Скачать или смотреть BUCK-TICK - Cyborg Dolly: Soramimi: PHANTOM (ONE LIFE, ONE DEATH CUT UP, 2000)

Album: One Life, One Death
2000.09.20 BMG Funhouse/RCA Ariola

Cyborg Dolly: Mishearing: Phantom
Lyrics: Imai Hisashi
Music: Imai Hisashi
Lyrics translation (C) This is NOT Greatest Site, Cayce.

I don’t think, “I want salvation,”
I don’t think “I want payback”
I am a symbol of being itself—
That’s right, mostly, I’m original
There are beginnings, there are endings,
We live on the straight line
We’re born once, we die once,
Life is short, so fall in love1

Can't sleep tonight, the dollies are multiplying (2)
Look behind you, it’s the same face
Does a cyborg dream a dream of Dolly? (3)
Jump the fence, loop the sheep

I don’t think, “I want salvation,”
I don’t think “I want payback”
You are a sample of being itself—
That’s right, mostly, you’re a pioneer
There are beginnings, there are endings,
Naturally, you live on the straight line
We’re born once, we die once,
We die once, only once

One dolly, two dollies—is this body the real thing? (4)
Three dollies, four dollies—count them, I'm a cyborg (3)

I think I misheard (5)
A bossa nova is starting

I don’t think, “I want salvation,”
I don’t think “I want payback”
You are a sample of being itself—
That’s right, mostly, you’re a pioneer
There are beginnings, there are endings,
Naturally, you live on the straight line
Jump the fence, Loop the Sheep,
Howl PHANTOM, Loop the Sheep

Can't sleep tonight, the dollies are multiplying
Look behind you, it’s the same face
Does a cyborg dream a dream of Dolly?
Jump the fence, loop the sheep

One dolly, two dollies—is this body the real thing?
Three dollies, four dollies—
Individuality inflation, shoot me in the head (6)

I think I misheard
A bossa nova is starting
I think I misheard
I hear a voice crying

Note: This song was almost certainly written in reference to the cloning of Dolly the Sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult somatic cell. Dolly was born in 1997, shortly before this album was released, so the timeline fits. Considering Imai's longstanding interest in cyberpunk fiction, I think it's likely this song is also making reference to Philip K. Dick's famous novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was subsequently made into the film Blade Runner (and we all know Imai is familiar with that film, considering he wrote a song about it.) In any case, the first part of the plot of the novel deals with a real live pet sheep and its android replacement. The novel also includes a character named Buster. Coincidence? I wonder. Anyway, if you haven't read this book, read it, it's a classic.

1) "Inochi mijikashi koi se yo otome" ("Life is short, so love, maiden") is a Japanese proverb about taking advantage of life's pleasure's while they last. The subtle connotation is "life is short, so why die a maiden?" (For those of you who don't know, the original meaning of "maiden" is "virgin.") This proverb contains similar ideas to the memento mori concept. Here, I translated it as "life is short, so fall in love," because this is how the same proverb appears in English in the lyrics to the Lucy song "9Days Wonder" (off the album Rockarollica II) to which Imai also wrote the lyrics.

2) This line is probably referring to Dolly the Sheep.

3) Along with another Dolly reference, these lines contain an untranslatable pun. The word “cyborg,” which would normally be spelled in katakana, is here spelled in kanji, meaning something like "cell construct." Also, for the record, a cyborg isn't a clone, it's an organic being integrated with a machine system. By some definitions, people with insulin pumps, cochlear implants, etc. could be considered cyborgs because they rely on machine systems either to keep them alive or to endow them with a sense they would not otherwise have.

4) Here Imai wrote "nikutai" ("body") in the lyrics but sings "iremono" ("container.")

5) The word "soramimi" ("mishearing") can refer to the phenomenon of mishearing foreign-language phrases as nonsense phrases in your own language, but in this context, I think Imai is referring to mishearing "saibougu" ("cell construct") as "cyborg."

6) Inflation, as in economic inflation. Imai is saying that if you're just one of a group of clones, your individual worth gets devalued.