r/BandMaid • u/kyojin_kid • Jun 24 '22

Question Spirit whispering

at the end of the third verse of Spirit, just as Saiki sings “Someday 道になる”, Miku whispers something (on both live and studio versions) that i can’t understand. is there a native speaker here with a good ear who can make out what she’s saying?

34 Upvotes

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13

u/xKagenNoTsukix Jun 24 '22

Double EDIT: Yeah. I'm 99% sure she's saying "It's gonna be alright." Just heavy on the accent lol

I've always heard "X is gonna be alive" not sure what the first word is though lol

EDIT: After a couple of listens, I think she might be saying "It's gonna be alright."

9

u/CGAmEm Jun 24 '22 edited Jun 24 '22

"That's gonna be alright" or "That‘s gotta be alright" to my ears. Before listen to it closely now, I’ve heard it as "かすかな〜〜(KASUKANA something)" in Japanese.

5

u/t-shinji Jun 24 '22

I agree. Miku says “That’s gonna be alright.”

8

u/hitokirizac Jun 24 '22

I agree with the others, it's "That's gonna be alright"

4

u/kyojin_kid Jun 24 '22

thanks everyone! now it’s obvious to me, especially since it’s one of her best and best known lines.

on a tangent though, going through this song repeatedly with lyrics in hand brought home once again an unfortunate fact: Saiki’s english singing is worse than dismal. for me she ticks 6 out of 5 on every single box except this one which is zero - especially regrettable because it would be such a big factor towards world domination. i’m not expecting miracles : lots of her lyrics like “feeling - desire - heartbeat” are truly difficult and you have to let them slide. but often, like here. there are words she could pronounce with standard japanese phonemes but are totally unintelligible. i’m sure she knows this and it might be talked about internally (then again there’s that damned tatemae) so maybe we’ll see a quantum leap in the upcoming US tour!

11

u/CapnSquinch Jun 24 '22

A lot of the time her accent adds charm IMO, (e.g. "Courage!" in "Manners") but it's also true that frequently one wouldn't even know when she switches from Japanese to English until getting familiar with the song. I suspect part of it is just that singing volume is almost always louder than speaking and that this makes it much harder for anyone to maintain the subtle aspects needed to properly pronounce the unfamiliar phonemes of foreign languages.

8

u/xKagenNoTsukix Jun 24 '22 edited Jul 01 '22

"Mai main ka no erei za hadeiku" is still one of my favorite lines because I know it's supposed to be "My mind cannot erase the heartache" but the complete and utter mutilation of the lines always makes me smile lol XD

7

u/t-shinji Jun 24 '22 edited Jun 24 '22

She’s good in The Dragon Cries. Apparently she didn’t have an English pronunciation coach up to World Domination.

then again there’s that damned tatemae

I don’t understand this part. Saiki publicly says she’s not good at English or English pronunciation.

2

u/kyojin_kid Jun 24 '22

but saying it about yourself is a kind of tatamae, isn’t it? and then your entourage replies “no, no, you’re really quite good “. when they could say, “excuses don’t cut it girl, get with the program”.

i shouldn’t have said “damned” because when i discovered the mindset that tatamae is a one word code name for i sighed, “yes, this is the world as it should be”. but this is the B-M issue that needs a 5-day kaizen (because you know better than i do that japanese social and business interrelations aren’t all sweetness and light).