Discussion topic for Track 11 of Love Song: Orenai Tsubasa (Unbreakable Wings). Please support the official release by purchasing the album from iTunes! You can find a translation of the lyrics on ShiraneHito’s blog.
Please tag references to later songs or outside works with the [spoiler] tag, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
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Hi. I know I’ve skipped ahead one, I need to get this done now.
I’ve been sitting in this shadows the entire bookclub, I’ve hated to do this but I just cannot bring myself to make post I’m satisfied with, I’ve been absorbing what everyone has been saying in thread and podcasts and loving every bit of it while myself unable to post, but I’ve been there.
Why am I saying this now? Because it’s been bothering me and I want to get it out and this is the first Love Song post I’ve made really, why now you ask?
Because OOOOOOOOOOH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOD I LOVE THIS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. I CANNOT pass up on the post for this one. You ain’t gonna get a good post, you’re gonna get a sloppy post borrowing from the ideas proposed by others in this story, but I need to give this song as much as I can.
So getting out of the way that I’m with Biz on this one at this point, his ideal that Love Song are all one story, seems a lot of people dive into that pool, and good damn luck to anyone who doesn’t for this song, lyrically, it’s super sparse.
Anyway, going on the idea that it’s one story and the girl dies, I think this song is one you could place firmly ‘after’ that death.
Now then, the song.
Lyrics
By just a single flap, the paleness of the clouds dispersed.
Can be seen far away, a mirage of a city above the sky.
If I had to put on my crazy overanalysing hat on, I can only see this as some sort of heavenly imagery, especially with the ‘flap’, invoking something of the image of an angel.
Over and Over, it turned Hazy, swayed and disappeared.
I can no longer reach anywhere
And that is thanks to this line, as if the boy, seeing her ascent to the city in the sky in her death, yet it disappears before his very eyes, and he cannot reach it and by extension her.
…I do not like this way to read it, it feels too literal to me, too on the nose for Love Song.
To the blue planet…
To the blue earth…
This seems more like a bit of the blue circlejerk theme that this album follows rather than any direct coloration to the other lyrics, it’s disconnected in how it’s sung.
Random chanty noises that remind me a bunch of Mag Mell but I don’t believe actually mean anything
That’s such good stuff to hear.
Hurt, destroy, destroy, destroy, seek forgiveness
Lost, being lost, being loved, being betrayed, chase solely for dream
These are some harsh words, Hurt I can understand, by what was something that was destroyed so much as to warrant mentioning it several times, to seek forgiveness over?
Continuing with that I suggested earlier, going by this song being ‘right after the death’, perhaps these lines depict the boy in a state of turmoil and grief, ‘hurt’ makes sense, ‘destroy’ makes sense too, in a more severe way, perhaps not in a ‘destroying things’ way, but a ‘being emotionally destroyed’ by the loss way.
Seeking forgiveness? So very up for interpretation…
Lost, being lost, and being loved? Much easier to understand, looking back on events and how the relationship changed his status, but being betrayed? Very off, betrayed as in ‘ay yo you see this skank going and dying on my ass what a betraying ass ho’, it doesn’t fit.
Hurt, destroy, destroy, being destroyed, cling to someone
Love, being Loved, even I had such a mundane freedom
Even more interesting is ‘being destroyed’ as the last mention of destroy, I feel like that implies the thing that was destroyed was the boy moreso than ever, also implying that the self destruction has been going on long enough for it to be a past tense, no longer happening, the complete emotional destruction of the boy has happened.
But now this is interesting. ‘Cling to someone, love, being loved.’ Does this imply love strikes again for our protagonist?
…personally I don’t think so, I of course approve of the happy ending and the message to move on if this were the case, I really do, but it’s unromantic, to go past the girl just like this, this is also at odds with that I know of Biz interpretation of the next song, it’s the beauty of this album, ones interpretation is only one way to view it.
Instruments
Oh my goooooooooooood this sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong
I can’t wait for @therationalpi to tell me what magical composer trickery is going on that makes me like this song so much, but the composition here is just fantastic.
It’s worth noting that, honestly if I had to describe this song without the lyrics, this is fuckin’ hype, this seems like such an upbeat and cheerful song that makes you want to take on anything, a very very far cry from my interpretation, in a sense, I find that to be a good thing, I like the juxtaposition.
So as soon as the song starts you have that techno boop boop(yeah you go Kanon, analyse the shit out of something without having even half the vocabulary required to accurately describe it) always sort of going in a loop, this goes on for basically all the song, only stopping when a different techno boop boop short repeating pattern replaces it, this goes well with the repeating words later in the song, could interpreted it as being unable to move on from her death, always replaying the memories of her during the ‘being destroyed’ phase.
Moving on we have THAT GOD DAMN PIANO, I love that god damn Piano, it has such a tiny part in this song but stands out so much, I think a part of that is how wubby and technoy trance(I’m sure you understand what I’m trying to say) the rest of the instrumentation and even the vocals can be at a time, so a stark and simple tone of a few piano keys stands out against the rest whenever it makes it’s appearance.
Together these two things form a fantastic intro for the song that slowly builds up until the lyrics begin, it’s huge, but I very much enjoy a long intro with build up, once the lyrics start, aside from the piano going nuts for a bit, the build up seems to disappear, and in fact, the song begins to slow down…
Next we gotta talk about the halfway point, the first repeating boop boop noise ends during the strange chanting as the music comes to a brief halt, the sounds of flapping wings is heard, as the second boop boop begins, builds bit by bit with the first set of lyrics and then this shit DROPS for the last two, I absolutely adore the second half of this song, the build up, something I extremely enjoy is phenomenal, the entire first part of the song feels like it’s nothing more than a prelude to the second half which makes that huge drop at the end all that more satisfying, the piano makes it’s return right at the end, as striking to the rest of the song as ever, as the second half once again beings to peter out to the strange chanting, although with the piano serving to make it more hype this time.
I love this song, the vocals are such a small part of it, just another instrument in the 4 minute long hype build up for the drop. Whether I’m even close to on track with my interpretation of the lyrics is irrelevant, whether I agree with the message it may be implying at the end is irrelevant, it will always send a tingle down my spine when that second repeating techno boop boop begins and the eventual drop shortly after.
This is what I think of when I think of Love Song. I firmly believe it’s one of Maeda’s finest ass musical accomplishments, and I don’t even god damn enjoy techno-trancy boop boop stuff typically.
No wonder he reused the melody for something else later
I’m not gonna try to seek any logic in the multitude of words being repeated. Other than that there are Five verbs per line. I think the important part here is the dispersing illusion and the boy recognizing it’s something he can’t attain. The many verbs being thrown around is just a swirl of emotions at the time of realization from last song. But despite how chaotic this song may seem, I think it’s pretty clear that the boy has accepted that the girl’s death now. He’s spent a long time both thinking back to the happy days and ignoring the sadness, but he’s now over the threshold. Back in the real world, the next song tells us how it all wraps up.
Such an abstract song deserves an abstract interpretation, I feel. I don’t even want to think about what this means for the overall “story” but I think this song gives a very clear message of what it means to love.
When love starts, it is akin to an illusion. One that you may have not seen before, but with the flap of some wings, suddenly it is right there in front of you. When love ends, everything remains hazy; you constantly ask yourself “what went wrong?” but no matter what answer you try to give, you can no longer reach it.
Love connects us to this earth and makes us human. We hurt and we destroy, all for the sake of love. We want to be forgiven, so that we may continue loving. Sometimes we are lost, and we are betrayed because of love, but we never stop chasing for that dream. We cling onto the people that we love, needing them to fulfill our emotional needs. But, in the end, loving someone and being loved represents the ultimate freedom that anyone can ask for.
Orenai Tsubasa is love.
This song is amazing. It might be my favorite of the album, and if it isn’t, it’s second only to track 5.
I also agree that the lyrics are abstract. Going off with Helios said, I believe this song picks up right after the previous one. One of the last lines of track 10 establishes that the boy is being pelted by frozen rain. Much like the previous song both literally and figuratively described the weather, this one also does so. At the beginning, the clouds begin to disperse. Simultaneously, he finally starts to find mental clarity, apart from the angst and internal depression he’s been feeling all this time. However, there is a hint of resentment. He sees his past relationship with the girl, equated to a mirage of a city in the sky, a fleeting, nice thought that he can no longer reach. Slowly, yet surely, though, he’s coming back to reality. He’ll be able to face life again with determination. His mantra in the next to last stanza show how everything is flowing through him discordantly as he tries to come to peace with his emotions and faces them head on. It’s interesting how a couple of these directly reference conflicts in earlier songs, in my mind. “Chase solely for dream” may reference his increasingly narrow-minded view of his goal in track 6, and “cling on someone” may represent the desperation and persistence of the singer in track 2. At the very end, he realizes an interesting truth about love. Although it means so much more to him, it’s a mundane beauty, a freedom that everyone, even a broken, undermotivated, depressed being like him, deserves to have. I see that as a major turning point. No longer does he envision himself as a machine like in track 8, or someone who can no longer love like in track 6. He’s satisfied that he himself was capable of love, too.
In terms of the picture, I find it interesting that the girl is half-faded on a backdrop that’s most certainly the Earth. To me, this represents how his angst is slowly fading away, and as the song says, he’s slowly returning to reality.
I guess I’ll mention it proper before the podcast, but as you’re all aware, Maeda reused quite a few melodies from Love Song in his future. Hashiru > Kakeru being the most well known.
As well as reusing Natsukage for Love Song.
But what many people might not know is that he sampled the shit out of this for a song in a none key VN called Eien as well as an instrumental track from the same game.
These songs are vastly inferior to Orenai Tsubasa of course but it’s a very neat little piece of trivia.
