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[Introduction to Lyric Writing] How to Write Lyrics for Idol Songs: The Tokyo-Themed Edition

[Introduction to Lyric Writing] How to Write Lyrics for Idol Songs: The Tokyo-Themed Edition
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Songs like “In Nagasaki It Was Raining Again Today” and “Yokohama Twilight.” There are surprisingly many songs that include the names of specific prefectures, cities, or regions.

There’s even the term “local songs” or “local enka,” and you might find yourself singing a country or place name at karaoke without even realizing it.

This time, I’d like to focus on idol songs—especially those that sing about Tokyo.

Model masterpiece divine song: A corner called Tokyo | Morning Musume ’16

Lyrics byTsunku♂It is Mr./Ms.

Sing a specific town

Tokyo can sometimes serve as a destination or a starting point for many people—a symbol of the “light” side, so to speak.

“Someday I’ll go to Tokyo and make a name for myself” is one of those lines you often hear in manga and TV dramas.

Tokyo may also serve as a metaphor for the center of the world, or for a place where one can shine.

However, many of the lyrics flowing through this song, “A Corner Called Tokyo,” delve into the somewhat darker side of Tokyo.

of the lyrics

Relentless realities, fleeting moments

It truly seems to carry the shadow of the many people whose dreams were shattered in Tokyo and who returned to their rural hometowns.

Tokyo (or the image of it) is a place where you can’t even come up for air in your heart.

Does Tokyo, in a broad sense, also mean “society” or “reality”?

Just how many kinds of love do you even know?

I just want to be held tight for a bit.

Living bravely in a cold city can also serve as one link to living for a lonely love within one’s mind.

Replace “Metropolis vs. the individual” with “relative affection vs. an individual’s romance.”

This manufactured opposition—the structure of 'abstraction (feelings) vs. concretion (Tokyo)'—lends itself very well to becoming lyrics in almost any case.

Get creative with the sentence endings.

A diverse range of sentence endings can make the whole piece sound either firm or gentle.

This is just my personal opinion, but Tsunku♂ tends to write songs he himself wants to sing and have girls perform them, so many of his lyrics end with masculine-sounding phrasing.

When on earth are you going to switch off your dreaming time?

If you want to bring out an idol’s cuteness, it should be something like, “Just when on earth are you going to turn off dream time?”

Also,

In a corner of this world called Tokyo

Strictly speaking, it should also be “in a corner of this world called Tokyo.”

A rugged sentence ending that conveys a slightly tough girl surviving the harsh big city.

Many strong-willed girls appear in Tsunku♂'s songs.

At first glance, some colloquial (sentence-ending) expressions may seem immature for lyrics, but I think there’s a lot to learn from the subtle twists and craftsmanship found in Tsunku♂’s songs.

The passion for using ruby annotations

While profound lyrics that chronicle the era and ideas of the New Music movement might be another matter, I suspect few people really pore over the lyric booklets of idol songs.

Although lyric displays imply it doesn’t really matter once you start singing, Tsunku♂’s songs use a lot of ruby annotations.

Here’s one example.

This is the kind of person I am.

Make it a country that's easy to live in.

Our beloved planet Earth

Even in this corner called “Tokyo,” three kinds of ‘guys’ make an appearance.

There are folks (bastards) who can only live like reckless deer.

There’s a kid (that guy) who can only live clumsily.

There are guys who just slip past it and laugh it off.

If you look at the lyrics visually, you can see that this ruby text is used quite effectively.

I don’t think it’s just a stylistic difference; it’s a difference in the intensity of passion as a writer.

For reasons related to rhythmic phrasing, lyricists often find themselves wanting to search for words that ‘add up’ to a particular meaning.

I want to never forget this passion of adding furigana to words that aren’t easily relatable.

Template divine song: Tokyo Scandal | predia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xK0oL35qgc

Lyrics by Satoru Kurihara (Jazzin’parkIt is ).

Facing Tokyo

Tokyo has many aspects characteristic of a large city’s harshness and of the long-standing media-shared image of the strain in human relationships that comes from strangers living together in cramped spaces.

I also think that people who have gathered from the provinces end up warily keeping each other in check out of mutual suspicion, and that the excesses of this behavior are what give rise to the illusion that “people in Tokyo are cold.”

There are many songs created as reinterpretations of “an individual’s feelings vs. the mega-city of Tokyo.”

I think it’s the feeling of “I won’t be beaten by the big city” and “I won’t grow jaded in a jaded city.” Lyrics that don’t quite resonate with true Tokyoites who’ve lived in Tokyo for three or four generations hit home hard for people who came up from the countryside.

It feels the same when someone from Wakayama “goes up” to Osaka, or when someone from Kagoshima “goes up” to Fukuoka.

A big city is one of those places where people rub shoulders with others and, in doing so, help them grow.

That suffering, conflict, and helplessness tend to turn into lyrics that evoke empathy beyond mere self-indulgence.

If I could let go of a certain sense of embarrassment, I think I could write as many lyrics about Tokyo as I want.

Consider separately for daytime and nighttime situations

In the dreamlike city, I'm falling for you who's in disarray.

The lyrics above seem to capture a single snapshot of a romance born and fading within Tokyo’s ‘coldness.’

As you can see from the accompanying video, the rich scent of the night is also something unique to this idol.

Even if you write lyrics about the same city, the lyrics will be quite different between day and night.

If our breaths... overlap

Flashily ripened fruits, tonight the city does the entertaining

A romance with a hint of sensuality fits perfectly with the nights of Tokyo.

Perhaps this, too, is a uniquely Tokyo-style, stylish romance.

I don’t mean to speak ill of it, but “a night in Aomori” doesn’t readily evoke the kind of stylish romance you’d associate with Tokyo.

Tokyo has a depth that allows it to serve as a motif on the strength of the word’s sound alone.

There are also sections where short lyrics appear consecutively.

It depends on the musical style, but here we’re heightening the sense of romantic tension.

Tokyo Scandal☆Friday Night, a see-saw game you can’t bluff your way through

This lightness of the katakana resonates more than I intended.

On top of its daytime energy, with a seductive, dangerous allure at night, Tokyo is a city that shows a multifaceted face to everyone.

This group also has another song, “Tokyo Love Affair.”

I can even sense a determination to sing about Tokyo endlessly and to stay at the cutting edge of the metropolis.

Lips, dramatic. Eye to eye, fantastic.

There’s a more formal constraint at play than just rhyming with the terminal -tic ending.

In Western music, there are also plenty of songs with that 'dream city, New York' vibe.

Aiming for a big city is linked to fulfilling one’s dreams, so doesn’t it tend to become a common motif in lyrics?

Lyrics become more constrained in expression by the amount trimmed to fit the phrasing, but to the extent that they’re left somewhat bare and detached, they grant listeners the freedom to interpret them as they wish.

It wasn’t a big hit, but I really like this song, “Tokyo Scandal,” especially for its lyrics.