This is absolutely my favorite song by MONGOL800. I loved it so much that I refused to listen to it after a boy had broken my heart into very tiny vulnerable pieces because I was afraid that I would associate it with that time. I always, always, ALWAYS want to listen to this song and think about the early morning streets of Kyoto, the turning leaves in Monzen, and waves crashing along the road while I drove to Suzu. I want to remember the feeling of when I realized that love doesn't have to be planned, and I stopped being afraid of relationships.
Hunky-dory, man. Everything is just hunky-dory.
Hunky-dory
モンゴル８００
ダニエル
I love行き先 決めない driving
あなたと二人どこまでも
人生ナビなんていらないよ
次の笑う角を曲がろうか
短気は損気 Monkey baby
僕は波風立てない台風の目
人生もブレーキも遊びが必要で
季節折々 時々 刻々 手の鳴る方へ
人生は一つのストーリー
起承転結はあなたの思い通り
やるだけやったら結果 後悔なんかしないよ
偶然！？必然！！まるで Fairy-tail
伝えたい想いを メロディーにのせて
風にのっかって 知らない街まで ゆるゆると
Hunky-dory 今まで通り
大事なのは日々の積み重ね
大事なのはその積み方ね
下手な鉄砲も残り一発
当たり障らない日々にサヨナラ
何でもアリだな 僕が思うより
転んでもアリだな 君が思うより
答えは出てるんでしょう 相談するくせに
どこでもいいなら君もつれて行くよ
夢の中へ つれてゆくよ
夢の中へ まるで Fairy-tail
Hunky-dory 今まで通り
Hunky- dory
Mongoru Happyaku
Danieru
I love yukisaki kimenai driving
Anata to futari dokomade
Jinsei NABI nante iranaiyo
Sugi no warau kado wo magarou
Tanki ha sonki Monkey baby
Boku ha namekazetatenai taifuu no me
Jinsei mo BUREKI mo asobi ga hitsuyou de
Kisetsu oriori jijikokukoku te no naruhoue
Jinsei ha hitotsu no SUTORII
Kishoutenketsu wa anata no omoitori
Yarudakeyattara keka koukai nankashinaiyo
Guuzen!? Hitsuzen!! Marude Fairy-tail
Tsutaitai omoi wo MERODEII ni nosete
Kaze ni nokkatte shiranai machi made yurayura to
Hunky-dory ima made doori
Daijinano ha hibi no tsumikasane
Daijinano ha sono kasamekatane
Hetana teppo mo nokori ippatsu
Atarisawaranai hibi ni SAYONARA
Nandemo ARI da na boku ga omou yori
Korondemo ARI dana Kimiga omou yori
Kotae wa deterundeshou soudan suru kuse ni
Dokodemo ii nara kimi mo tsureteyuku yo
Yume no naka he tsureteyuku yo
Yume no naka he marude Fairy-tail
Hunky-dory ima made doori
Hunky-dory
MONGOL800
Daniel
I love driving with deciding a destination,
Anywhere(1) with you.
I don’t need things such as life(2) navigation (3)
Shall we go around the next smiling corner?
No use being angry, Monkey baby(4)
I’m calm in the eye of the hurricane
Both life and brakes need pads,
Every moment of every season, I’ll go to the sound of your hands.
Life is just one story
And the outcome is just as you think
If we do everything we can, then there will be nothing to regret
Accidentally!? Necessarily!! It’s all a fairytale (5)
The thoughts I wish to tell you fly(6) with the melody,
they fly with the wind, unhurried, to an unknown town.
Hunky – dory, like this until now (7)
The important thing is that the days pile up
The important thing is to know how to burden it (8)
The poor gun and the left over bullets are useless(9)
Every day is a sayonara
It’s more than I think
It’s slipping more than you think
The answer is escaping us, all because we are talking about it
Anywhere we go is fine, as long as you follow me
Into a dream, I’ll follow you.
Into a dream, it's like a fairy-tale
Hunky-dory, like this until now.
Translation Annotations
(1) Anywhere is usually dokodemo, but this is dokomademo, which means anywhere, but it has a connation of being endless.
(2) This particular word for life is jinsei. There are a lot of words for life in Japanese. This one has the nuance of death in it… Sort of like the life you lead up until you die.
(3) This image is a lot more poignant in Japanese, since every car here (except mine!) is equipped with a Navigation system called Navi (or if your Japanese, Nabi). The idea is that he doesn’t need a destination indicator to tell him where to go in life.
(4)This is really cute in Japanese, because it repeats the syllables “nki” a lot. Tanki ha sonki Monkey baby. Too bad it doesn’t translate well….
(5) As far as I can tell, they didn’t mean to spell Fairytale wrong, so I’m just going to translate with the correct spelling. Also, “accidentally” “necessarily” is very pretty Japanese because it repeats a syllable for both words (guuzen and hitsuzen). It was hard to translate properly, but I ended up changing them into adverbs so they could end in the same syllable as well. It should be “A Coincidence?! It was necessity!!”
(6) In both cases, the word “ride” is the correct translation. However, ride on the wind is usually translated as fly with the wind. In order to keep the deliberate repetition, I changed “ride on the melody” to “fly with the melody”. It sounded more leisurely to me than “ride on the melody and ride on the wind”.
(7) This is great because it’s a play on the the dory of hunky-dory. Doori in this case means “like that”, but it supposed to give a sort of image of “it’s been alright up until now” but it literally translates as “like until now”. Basically, the double meaning was impossible to achieve in English.
(8)This is a really cool play on words. To pile up is tsumikasane and then tsumu means to load, or bear. Both use the same kanji for the tsumi/tsuma. It looks like a big change, but in Japanese it’s a very clever change.
(9) This is a play on a Japanese proverb, which is 下手な鉄砲も数撃てば、あたる。(hetana tepou mo kazu uteba ataru). It’s hard to translate, but it’s something like “even a bad shot can hit the mark if he keeps shooting” . The English proverb is “if at first you don’t succeed, try try again”.
