- Lyrics & Music: Kazuya Yoshii
- Arrangement: The Yellow Monkey
Original Lyrics
靴下を折りまげ 下着をつける
枕を直して お化粧してさよなら
胸元までつたう 黒い黒い涙
歯型の痛みは ざらついた砂の空
肉・髪・声・キス・口紅が胃にもたれて
薬指を喉の奥まで……
エメラルドの 指輪が邪魔して
時も何もかも 戻せない
CRY 情熱のタンゴを CRY モダンなドレスで
チワワを連れて 散歩をしましょう
落ち葉の坂道を キツめのハイヒールで
ハンケチがないから 美貌もないから
私の笑顔は 悪意に満ちあふれて
裏切りのポエムを何度も呟いて
並木道の樹を数え出す
人騒がせな 涙が邪魔して
ろくに数も数えられない
CRY 情熱のタンゴを CRY モダンなドレスで
CRY 大好きな CRY 貴方のために
マスカラと爪切りと マニキュアとため息と
オモチャのピストルを ハンドバックにつめて……
CRY 情熱のタンゴを CRY モダンなドレスで
CRY 大好きな CRY 貴方のために
CRY 口づけは CRY ハーモニカのように
CRY さみしいよ CRY CRY
今夜一人で月の砂漠に 夢を納めに歩きましょう
安物シネマのこの街に 信じる物など何も無く……
4000粒の恋物語 ロマンスのかけらも無くしたなんて
言うほど気にしてないさ 気にしてないさ
気にしてないさ 気にしてないさ
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
TU RURU…………
朝焼けに…HOLD ME…
Romanized Lyrics
kutsushita wo orimage shitagi wo tsukeru
makura wo naoshite okeshou shite sayonara
muna moto made tsutau kuroi kuroi namida
hagata no itami wa zaratsuita suna no sora
niku kami koe kiss kuchibeni ga i no motarete
kusuri yubi wo nodo no oku made……
emerald no yubiwa ga jama shite
toki mo nani mo ka mo modosenai
CRY jounetsu no tango wo CRY modern na dress de
chihuahua wo tsurete sanpo wo shimashou
ochiba no sakamichi wo kitsume no high heel de
handkerchief ga nai kara bibou mo nai kara
watashi no egao wa akui ni michiafurete
uragiri no poem wo nando mo tsubuyaite
namiki michi no ki wo kazoedasu
hito sawagase na namida ga jama shite
roku ni kazu mo kazoerarenai
CRY jounetsu no tango wo CRY modern na dress de
CRY daisuki na CRY anata no tame ni
mascara to tsumekiri to manicure to tameiki to
omocha no pistol wo handbag ni tsumete……
CRY jounetsu no tango wo CRY modern na dress de
CRY daisuki na CRY anata no tame ni
CRY kuchizuke wa CRY harmonica no you ni
CRY samishii yo CRY CRY
konya hitori de tsuki no sabaku ni yume wo osame ni arukimashou
yasumono cinema no kono machi ni shinjiru mono nado nani mo naku……
yonsen tsubu no koi monogatari romance no kakera mo nakushita nante
iu hodo ki ni shitenai sa ki ni shitenai sa
ki ni shitenai sa ki ni shitenai sa
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU
TU RURU…………
asayake ni…HOLD ME…
Translated Lyrics
Pulling down my socks, and putting on underwear
Adjusting the pillow, putting on makeup, and saying goodbye
Black tears run down to my chest
Pain in the form of tooth marks forms a sky of rough sand
Flesh, hair, voices, kisses, and lipstick all sit in my stomach
And my ring finger goes into my throat……
The emerald ring gets in the way
And I can’t turn back time, or anything else for that matter
Cry, I dance a passionate tango, cry, in a modern dress
I’m going to take my chihuahua out for a walk
On a hill road covered in fallen leaves, in high heels that are a little too tight
I don’t have a handkerchief, or very much natural beauty
So my smile is full of bad intention
Murmuring a treacherous poem to myself over and over
I begin to count the trees along the street side
But false tears get in the way
And I just can’t count them well enough
Cry, I dance a passionate tango, cry, in a modern dress
Cry, for you, cry, who I love so much
Mascara, nail clippers, nail polish and sighs
Along with a toy pistol, I put all these things into my bag……
Cry, I dance a passionate tango, cry, in a modern dress
Cry, for you, cry, who I love so much
Cry, kisses, cry, like the sound of a harmonica
Cry, are so lonely, cry, cry
I’m going to walk alone tonight in the moonlight desert, to bring an end to my dreams
There’s nothing to believe in, in this cheap cinema of a city……
A 4000 tear drop love story, I don’t care enough to say that
I’ve lost a piece of romance, I don’t care enough
I don’t care enough, I don’t care enough
I love you, I love you
I love you
Tu ruru…………
In the morning glow…hold me…
Notes
Continuing the standard that “Donna” set on this album, you can see that this is a different take on a ballad for Yemon. The accordion (which is a part of this song that isn’t featured in the live versions) is something that’s appeared in Yemon songs before and really wouldn’t after this either. It creates a somber atmosphere with Annie’s big drum hits and Heesey’s bass line behind it, and only increases the faint background vocals that come in just after. But after those initial feelings wear down, you start to see that the song is just kind of maintaining the same slow pace all the way through the first half of it. Even when you hit the first couple of choruses, nothing really happens to the pace at all. That also shows just how prolonged the simple chorus is in terms of how it’s sung.
After Emma’s acoustic solo at the halfway point (the solo is electric in the live version, though is similar in feel), you can hear Annie’s drumming start to pick up. Then once we hit the midpoint of the extended chorus that follows, we finally get the explosion we were hoping for. Emma’s electric guitar comes in, and we get some strings as well (again, not featured in the live versions), picking things up. The pace of Yoshii’s vocals goes up with it after he gets out of the chorus as well, and this is where I start to really like the song.
Calling a city a “cheap cinema of a city” is a great phrase, and his repetition of “ki ni shitenai sa” (“I don’t care enough”) is affecting. The problem is this lasts for a very short amount of time, and then we go into the “tu ruru…” part that carries on for another two minutes! I’ve mentioned that ending songs like this is a big weakness of Yoshii’s, and this is maybe one of the most egregious examples of it that we’ve seen so far. And even if it is kind of cool when Emma starts playing what the strings were doing just a moment ago on guitar, this song is at least two minutes longer than it needs to be. I really do appreciate that they were going for something different here, but I just wish they wouldn’t have taken so unnecessarily long to get to the emotional climax of it.
Yoshii has stated in interviews that this is both a song about a drag queen (probably the very one that he was “playing” in order to build up confidence in his stage presence, which would later kind of turn into the character Mary. But more on that below…) defeated by love, and also a song in which Yoshii himself tries to repent for his previous treatment of women. You can read about both in my translations of his autobiography. I think what happened here is that he started out looking at it from the viewpoint of his on-stage personality as a drag queen, and that just sort of naturally turned into Mary after the fact.
I didn’t have those sorts of feminine traits in me back in the indie days. During the recording of our first major label album, “The Night Snails And Plastic Boogie”, I noticed that I was getting obsessed with the word “androgynous” and wondered why that was. I finished writing “4000 Tear Drop Love Song” before the next album “Experience Movie” came out, and I was a bit embarrassed about it at first. I introduced it by saying things like “Please listen to this song that I think is about a drunk drag queen”. But then I started thinking about why I felt I had to sing songs like that. Half of it was that I really didn’t like that I had been so cold toward women. So with feelings of repentance, I put on that dress and sing a song about a woman’s unrequited love.
If this is half of what this song was meant to be though, I don’t know that it really works in the way he was hoping for. He was clearly trying to portray sadness in a way that he felt might be more likely for a woman to feel. That in of itself isn’t a bad thing. But if it’s repentance that he was going for, it might have worked better to write about a woman as being in some other state other than just sad and lonely. You could almost argue he did a bit of a better job at it in some of the songs on Bunched Birth, without necessarily having intended to.
As mentioned above, this song is notable for being the first appearance of a character created by Yoshii called Mary. This is indicated more by the fact that he would appear on stage in the same costume that would be acknowledged as Mary later on, as opposed to her actually being mentioned in the song. Mary is the lover of the now dead Jaguar, a soldier who we will talk about a whole lot more during Yemon’s next album: Jaguar Hard Pain. He would dress as her for this song and Silk Scarf ni Boushi no Madam (which would actually mention Jaguar by name). Both songs seem to share the same sorrowful perspective, so both are likely meant to be from her point of view. The dress and veil that Yoshii wears for Mary is the very same he was photographed wearing in the Experience Movie lyric booklet. And when this was performed during the Experience Movie tour, the other members would come out in the same costumes they were wearing in the booklet as well.
This song wasn’t performed very often, probably because it’s so long. It was of course performed during the Experience Movie tour in 1993, during the encore of some shows on the Jaguar Hard Pain tour in 1994, and…never really after that. Even in subsequent Mekara Uroko concerts when they would perform Silk Scarf ni Boushi no Madam, this never made an appearance. Maybe he felt that it had to be done in costume, which he almost never pulled out again after Experience Movie was done.