No Umbrella
傘がない

Inoue Yōsui released "Kasa ga nai" in 1972, a year before releasing the album that would go on to be the first LP to sell a million copies in Japan. With his bluesy folk sound and unique lyrics, he has become an iconic figure in Japanese music, and if I accomplish anything with this translation I hope to turn all the more English-speaking ears his way, and toward Japanese music in general. I heard this song thanks to a terrific Japanese 60's-70's culture class where we got to puzzle over its meaning and try to express opinions on sociopolitical progress and irony in a language that made us envious of the literary skills of eight-year-olds.

While the majority of the lyrics express the singer's desperate need for the object of his affections, the title and meat of the song rests in the opening verses, where problems on a societal and national level are brilliantly contrasted with the singer's personal concerns. Yeah, people are dying and the country seems to be going to hell, but it's raining and damn it all, I don't have an umbrella.

Being written in the early 70's, it is not hard to relate to the despondent, suicidal young people of the song - it should call to mind the baby boomers, who made their own small headlines with high suicide rates in the States around the same time. The Japanese postwar era shared several similarities with that of the United States, largely in part to the universal link of music, with artists like Inoue playing the roles of Bob Dylan and the Beatles (and likely being influenced by both). And the sentiment expressed in this song is much like that felt by many Americans in the aftermath of Vietnam -- disillusionment and loss. After all the cultural change, what good was done? How do I reconcile my passion, anger, and strong sense of purpose with a dead-end job and an unchanged outlook? This is what's happening in Kasa ga nai - the singer echoes the voices of the thousands who see the problem but no solutions. And as such, under the grim downpour, they shake their heads, defeated, asking "And what am I supposed to do? I have my own problem..."

Like all great songs, Kasa ga nai is just as relevant now as it was when it was written. I might even compare it to a more cynical version of John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" - of course we see the world is screwed up, and of course we're the ones who have to fix it now... but what are we supposed to do? But of course, not having an umbrella being the real problem is as silly as it sounds. We can't turn away from the problems of the world, even as the rain pierces, chilling and relentless, into our hearts...

For readers of Japanese, two good analyses of this song are available here and here, the former detailing the song's context and the baby boomer connection, and the latter detailing the song meanings and hinting at the Beatles connection.

The Language

For reference, the original lyrics, a literal translation, and my English version are available at the bottom of the page.

Translating this song was not terribly difficult, as far as translating Japanese lyrics goes. Of course, with all foreign languages (and especially Japanese), there is the possibility that I've missed some subtle reference or structure that would be clear to a native speaker - in this case, the article I linked above points out the song's structure as parallel to the structural development of traditional Japanese theatre. I'm pretty sure that one wasn't going to occur to me had I only read it over once more.

A principal challenge was not making 傘がない kasa ga nai sound ridiculous, given that it does mean "I don't have an umbrella" - it's pretty hard to work that into a lyric with a straight face, and then once you do people think you're covering Rihanna and you have to throw it all out and start over. My solution, aside from making the language more colloquial, was to shift the actual umbrella line back in the sentence. While it's a shame not to have the title line as the end-of-verse "punchline" like in the original, I think it sits alright where it wound up. And that's always a part of translating Japanese - since the language has a rather different sentence structure (that many lyricists throw out the window anyway), you're going to have to either get clever with your wording or accept that information will be presented in a different order. This may be the most significant way my version differs from the original - Inoue gets right to the suicide, elegantly narrowing to the personal problem. I didn't manage that, but at least my verse openings are still pretty parallel.

The order issue also affected the "I've gotta go" verses, which come out in one piece in the original, rather than the odd pause before the things I gotta' do in mine. Other than that though, the meaning came across pretty easily, and I think "I've gotta go" does a good job of translating the shortened 行かなくちゃ ikanakucha (as opposed to the complete mouthful 行かなければならない ikanakereba naranai - asking how to say "I have to" and getting back an often double-digit pile of syllables is just one of the many fun first steps in learning Japanese!).

Finally, of course, there is the matter of the untranslated verses. I did run through a few drafts of those verses, but none of them satisfied me. Instead, I rather like the idea of keeping the song's Japaneseness apparent, adding to the contrast of those sections and giving unfamiliar people a taste of the language (even if it's the funny taste of my gaijin accent). There are a couple aspects of the original verses that I just couldn't translate elegantly. One is terrific word 沁みる shimiru. You know when you have a cut on your hand and you handle lemons, and you can feel the juice get to your cut, seep in, and sting like nails on a chalkboard? That's shimiru. To soak in, to penetrate, to sting, to pierce... all of those verbs that we have words for but we don't have a word for. And since the Japanese have probably heard the word enough times not to be suddenly taken by hearing it in all its goodness, I can try to do just that to listeners by simply not translating it.

The other issue with those verses is the final line それはいいことだろう sore wa ii koto darō. "That's a good thing, right?" is not an inaccurate translation, but it doesn't capture the same feel. It would have been very hard to find an English lyric that pauses on the right places - a short いい to doubtfully ask "...good?...", and the way the sentence almost ends in いいことだ "That's a good thing." before turning to the unsure だろう. In part, these verses just present old information already expressed in the song, but in part, this is also the crux. My total consumption by my need of you, in spite of the world's problems, in spite of the rain - that's good... isn't it? After all, it's so focused, so real.

And in case any of you are beginner Japanese students or just considering studying the language, I'd like to point out that the character for "umbrella" is 傘. Not only does it look like an umbrella, it's formed by four "person" characters safe under a shelter. Isn't that great? And all the other characters are just as self-explanatory and reasonable. *wink*

The Music

Finally, I'd like to briefly discuss the music itself. I believe that translating a song means translating not just the lyrics, but also the music. Musically, I also wanted to distinguish my version from the Inoue versions I had heard (and which you should by all means go listen to if you haven't). The original is more moody, colder, and darker. I wanted to be more urgent. Rather than just sigh and acknowledge our disillusionment and apathy, I want to shout about it - it's time to do something. I don't have much confidence that I can really get people to believe that by throwing together this unpolished handmade cover song, but perhaps I'm just disillusioned too.

The song is mostly the same descending i-VII-VI-V7 progression, originally in A minor (D minor in mine, better for my voice and one of my favorite keys for no particular reason). This progression is apparently known as an Andalusian cadence (thanks Wiki!), and presents a good challenge in that every artist ever has written a song or twenty using it that I could either draw from or accidentally sound like. (As it happens, I seem to have been inspired by / ripped off Ricardo Arjona's "Taxista", Bach's C minor prelude, and a riff from Mega Man X. Music is strange.)

You may have noticed the vocals / acoustic are not perfectly in sync with the audio. That video is actually just me playing along to the finished song. After I finished my first good recording, I decided halfway through arranging it that it was too slow, and tweaked up the tempo, which necessitated singing the part over, but then of course when I went to speed up the video it looked absurd, so I had to lip-sync to myself lip-syncing to myself. What fun.

And no, my guitar solo isn't very good. I was just happy to get a full take. I don't really play my instruments, I just write the music then fumble through the mechanics out of necessity.

Finally, the background pad during the Japanese verses is me humming, copied and pitch-shifted into a small chorus, with generous reverb. Proportionally far too much work for such a small addition, but it sure was fun. Really, this whole project was a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

This song is one of several works in translating or arranging foreign language music; others can be found here. If you have any suggestions or comments, by all means let me know. Thanks for reading.

Lyrics

The original lyrics of 傘がない, along with romanization and a mostly accurate, non-lyrical translation. Note that the translation is sentence-by-sentence, not line-by-line.

都会では 自殺する 若者が 増えている	Tokai de wa jisatsu suru wakamono ga fuete iru	In the city more and more young people are committing suicide
今朝来た 新聞の 片隅に 書いていた	Kesa kita shinbun no katasumi ni kaite ita	It was written in a corner of the newspaper that came this morning
だけども 問題は 今日の雨 傘がない	Da　kedo　mo mondai wa kyō no ame kasa ga nai	Nonetheless, the problem is for today's rain I have no umbrella
行かなくちゃ 君に会いに行かなくちゃ 君の町へ行かなくちゃ 雨に濡れ	Ikanakucha kimi ni ai ni ikanakucha kimi no machi e ikanakucha ame ni nure	I've gotta go I've gotta go see you I've gotta go to your city soaking in the rain
冷たい雨が 今日は心に沁みる 君のこと以外は 考えられなくなる それはいいことだろう	Tsumetai ame ga kyō wa kokoro ni shimiru Kimi no koto igai wa kangaerarenaku naru Sore wa ii koto darō	Today, cold rain is piercing my heart I'm becoming unable to think about anything except about you That's a good thing, isn't it?
テレビでは 我が国の 将来の 問題を	Terebi de wa wagakuni no shōrai no mondai wo	On the TV, somebody while making serious faces
誰かが 深刻な 顔をして しゃべっている	Dareka ga shinkoku na kao wo shite shabette iru	was talking about the problems of the future of our country
だけども 問題は 今日の雨 傘がない	Da　kedo　mo mondai wa kyō no ame kasa ga nai	Nonetheless, the problem is for today's rain I have no umbrella
行かなくちゃ 君に会いに行かなくちゃ 君の家へ行かなくちゃ 雨に濡れ	Ikanakucha kimi ni ai ni ikanakucha kimi no uchi e ikanakucha ame ni nure	I've gotta go I've gotta go see you I've gotta go to your home soaking in the rain
冷たい雨が 僕の目の中に降る 君のこと以外は 何も見えなくなる それはいいことだろう	Tsumetai ame ga boku no me no naka ni furu Kimi no koto igai wa nani mo mienakunaru Sore wa ii koto darō	Cold rain is falling in my eyes I'm becoming unable to see anything except for you That's a good thing, isn't it?

English version lyrics:

In today's paper
a short piece was written
beneath a small headline
tucked off to the side

It said in the city
an increasing number
of healthy young people
are commiting suicide

Well that may be
but the real problem here
I've got no umbrella
for today's rain

I've gotta' go
to see you, I've gotta' go
to meet you, I've gotta' go
soaking in the rain

Tsumetai ame ga kyō wa kokoro ni shimiru
Kimi no koto igai wa kangaerarenaku naru
Sore wa ii koto darō

On today's newscast
some people in neckties
spoke to the camera
at an unchanging pace

with serious faces
discussing the future
and all of the problems
that our country would face

well that may be
but the real problem here
I've got no umbrella
for today's rain

I've gotta' go
to see you, I've gotta' go
to be with you, I've gotta' go
soaking in the rain

Tsumetai ame ga boku no me no naka ni furu
Kimi no koto igai wa nanimo mienaku naru
Sore wa ii koto darō