Music

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Let’s sing Japanese songs in English –Feb. 2020
“From Boyhood Days” (Original – “Shonen Jidai”)

I’d like to introduce to you that famous song, 「少年時代」(Shohnen Jidai), with English lyrics.
The original song was created jointly by Mr. Inoue Yosui and Mr. Hirai Natsumi, with its lyrics also written by Mr. Inoue, and released back in 1990, and has been always popular among music fans until to date. As a matter of fact, there is an English lyric version of this song, written and sung by a Mr. William Silk, and I also sang that song (Silk version) earlier. But now, I wanted to get even closer to the “Yosui World”, if possible. I wrote lyrics which may express the atmosphere of this beautiful song, including one’s boyhood memories such as village festivals, fireworks, and drum beats from the festival, hills and stars, wild flowers, and the flow of time over four seasons. They are all fond memories for everybody from his (her) boyhood (girlhood) days.
Here we go!

“From Boyhood Days”

  • Composed by Yosui Inoue & Natsumi Hirai
  • Original Japanese lyrics by Yosui Inoue
  • English lyrics by Hidekazu (Morris) Morishima

《From Boyhood Days》
Summer is over, thistles are in the wind,
Drifting with a longing for days yet to come.
Remains of a dream are blowin' in the sky,
What I yet remember are the feels of summer nights.

Waking from the dream, sitting up again,
Signs of a long winter night, tapping on window panes - They hesitate to come in.
My dream is, after all, the odds and ends of old memories.

Is it a bonfire in the summer fest?
Is it a drumbeat coming from afar?
Or is it fireworks that I have so dreamt?
All of these are summer scenes that pounded on my heart.
M....M....M....M....M

Waking from the dream, chasing up above,
Shadows of memories from long-gone days of yore ―
They sprawl to reach the stardust.
My dream is, after all, the odds and ends of old memories.

Summer is over, thistles are in the wind;
Drifting with a longing for days yet to come,
Or is it fireworks that I have so dreamt?
All of these are summer scenes that pounded on my heart.
M....M....M....M....M....