Discussion topic for Track 3 of Love Song: Hoshi Naru Ishi (The Stone That Becomes A Star). 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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So one thing that’s occurred to me after three songs is that these all feel like they’re telling very similar stories. About a person who has lost the one they love, and keeps reminiscing about the good old days.
And yet, if we look at the two art pieces for Ao no Yume and Hoshi Naru Ishi, I’m almost convinced that they are portraying completely different characters. Could it be that these aren’t repeating the same story, but different (yet similar) stories?
EDIT: Okay conspiracy theory time. Ao no Yume ends with the singer looking for his lover, and there’s a weird line about being born on another planet under the spring sunlight.
Spring sunlight was also mentioned here. Now what if, there’s some kind of reincarnation thing going on? The two lovers souls bound by fate who keep reliving the same life over and over. It’s wild speculation but I couldn’t not bring it up 
@Aspirety, that’s my personal take too, that Love Story is about a transcendent romance that is rehearsed across many different worlds, with the same lovers born into different lives. The lyrics of one of the later songs, “Hashiru”, seem to hint at that too, but I’ll save that thought for tomorrow, he he.
Anyway, this song’s theme of finding magic in ordinary, everyday moments (or jewels in cobblestones) is very sweet, very ooh la la.
This is a bit tough for me to decipher because, well, it could be either extremely simple… or extremely complicated. Let’s go with the simple one.
Singer has a lover who is a very optimistic and hardworking person. Always looks on the bright side, works hard to provide for the family, and all that jazz. Suddenly shit hits the fan and a big problem happens. Despite that, because of the optimism that their lover had, the singer also learns to hold tight during these troublesome times.
Winter comes and the singer loses their loves one. But not all is sad, because they have learnes to be positive thanks to their loved one, and continue working towards what their loved one was working towards all these years.
This song felt pretty happy in comparison to the other songs… which is probably why I feel more positive for the outcome of this song. Pretty unique as far as maeda songs go in that, well, it feels like a more traditional, pop-ey song. I don’t mind it one bit, despite that :yukismil:
I like this song once it gets going, but the intro is just kind of meh
One of the notable characteristics of this song is the progression of the seasons to help with the passage of time.
Spring - the start with the sun that clears/purify the heart of the singer. In this they find something beautiful
Summer - the middle point with the sun so strong - the singer hurts their heart
Winter - The end with sun that has trapped the singer and their heart becomes cold.
In all of this there is “君しかいない/No one but you”
I read the seasons to be representative of phases of the relationship/life rather than something that happen in succession. The sun feels like it might be the love between the two of them, or maybe just the subject’s love for the singer.
Spring, the start. They find something beautiful literally in terms of the stone, and figuratively in terms of each other.
Summer - the love is there but aspects of it are so intense that the love now brings pain of its own.
It is clear that the singer is the one who feels responsible for causing the pain in their heart which I see as them feeling responsible for the pain in the relationship.
The winter is love after the singer has lost the person. But despite the subject not being there anymore, the singer is trapped in that lost love (冬の陽ざしに閉ざされて/ Enclosed in the winter sunlight) and their heart is ices over. The singer is left looking for the same beautiful thing they had when they started, but lost track of along the way.
Really like how this song is split into seasons, there’s quite a passage of time in the song which makes it feel like a proper story.
This song so far at least really feels more like an actual “love song” compared to some of the others. It’s how their relationship started, flourished, withered, and ended, assumingly with the singer’s partner’s death.
Well, that’s love song, everyone dies.
The second to last stanza (and the couple lines before) seems to suggest that their partner has some kind of terminal illness or something:
“You showed me your red fingers, and I held that hand of yours”
could be them putting their hand to a wound, or coughing up blood or something. Or it could be some metaphor I dunno.
that I hurt my own heart.
I’m not sure about this line. It could maybe be the singer’s fault that their partner became ill/whatever. It could possibly be them regretting meeting this person, because it only resulted in hurting them.
“And there… There was nothing, no one but you.”
The repetition of this line is neat, and then the hesitation here emphasises the sadness of the stanza.
For now, we hugged without any words. We hugged until we get tired of it.
And thus we shared this lasting anxiety together.
Super sad ;_; They’re spending as much time together because they know it’s probably going to end soon.
Pretty nice sounding song, I like the melody, and the cowbell and xylophone/whatever in the background, going back and forth in stereo between each ear, nice instruments in general.
I started like it more after reading the lyrics, it’s got some great repetition working really nicely with the seasons.
Definitely a more traditional pop-y song like @Pepe said, fitting in with the lyrics being a more traditional love song I think.
In a lot of ways, this is a very conventional pop song. It has a very conventional pop like chord progression, the melody resides almost entirely with the vocalist (outside of the violin solo during the bridge), and the bass is carried by a very easy electric base part with no syncopation or interest. Aside from some of the unnatural things (like the reverse crash from the drums and the clearly synthesized violin), this really just feel like a a casual jam session.
On the other hand, the instrumentation is very interesting, with a mix of Western and traditional Japanese instruments (particularly the strings). The lyrics of the song, with the focus on changing seasons, also strikes a very Japanese chord while sticking with a very Western style of romantic pop song. I think it’s this fusion of cultures that makes this one of my favorite songs on the album.
I don’t know why, but a few small details really stick out to me in this song. I really enjoy the syncopated clapping at the end of each chorus, and the chorale part in the bridge reminds me vaguely of Megu Meru from Clannad.
So, I feel like the issue of tense (past, present, future) which comes up with translation makes it a bit difficult for me to get a read out on how likely I feel it is that the singer’s lover passed. On the one hand, the last line is quite definitive on that point. On the other, the previous line is not only translated in present tense, but uses the term “We”. But, if he was still alive, why would the singer need to look for the stone on his own? It also flies in the face of the earlier line, “And there was no one but you, even until now”. I’ve been pondering the meaning of “Even when dusk befall us someday” in stanza 2. Is it literally referring to the fact that she likes to keep him out and about late to do random stuff together? Or could this contribute to Bonecuss’s theory that she suffers from a terminal illness? That would suggest, perhaps, that the singer is looking back, much like in The Hill of Beginning.
I refer to the people in question more specifically with gender pronouns because I feel, if the picture is to be taken literally as a representation of something in the song, and considering this song only has two characters, to me it’s quite obvious the character the singer speaks of is the girl, and the singer himself is the uncertain male. The cheerful look she has as she jogs over to (presumably) find the stone makes it clear to me. Track 2 had a rendering of a woman, but I’m not certain of which character she’s supposed to be.
I’m a little doubtful that there’s anything optimistic about this song. The music is upbeat and fun (though subdued compared to track 2), but I don’t seen any indication the singer has moved on by the end. In the next to last stanza, he talks about “lasting anxiety”, and in the last, his “heart becomes frozen”. I see this as a somber story where the singer has failed to move forward since his lover’s passing. Further evidence I see for this is the line “And there was no one but you, even until now”. She’s all he has to hold on to or look forward to in life. Earlier in the song, he decides to become a more active participant in his existence, but that honestly could have just been him riding high on emotional investment because all seemed well. His statement saying, “And now I search for that stone, all by myself” comes off to me as a sad reminder that he likely won’t move on from this.
