A song about love with Words written by Yuri Kageyama and Music and song by Ryu Miho
what do you think?
it’s a trick question
what do you think?
with a right answer
what do you think?
not at all open-ended
what do you think?
as it might seem
what do you think?
it’s asking do you really love me?
do you truly understand?
what do you think?
the answer isn’t fixed
just a right answer, and a wrong
what do you think?
i love you so much
what do you think?
and long after we’re all gone
what do you think?
that big question is still there
what do you think?
what do you think?
Lovers are always asking each other: “What do you think?” and getting upset if their lover doesn’t quite get it, or answers he or she felt something about an artwork or a film they just saw together in a different way from what you’re feeling, or thought the feeling should be, or whatever. It’s really a fruitless game, but it’s one all lovers play, all the time, throughout history, wherever they are, any nation, any culture. Because ultimately you’re just asking: Do you love me? And there is no right answer or a wrong one. Just that moment you share, you are both here, alive but together on this little beautiful planet, lost in the cosmos, and we never know what to think anyway.
And this version as arranged and performed by Toshiyuki Turner Tanahashi.
Featuring Tea on vocals and the YURICANE band with Hideyuki Asada (guitar, arrangement, audio mastering), Hiroshi Tokieda (bass) and Takuma Anzai (drums).
Photo by On Lim Wong.
I started working on this song in February 2019. It’s finally finished in 2023, as a recording, with singing and music. The piece is about how people like to talk about “what’s happening” or what’s going to happen. But most of the time, nothing happens. And nothing needs to happen. If anything, it can be a good thing when nothing happens. With the pandemic unfolding, the song became for me more pertinent than ever. I reworked the song to reflect that. In June 2020, I added the rap section in Japanese that refers to the death of George Floyd. We must not forget how precious those moments are when horrible things that can happen don’t happen, and we can just sit back and enjoy the passage of time, when utterly nothing happens.
Nothing happens なにもおこらない
_ a poem/song by Yuri Kageyama
(1)
Nothing happens
Bombs no longer falling
Nations aren’t
killing
Nothing happens
^___<
(2)
Nothing happens
Women aren’t
screaming
Children
aren’t starving
Nothing happens
^___<
(BRIDGE)
なにもおこらない
このきもち
なにもおこらない
しずけさ
^___<
(4)
Nothing happens
The stars will
shine
Behind clouds
that hide
Nothing
happens
^___<
(5)
Nothing happens
Birds, blossoms remind
The passing of
time
Nothing
happens
^___<
(rap section)
Nothing
happens
We took it for
granted
Nothing is
boring
Nobody up to
no good
Looking for something
Something to
happen
Before the
coronavirus
Now we wake
up to numbers
Pray the curve gets flattened
Pray it’s no
one we know
Waiting for
a vaccine
Scared by
the sirens
Italy, New
York, Spain, Wuhan, Tokyo
Now nothing
else happens
Nothing else
can happen
Now you know
it:
Now you wish
you didn’t wish it
Now you know
for sure you like it
When Nothing
happens
Yeah, Nothing happens
なにもおこらない
死ぬまえ
のこる生命で
えらんだ言葉
息ができない
彼のおもい
アメリカの差別
歴史のおもい
すべてすごくて
言葉がない
息ができない
息ができない
You know
that’s the view:
No news is
good news,
It’s so
quiet you can hear it
Silence is
the music
When NOTHING HAPPENS
^___<
なにもおこらない
このきもち
なにもおこらない
しずけさ
^__<
Nothing
happens
The Virus descends
Like a stranger
of death
Nothing
happens
^___<
Nothing happens
We can forget
the rest
How we miss
those days
When Nothing happens
^—–<
And this is how the song all started; the clip below is from while it’s in the works (Artwork by Munenori Tamagawa):
I co-wrote the poem/lyrics with Trupti for “I WILL BLEED,” a song about star-crossed lovers inspired by Chikamatsu‘s double-suicides written for Bunraku puppet theater, about how love, no matter how simple, mundane and pathetic, endures, even in death.
The melody was composed by Trupti and Hiroshi Tokieda, who also plays bass in this fine rendition at his father’s Tokyo recording studio (SoundCloud below).
The musical composition by the couple songwriting team was selected a finalist winner in the U.K. Songwriting Contest in December 2015.
I am blessed to be collaborating with and just to know these two young brilliant musicians. I have seen them get married, despite being of different nationalities and backgrounds, tied together so absolutely through their love for music, and their love for each other.
They met at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where my son Isaku Kageyama graduated recently, and performed together in different musical groups, with both Trupti and Hiroshi.
They are our future, and the future of the best in music.
The best in us. All of us.
What I want to say in this song is that I still believe in love.
I wrote the poem and worked on the song with Trupti, knowing all the while that Trupti would sing it, and that Hiroshi and Trupti would compose the music together.
The song debuted at my poetry reading and tribute to my poet mentor Ishmael Reed at SFJAZZ CENTER in June 2014 (YouTube clip below).
They are the idea for this song.
They are this song.
I created this song for them.
I WILL BLEED
V1
I won’t cry (a)
Coz it’s in love that I bleed (b)
A bridge of ribbon that carries me (b)
Across waves of war no one can see (b)
V2
I won’t run (a)
My blood will rush strong and drain (b)
All my pride, prejudice and pain (b)
Only our love will still remain (b)
C
I will bleed (a)
But I won’t flee,
Hell is what I desire (b)
I will bleed
But I won’t hide
Hell is what I desire
Such heavenly fire
V3
I won’t sleep (a)
Until this ocean turns to wine (b)
On a night when our stars align (b)
Lying cheek to cheek no longer confined (x)
V4
We will live (a)
You the east and me the sun (b)
Not afraid of different tongues (b)
Our blood joined will make us one (x)
This is what death feels like a poem by Yuri Kageyama
it is the end
you are gone
no more
it is only a dream so i
decide this must be what death is like
not your death, but my own
it is the end
you are gone
no more
my throat is hot with weeping
my eyes are blind from searching for you
my heart is bleeding with emptiness
it is the end
you are gone
no more
how can i keep on living
knowing only this waits ahead, i can’t,
this certain separation, this death
it is the end
you are gone
no more
but wait, this calm i own
when you are here now, close by,
or not so close, but somewhere
it is the end
you are gone
no more
this is what death feels like
i am always close to you, total, perfect
and it doesn’t matter
it is the end
you are gone
no more
