Lately when I’m in the mood for loud, fast and not overly intellectual music, I listen to Onmyouza, a well-dressed “yokai” metal band. Here’s “組曲「鬼子母神」〜鬼拵ノ唄,” transliterated by Google as “Kumikyoku ‘kishimojin’ — oni Koshirae no uta.”
One of the advantages of listening to music in languages you don’t know is that you can pretend that the words are literate and worth hearing. I foolishly became curious about Onmyouza’s lyrics and looked for translations. I found a video with subtitles of one of their other pieces, and I kinda wish I hadn’t. If you understand what the song above is about, please don’t tell me.
It can work the other way as well. I came to appreciate certain songs and tracks after learning something about lyrics. Examples are mostly iM@S, but hopefuly because it’s next to all I listen. The first was “relations”, which I saw subtitled at an iM@S panel at Las Cruces Anime Days in 2010 or so. I had no idea! After that I started to pay more attention to the words, and the next was “Koi” (it’s a newly canonical Yukiho cover for iM@S 2nd Vision, CV Azumi Asakura). It just dawned on me what it was about one day. I’m still working on Tonari Ni, due to the “The Legend of MomozakiP”.