Mukai Shutoku Acoustic & Electric - Omoide In My Head / 自問自答 April 22nd, 2021

Live at Tokyo Shibuya TSUTAYA O-EAST April 22nd, 2021

All songs and lyrics by Mukai Shutoku
Movie director: Okubo Yoshiyuki
Live sound engineer: Itoga Takashi
Audio mixed by Mukai Shutoku
Lyrics translation: Leo Imai





OMOIDE IN MY HEAD

Morning comes without sleep
Stumbling back home
The early sun colours the empty train car
A white-light-dream



Aah Girl in school uniform
You glare in the morning light and crazing blue sky
I faintly open my eyes
Then close Then open them again!!

Reality and afterimages keep on circling
And I’m there before I know it



With my hands shoved into my pockets
Parading down Sentimental Street
There I am at 17
in my head
OMOIDE in my head



The morning light still white and dazzling
To get myself back, I’m still and waiting
It’s all getting clearer
As the memories in my head drift away



Come on, open I open my eyes now
I’m sinking in a sentimental swirl
Take me
Possessed by these phantoms
Knock me down
And just throw me away
in my head
OMOIDE in my head




JIMON-JITO (Self-Questioning)



A Shinjuku rambling-ballad
I died, slept, and awoke to a morning-glow Red Fuji
Escaped a nightmare play Before I knew it, on a meat-mattress I lay This pressure I’m feeling
I’ve been resigned to a life of permissive degradation Feeling the limitations of bipedal walking
So I get on all fours Wild-animal style
KAZEKIRI KABUKIMACHI (Kabukicho that cuts like a sword)
Men ready to kill at the flick of a switch Anyone, anywhere
And me, moving forward with a dull and weary head
The swarm of people rushing into my vision
The anger that my eyeballs see
But my eyeballs pretend not to see a thing
Rows of buildings In all that order he goes into hiding And all of a sudden he’s missing



Frozen City ruckus Parasites causing trouble and fuss
The gleaming gun-grey tip of a barrel blows a hole in the back of the head
A picture of misery Misshapen beyond recognition
Idle bystanders flock to stare, cold and expressionless
At a loss, I quickly leave the scene Back to the beginning Over and over again
Urges return, that carnal feeling Life repeating, all things are fleeting
Goddamn Flashback phenomenon
A vague and blurry video reflection
The blackest black at 5:30AM A sense that something’s wrong all over my brain



A thick student’s notebook seeped in lead-etchings
An illusion that my spirit’s been cleansed
My innards doing flips and spinners A total mess
A shade of clean concrete sheath my mind’s colour-sense
Glorified memories of that jet black hair Do you really want to see this moratorium vision of hell?
Flaunting what’s juvenile Nothing clever or cute about the ramblings of this man-child
In a gathering of creeps A graveyard of pallid, bluish, emotionless faces
The howls of restless ghosts now but a whimper I’m so tired of my own nonsensical chatter
Roaming around a lonely abyss Feeling like I’ve seen DONZOKO (rock bottom)



But still I keep on, out of spite if nothing else
And still, and still, and still, and still I keep on looking
Keep on looking, keep on looking
Looking for that feeling like my brain’s been shaken, like white-noise in my head
Where can I find it? Where the hell do I find it all?
I’ll rip my heart out of my body and record its beating with a microphone or something
I’ll practice with the band while playing to the sound of its rhythm
I’ll record the images in my head onto a Blu-ray Disc and watch it back in the middle of night with some red wine
That’s my self-liberation coated thick and hard with lies
I’ll question if I am who I really think I am



I know, I know, I know
It’s like JIMON-JITO



Sunday noon I slipped into a crowd
The glaring sunshine mixing with the whitest white inside a diner
A young father and a little girl were biting into something that looked good
She was laughing The kid was laughing
Oblivious to everything in this world
The kid was just laughing


The peacekeeping arms in Shinjuku 3rd District
The odour from a one-eyed street cat
Abortions
30min mistakes at 25000yen a pop
Backbiting drunks getting their fix
Factions secure in their cliques
Casual URAGIRI (betrayals)
The stupidity of isolationists like me
The inflated self-consciousness and self-regard
The empty consolatory words
The shame we carry a lifetime
The promises abandoned
The nothingness



Life repeating, all things are fleeting



The kids just laugh The kids just laugh Oblivious to everything in this world
The kids just laugh The kids just laugh
Missing Missing Missing
Missing All of a sudden he’s gone into hiding



Life in the Frozen City He’s gone into hiding…
Hiding…



Life repeating, all things are fleeting… Urges return, that carnal feeling…