雑記

Various notes on Bush

On Feb. 29Th, 2024, leap day, the music video called « Bush » came out. There’s a lot this music video makes me think about, so I wanted to write a note going over it all, including my past circumstances. (I think it’s a real hard text to read. I’m real sorry)

The time I got around to the basic song structure was January 2021. Now three years ago, when I was still living at my parents’. At the exact same moment I completed the demo for a song called « HANAMUKE », I finished the intro part.

As I decided that I would sing this song myself, I took out the condenser mic I’d freshly bought, and sang while fumbling my words. The string of lyrics from « Ooh, just cum inside » to « Hyururu » are words that came out improvised. It felt like my feelings at that moment came out just like that.

Following that and entering the period where I boycotted my University entrance exams (I’m the worst), ran away from home (the worst), and started freeloading in the house of people I met in Tokyo, I picked back up the songwriting at the very beginning of 2023. I had just produced in a row « Goodbye My Country », « Monkey/Snake » and « HANAMUKE », and kept going for the next step.

Or so I say, but to move on from the intro of Bush to the next part, absolutely, completely nothing came to my mind. At the time, I wouldn’t have believed I’d ultimately write a 10-minutes long song (which is a lot for a song of mine) ! In the first place, I wasn’t even planning on making it the final song of an album I’d call KARMA(a)DARMA. I was thinking I’d make it the first track of a future album.

I had my change of mind when I read again these lyrics.

« Just cum inside

The leftover libido is

our heart

The after quake keeps going

The volcano the hail the typhoon

Swim

Hyururu

Hyururu »

Everything that I’ve felt up until now, as well as the convictions I have now, they’re all mixed together in these lyrics, I thought.

In this album, KARMA(a)DARMA, I wrote my songs by lending my feelings to different characters, having them speak in my name. Then, as I went from the first to the last song, the way I experience my feelings came to change too, and I had the feeling that the grudges I held before came to vanish. I went through puberty with KARMA(a)DARMA, and as in the present, I’m living my life in the capital city, I had to let it end there. With this, these lyrics made me feel like « That’s it. That’s the end ». Because I got to sing confidently with my own words, and didn’t speak through a character, I think.

The dread towards love, desire and nature… No matter what, I can’t come around to grasp it all. That’s why it comes up in song, I think.

When I was in high school at that time, as I gradually came around to get a lot of people to listen to my music, a gap started forming in my heart between the music people wanted (or what I thought they did) and the music I wanted to make (or what i thought I did). This wasn’t just about music, I think it was a time where I was really saddened by the difficulty of fulfilling my wishes inside the categorization I was in. As I was writing this album, KARMA(a)DARMA, I was thinking, « When this album is done, could I get to live with more self-confidence ? » (what the hell is self-confidence though).

In the two animal characters that are featured in the MV for Bush, we have Gaku the hyena and Koh the maned wolf. They are both two characters I had inside of myself at the time.

I think everyone has an ongoing conflict inside of them. I think we have two feelings that are in contradiction. In my case, these two characters are the very personification of this conflict. These two completely different characters, with completely opposite ways of thinking, were arguing in my head. Sometimes they would become one, and would sleep with me by my side. In harsh times I would reach out to them, and receive a lot of advice and comfort. They weren’t perfect beings, they also were saying a lot of wrong things, and there were a lot of times where I would confort them. There were days when whe cried together.

Still now, they are both inside me, but as they both went their own way, I came to talk less and less with them.

For the production of Bush’s MV, I reached out to GREENGECKOTYSON. I think her way of life, her drawing style, and also her strong feelings towards hyenas naturally pushed me towards her.

From then, we discussed a lot about the characters, Gaku and Koh, and we progressively spun together the story of these two anthros making a road-trip from Canada to Southern America. In the process, as I got the feeling that the Gaku and Koh that were inside me were slowly coming out in the open, they came to take a new form, embodying a conflict or contradiction that everyone has within them. That made me really happy. The fact that what was only inside of me could come out in the open and take a new form so as to reach somebody out there, that made a lasting impression on me.

She told me that at times she felt like Gaku, and at times she felt like Koh. As far as I was concerned, I was the same.

In Bush, the trip’s scenery, its huge landscapes, and the physical desire, represent the shrinking distance between the two contrasting characters. Those lyrics, « Just cum inside », to me they feel like the biggest proof of faith one could give. Believing in someone, feeling the wind blowing : I love when those two sensations come rushing up at the same time.

Be it that big catastrophic earthquake, that I was so full of doubts I couldn’t bond with anyone, the sense of inferiority from being homosexual, the weakness of my abilities, my family, love, religion, the state of the world and so on. When it all comes together, it connects with various emotions and fears, and becomes something that’s hard to define out loud. To make « this » reach through, the method i used was screaming. Not only with my voice : I wanted to bring out the screams of sound itself. With that thought in mind, I came up with the last grand finale. All of the feelings in my heart as of now, the sensation of frantically standing up and making some noise : I feel like I’ve discovered it all that day for the first time.

I chose the title « Bush », while thinking of deserted plains. In a place like a vast plain with no horizon in sight, I wish there’d grow more wildgrass. That seeds would grow, and that trees would grow old. Or so I think, but at the same time, I strongly feel that this wish can’t be granted. And because of that, I think I really love sceneries of wild plains. I’m contradicting myself, but if choosing is giving up on something, rather than the green wild at my side, I’d rather go for the gravel road I’m on. Something like that. Also, in English, « Bush » has the meaning of a clump of grass, but it also has the meaning of pubic hair. In the lyrics, I wrote « the Bushes tangle », also with this meaning in mind. As if in the title came in together my passion for deserted plains as well as my desires, I went along with it.

Because after all, I had chosen the title, « Bush », before I finished writing the lyrics of the song. There’s no specific reason for this name, almost like I gave it because I just felt like it. The meaning that i'd give it came afterwards, but in my songwriting this sort of thing happens all the time. The word I felt drawn up to at the time ended up becoming the best fitted name for the song.

I wrote the « I want to love somebody so blind » bit at the end using a text memo from the time I was in Taiwan, wandering the streets alone and drunk, and scribbled in a rush as the words came rushing up to my head.

I have this feeling that I’d like to fistfight with somebody, somewhere, for real. Going up against something, and opposing it with all my might ; but if if I do that, something might break for good ! But I have to do it. I think there are times like this. And doing that, there may be times where you end up hurting the people that matter to you, or have to definitively go your separate ways with someone. But, if you don’t do it, I think you might end up cursing that person. The worst person to end up cursing is your own self. It’s this kind of feeling.

I wrote up about a lot of things to this point, but it’s kinda… I wanted to sum it up in a more clever way but anyway… It’s not like I was planning to go over everything from the start (or rather, I couldn’t even if I wanted to). I sincerely hope that it will all come through when watching this video ! Hope you’ll like it.

Oh, by the way, there are repeating lyrics at the end, those are « Saike saike go ». These are also words I came up with as I took out the mic, and wanted to try to use my voice somehow. I’m saying it more or less while combining the two nuances of « Sa ike, go » [« go on, go » in Japanese] and « Saike, go » [« Psychedelics, go » - pun on the pronunciation and Japanese translitteration of English here].

Yesterday, for the first time, I rode up the highway on the back of a bike, a friend of mine driving. Because I was wearing a helmet with no faceshield, my eyes wouldn’t open up because of the speed, and my ears were completely filled with the sound of noise. I think this is the first time in my life I’ve had this much noise in my ears.

This feeling and the last scene for Bush are very similar. At the end, as Koh the maned wolf sticks his head out the car window, he closes his eyes and his ears are shaked by the wind. At that moment, at 9 minutes in the MV, I think that the roaring sound really resembles the sound of the wind he’s feeling with his hears. Ah, right now, that’s what Koh is hearing… Or so I like to think.

I feel like I got to say most of what I wanted to say ! There is also stuff I’m not saying on purpose, but that is because, well, I lack the ability to put it up in a text that would make sense. Maybe I might write up follow-up notes from then. If so then I’ll let you know again. Thanks for reading ! If you think fondly of Bush, then I don’t think there’s anything else that could make me happier.

Let me use this text again to say a word for everyone who’s been involved in the production of Bush :

GREENGECKOTYSON, who drew the best animation ;

ZEROKU, who played the ultra cool bass part ;

Thank you as always, Ichi, who played the guitar ;

Noi, who was in charge of the mastering and recording,

Hinami Mei, who did the vocal arrangement,

Nomifuki, who translated the lyrics in English,

To all of you, you have my deepest gratitude. Thank you so, so much !

I’m grateful I got to create a song like this. In the future, I’ll give it my best and keep on trying new things ! Looking forwards to what’s next.

Abu-Se-Ken

なすのこ様によって翻訳して頂きました。誠にありがとうございます。

Translated by なすのこ(Nasunoko). Thank you very much.