| 小さな貝殻ひとつ 飾る海のピアノ さびしいラムネのような 音符がほら こぼれ出す | A single small seashell – The piano of an adorned sea; Similar to a lonely lemonade, Look – the notes Overflow; |
| 何を恋しがって この胸は泣くのだろう 愛を飲み干したら もう海の底には 遠く | What am I yearning for, That this heart weeps so? When all love has been drained, It’s already at the bottom of the sea,1 Far away; |
| 波音に誘われて 爪弾く青いピアノは 逝く春の思い出を このまま戯れに なつかしむ | Beckoned by the sound of the waves,2 A blue piano’s thrumming strings: For memories of a passing spring,3 Frolicking as they are,4 They reminisce; |
| いちばん好きな曲だけ 弾けずにいた ずっと 貴方が教えてくれた 音符がもう 見えなくて | That most beloved song, only, Which I was unable to play For so long; You taught me The notes, and, soon, I won’t be able to see them… |
| 愛を恋しがって この胸は泣くのです 肩に優しい手を まだ待っていたくて ひとり | I am yearning for love, And so this heart weeps; For your kind hands upon my shoulders, Still, I want to wait… Alone; |
| 波音に誘われて 寄り添い離れる和音（コード） この指が紡ぐのは 悲しい歌ばかり | Beckoned by the sound of the waves,2 Nestling close to those drifting chords:5 This finger spins Nothing but sorrowful songs; |
| 波音寄せて返し 爪弾く青いピアノは 逝く春の思い出に 貴方の手のひらを なつかしむ | The sound of the waves ebbs and flows, And the blue piano’s thrumming strings, Within memories of a passing spring,3 For the palm of your hand – They reminisce |
Footnotes
1. The precedent for what exactly remains at the bottom of the sea is unclear; the singer could be referring to love, to her heart, or to whatever it is that she was yearning for, which is itself later revealed to be love. I attempted to maintain that ambiguity in English.
2. I translate「誘う」as “beckon”, but this word has connotations of seduction. When viewed in the context of a song regarding the potentially fatal allure of the sea, I believe “beckon” sufficiently references the danger of mythological sirens to maintain this implication without losing ambiguity.
3. This song writes「ゆく」as「逝く」, which has connotations of death. I translated it as “passing”, as “passing” also has implications of “passing away” in English.
4. I translate「戯れ」as “frolicking”, as this word has connotations of flirtatious playfulness.
5. Though the reading given for「和音」is simply「コード」, the kanji strongly suggests harmony. Contextually, this might be meant to imply that the singer found once the sound of the waves pleasing and still wishes to treasure it, but the memories it sparks are becoming too painful, transitioning from harmonious chords into dissonant ones. It may also be an attempt to use the sea to shed light on the nature of the loss being felt, or to feed into the idea of losing the notes the singer once knew how to play.
Thematic Commentary
The overarching theme for this song is loss. It’s not made clear what kind of love it was that was lost, nor how it was lost; the lyrics hint at discord fracturing a relationship with “drifting chords” and a love that’s “drained” from it, but it equally hints at bereavement, with Kajiura choosing to use a word that evokes a feeling of death when describing memories of a “passing” spring being lost at sea.
Regardless of the cause, the loss is felt keenly; it lingers despite the singer’s fading memory. The “notes”, initially overflowing from the lonely, frothing seafoam, are later said to be disappearing, with the singer becoming “unable to see” them, and the “drifting chords” are dispersing amongst the “ebbing and flowing” of the waves. Love, once bountiful enough that the sea could represent it, is now gone, “drained”, until all that remains is the vague remnant of yearning, too far for the singer to reach. The passing spring, not yet dead, dies as it grows more distant from her mind. The lyrics speak wistfully of the object of the singer’s said yearning awaiting her at the “bottom of the sea”, and the waves “beckon” her with a music that recalls what her heart weeps for, though she can no longer remember what that is.
The sea itself begins to hold an odd, contradictory meaning in the song. On one hand, it acts as a barrier for the singer, swallowing her love within: even when it has been drained, revealing what she yearns for upon the seabottom, it is still “far away”, beyond the singer’s grasp. On the other hand, it represents her time with her lost love, and its overflowing notes, notes which the singer herself is losing sight of, are filling a void – its waves act as a piano’s strings, playing for her the things she feels herself forgetting. The final verse implies a simpatico between the two: the waves reminisce, as she does, for a kind, impossible touch.
Threading through these two interpretations, though, is the sea as a hostile force. It lures her with its familiar music, showing her what she yearns for, but, rather than washing it up on the shore, it instead rubs salt in the wound by playing a melody that further esconces her loneliness, spinning “nothing but sorrowful songs”. It may be that the singer and the sea have their simpatico, but it may also be that the sea is taunting her by repeatedly reminding her of what she can never reclaim, inviting her to follow it into the depths.
Kajiura doesn’t try to provide clarity. The lyrics are vague, and intentionally so; it can be hard to make sense of loss, why it happened and how, and the details matter less than the scars left by a visceral absence. The song can give no answers on how to move forward, so it chooses to instead focus on the universal feelings of a longing for an unattainable past, and the dangerous preoccupation with a happiness you miss so strongly that you can see it being kept from you, even as you feel your memories of it slipping away.
Further Comments
The definitive version of this song, for me, will always be the live performance at Nakano Sun Plaza in 2014. It was sung on the second day of a 2-day special, meant to serve as a swan song for Nanri Yuuka’s time with Kajiura Yuki, and implements changes to the instrumentation and tempo. It’s much slower, and the strings from the studio version have been stripped to leave only the piano, which itself has a much better tonality than the one featured on the studio recording.
As the song is entitled “piano”, this paring down makes sense, and the slowing of the tempo befits the melancholic, yearning nostalgia that permeates this song, both in its lyrics and in Nanri Yuuka’s voice. The simplicity of the vocal-piano duo makes the loneliness of the singer palpable, too, and there is a greater appreciation for the use of vocals to emphasise the effects of the words being sung.
For example, a melodic element is established early on: when Nanri Yuuka first sings「誘われて」, here translated as “beckoned”, there is a brief increase in intensity, followed by a retreat into softness. This is repeated throughout the song, finally clarified in the final verse, when she sings「寄せて返し」, here translated as “ebbs and flows”, which contextualises this element as mimicking the ebb and flow of waves upon a shore. Similar elements can be heard in the fluctuations of volume and pitch.
Other small details stand out: a particular favourite is the piano quieting as Nanri Yuuka sings「ひとり」, “alone”, isolating her voice as the singer is isolated by her grief. The lyrics writing this in kana, as opposed to the kanji「一人」, adds to the earnestness of the line. Another is the high notes on the first words of the lines「何を恋しがって」and「愛を恋しがって」, “what” and “love” respectively, which add weight to the singer’s self-stated yearning.
Nanri Yuuka is a fantastic singer, and the changes to this song for the live version showcase excellently her ability to pour emotion into her performances, and to channel those vocal elements to accentuate already poetic lyrics in a way that seems effortless.
The passion she put into what, at the time, would’ve been her last show with her long-time composer is remarkable, and I can’t recommend this live show enough.
Further Links
This is a song composed by Kajiura Yuki, with lyrics written also by Kajiura Yuki. It’s performed by Nanri Yuuka under the professional alias of FictionJunction YUUKA, and can be found on the 2007 album「circus」.
Studio version of “piano” on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/1mBdE4E9t2jjP92fT9qSjy?si=0bdc2244fd3b4b38
A promotional trailer for the 2-day special:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_JjaZ51_no
Purchasing the album featuring this song: https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VTCL-60343
Purchasing the blu-ray of the 2-day special: https://www.cdjapan.co.jp/product/VTXL-19