay out all night. And we had a lot of friends who did that all the time. Hiro and I. But staying up all night is extremely unhealthy.

Chama: Of course.

Fuji: The next day you’re really tired, and your parents worry about you.

Chama: It’s not good.

Fuji: So we thought, what if we woke up early.

Chama: Because if you woke up early your parents won’t get mad at you.

Fuji: We said we’d get up early and hang out.

Masu: They might even recommend it.

Fuji: So we decided to wake up early and meet.

Chama: Like 6 am?

Fuji/Hiro: 3 am.

Chama: (laughs) That’s still nighttime.

Hiro: It was pitch-black.

Chama: What would you do?

Fuji/Hiro: ... Talk (laugh).

Chama: You're kidding (laughs).

Masu: Weren’t you tired the next day?

Fuji: Yeah.

Chama: But you guys are amazing. Now they’re calling that morning activity, like workers will get up early and go running or study.

Hiro: It was kind of like that.

Fuji: We might have been ahead of the craze.

Chama: Pioneers. But 3 am is really early.

Fuji: We called them ‘morning meetings.’ Because we meet in the mornings. Let’s have a morning meeting tomorrow, or let’s have a morning meeting tonight...

Masu: Tonight (laughs).

Fuji: Not tonight, tomorrow (laughs). Just to understand it was tonight (laughs).

Hiro: Cause we went to sleep before meeting.

Masu: Going to sleep made it seem like the night was pretty much over when you got up.

Fuji: Back then, though, we only had pagers, so if you overslept or didn’t wake up at all then you were out.

Chama: This is a story about waking up early and sleeping in!

Hiro: It’s a fine line.

Masu: I bet there were days when that happened.

Fuji: One of us woke up and the other didn’t, yeah. The one who woke up just had to give up and go home. After waiting at the meeting place they had to go home.

Chama: Did that happen?

Hiro: It did.

Fuji: All the time.

Hiro: I’d wake up in a panic, and in front of my door - my room was on the first floor - there’d be a cold canned coffee.

Chama: It was Fujiwara’s?

Hiro: And underneath it there’d be a paper that said something like ‘good morning.’

Fuji: Or, ‘maybe next time.’ (laughs)

Chama: What a good guy.

Fuji: The coffee was hot when I bought it.

Chama: You weren’t mad at him?

Fuji: No not at all, these things happen (laughs).

Masu: It went both ways.

Chama: Not even annoyed?

Fuji: No, no, it’s only a different kind of memory he’d given me.

Hiro: I’d apologize at school (laughs).

Fuji: I didn’t mind.

We made a promise

Somewhere, sometime, far away

Even if I forget your name

It's an ever-shining light

Easy as breathing

Grab onto the spinning stars

It's all I can do to keep control of this body

At the furthest ends of despair

At the bottom of hope

A sword and shield made of transparent thoughts

Whose story is this? How did this world begin?

Answer with the life that has survived this far

Choose with that heart

Shout with that voice

Don't let your hands go

Of your favorite thing

Finally

Finally

I found it

Clearly

Clearly

I heard it

The freedom I received snatched away my way home

I waited for a while

For the greeting that wouldn't come

At your fingertips

Faintly but surely

The dazzling warmth will show the way

Losing reason, meaning, worth

What are you looking for in front of the mirror?

Come here, break the distance

No matter how cowardly, we're creatures of greed

Choose with that heart

Shout with that voice

Even if you stumble

Shine light on that sign

Memory fades behind us

Things we gather turn to sand and fall

Underneath my fingertips

And ever-shining light

We made a promise

Somewhere, sometime, far away

At the furthest ends of despair

At the bottom of hope

In front of the mirror

Sword and shield

They bring you courage

Whose story is this? How did this world begin?

Answer with the life that has survived this far

Choose with that heart

Shout with that voice

Even if you forget my name

Call me as much as you need

Come here, break the distance

The gaze of Sirius

Creatures of greed

Whose story is this? How did this world begin?

Don't let your hands go

Of your favorite thing

Finally

Finally

I found it

Clearly

Clearly

I heard it

From somewhere

From some time

I'm home

I didn't know what to do with my hands

So I put them in my pockets

The time before the bus comes is like a bonus

The sounds of daily life around me are isolating

I'll make my gum my partner

It's the flavor you didn't like

Don't

It's ok

The traffic light goes around in circles

Stopping

Going

Even if we do the same we're still strangers to each other

I wonder how you're doing

What kind of face are you making right now?

What kind of words, how many have you found?

If you were here

If you were here

I want to talk

Voyager has flown beyond the solar system

How many kilometers per second was it again?

It's still going, even now

I don't know why I should care about it anyway

But suddenly

I listened closely to make sure I was breathing

Was it my body or my mind that brought me here?

Both of them are worn out

It's fine

I was given medicine

I won't take it

It's not like wither of us can go back

So I hope we're both thinking of the same thing

The wind that brushes my skin

The bottomless sky

Are similar to that day

Living is forgetting, no point in fighting it

Hey, what words were our meeting?

Forced smiles

Lip service

The smell of an ending summer

I still remember it all

I want to talk

What's happened until now

What'll happen from now on

I truly don't care

But

Maybe I've said that too much

I've really said it too much

But it's what I wanted to say

It's ok

I understand

I spit my gum in a scrap of paper

The bus stops