Are the lyrics of Yoko Kanno's "Moon" gibberish or intelligible?
Are the lyrics of Yoko Kanno’s song Moon meaningless (as in using pseudowords, gibberish, scat singing or similar), or are the lyrics in some kind of language?
Maybe a fictional language constructed by Yoko Kanno (AKA Gabriela Robin), possibly also used in her other works that use similar lyrics? Or maybe puns/wordplays, as described as special case for Japanese music in Word Salad Lyrics, "based on alternate translations of the kanji used" or "similar-sounding words"?
What I've learned so far…
I found many claims that it’s not in any kind of language, but none of them are from authoritative sources, and none of them cover the possibilities that it could be a fictional language or Japanese wordplays.
Xah Lee claims on his page about Moon:
As with many of Yoko Kanno's songs, the lyrics is meaningless vocalizations, not of any language.
From Gabriela Robin’s article in a wiki about Yoko Kanno:
Her very characteristic is to often write lyrics in a specific language she seems to be the only one capable of translate.
From Yoko Kanno’s article in TV Tropes (but not in particular about Moon):
Word Salad Lyrics: When she writes lyrics, this can happen. And sometimes what sounds like word salad is actually a nonsense language.
In the thread What language is this song? in the LoadingReadyRun forum, various languages are suggested, and some claim that it’s just gibberish. A source (supposedly a fan page, which I can’t locate) is quoted:
Her non-sensical lyrics have been known to drive the unknowing fan searching for translations from different linguists, but to no avail.
The word "meaningful" probably does not convey the meaning you intend (i.e. is this an actual language, or just a vocal improvisation with wordless vocables like scat... if that is what you are asking). Asking if a song is *meaningful* (incorrectly) sounds like you are asking if the song is significant or expressive with some value... which isn't really a good debate for this type of Q&A. I would suggest getting to the crux of your question without the excessive setup and quotes leading into it.
@RobertCartaino: Thanks! That is exactly what I want to ask, and I was not aware that it might not convey it. I tried to rephrase it. Would this work better? (I’m a non-native speaker and just looked up the term "gibberish" -- I’ve not enough feeling for the language to decide if it’s appropriate in this case)
unor, I made a few minor corrections, but I think it works now. It sounds completely "answerable" now. Thank you for the clarifications.
The lyrics itself are meaningless, but the language does have a name - it's called Gablish and was indeed invented by Yoko Kanno.
She wrote several songs, that express a similar style, under the pseudonym Gabriela Robin. Mostly they sound like a language you may know, but than again they don't mean anything - at least not to the listener. I would dare to speculate this is also a bit related to the Japanese pronunciation of certain letters - specifically "R", which they can't pronounce that easily and makes foreign languages sound badly distorted.
You may enjoy this performance of Moon by Origa (a Russian-Japanese singer) that contains also the lyrics subtitles (as you may know common in japanese music videos), citing the word Gablish in the beggining. The video is from Turn A Gundam live concert.
Yoko Kanno has more such songs:
- Wo Qui Non Coin (my favorite from when Cowboy Bebop first aired)
- Fado
- Torukia
- Cats on Mars
- Green Bird
- PAPA Plastic
- Dijurido
In all the above listed songs and probably few more I can't remember, you may think you understand a word or two, but you can't connect them in a sensible context.
In the end it's not that uncommon to invent lyrics by Japanese singers - another quite popular artist that does similar things is Hitomi.
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Content dated before 7/24/2021 11:53 AM
unor 7 years ago
Regarding the (as of now) 2 close votes: It would be helpful to explain *why* this question is considered to be "unclear" or "primarily opinion-based". *Opinion* is not involved at all, and I have no idea how to phrase the question (it’s the last paragraph) more *clear*.