Discussion topic for Track 8 of Love Song: Gramophone. 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 there’s creaking, mechanical sounds in the background. There’s also a sequence that kinda spins around the listener. it’s like a 3 note sequence where every note is higher than the last, and it just repeats like that, but it moves counter-clockwise around you. I guess that might be mimicking a record spinning.
Well this was certainly unexpected! I end up being reminded a lot of CLANNAD here.
I have to laud this album for how much variety there is in the musical stylings of this album. Over the course of these 8 tracks, there have been so many different sounds and instruments employed. It really helps the album stick and prevents the common problem a lot of albums have where a number of the songs feel as if they’re blending together. I may not be a particularly big fan of the way this track sounds (purely from a preference perspective), but I appreciate the sound it does make.
So, this song is… Interesting. I’ve seen weirder examples of personification than a Gramophone, but it’s nonetheless unique.
Compared to earlier entries, this song feels straightforward, but I’m almost certain there has to be more to this song than a romance of sorts between a record player and a girl. I take from the text that the Gramophone has always been sentient to an extent. The fact the second stanza explains that the Gramophone plays without a record inside of it informs me that this Gramophone is alive, more directly than the mention of it being “strange-shaped”. What does change about it, however, starts when falls in love with the girl. He grows arms in place of the cranes used to turn a record player. He used them to have a more intimate connection with the girl, one where he could physically hold her. I’m not sure what this is supposed to represent. Is it, perhaps, an illustration of how we try to be something we’re not in order to please others? I don’t think so, because the only thing remaining of the Gramophone in the end is the arms. Is the fact that the main character of this song is a Gramophone indicative of a message in which we learn that love is more important than appearances? That seems like a message that’s too broad and one that ends up diminishing the significance of the rest of the song.
Next, the pair sings together. The Gramophone’s attempt to imitate the girl’s “beautiful tone” results in a “bellows-like sound.” I can’t tell if this is supposed to be unattractive, or uniquely different in a cute way. They went on a journey encompassing ten years, though I wouldn’t be surprised if “journey” was just another word for their life together. A new character is then introduced in the form of the minstrel. Is this another metaphor or a way of showing us the time period? The latter is unlikely, I suppose, because the Gramophone better establishes a time. Despite this, the time period has yet to be significant to this song. In any case, the minstrel sings of their journey, and a screeching iron accompanies him. The sound evidentially resounds regardless. I wonder if maybe after all these years, the Gramophone is strating to lose it’s luster, yet still has the confidence to sing.
The next portion of the song drops a bomb. Their journey ends here, likely another reference to life ending, or death, and the next line says that the dearest one (a phrase used to refer to the girl in the first stanza), can no longer move or sing, another likely reference to death. The Gramophone reacts in anguish, committing suicide, leaving nothing but the arms it grew in response to meeting the girl. These arms collect the memories the two had together, likely just meaning it became a symbol for the meaningful yet tragic life they shared together, as well as their dream. I find this mention of a dream rather surprising, since I don’t really see any sign of a long-term ambition or hope here in this song. Perhaps their dream was just the mundane hope of staying together? Is the war a literal war, or is it possibly illustrating how conflict drove the two apart or a reference to circumstances beyond their control?
Like track 7, this song is told in the third person perspective. It’ll be interesting to see if this trend keeps up in future songs. I also wonder what happened to the minstrel in this piece.
The artwork here tells little. We don’t even get a visual representation of the minstrel. It’s just the girl and gramophone with his arms together. The background isn’t even descript. I will say that the girl is dressed in a way that tells me she’s probably a commoner in terms of social status. Her clothes look slightly baggy, so maybe she’s poor? Perhaps the war they mention is one she was forced to be drafted in? Maybe I’m looking too far into this.
My older brother had an interesting interpretation of portions of this song. First of all, he explained to me that there’s actually a Japanese legend about Gramophones in which after one survives for 100 years, it becomes self-aware. Whether that directly plays into the song’s story, I’m not sure, but it does explain the choice of a Gramophone as an image. In addition, if the legend does apply, it might relate to how the Gramophone suddenly grows arms when it previously had none, though this is slightly brought into question by how the thing seems to be alive at the beginning, what with it playing music without a record inside.
Then, in the later portions of the song, he explained the deliberate use of war as the reason for the end of the journey might actually be social commentary of sorts, a commentary on the industrialized nature of Japanese warfare post-Japan’s industrial revolution. This being a war might be where the minsterl’s song is accompined by “screeching iron”, it’s a sign of bad things to come. That factories are preparing for war. The war, a tramautizing, all-consuming experience, takes away the girl and the gramophone’s hopes and dreams, as the girl (who, in his interpretation, doesn’t necesarrily die), can no longer see the good in the world and no longer has the strength to see. The Gramophone, once a beautiful intstrument, is used for scrap metal by industries who no longer care whether something was once beautiful. They only care for using it to further their cause, thus showing how even precious things were thrown away in favor of progress in this tumultous part of Japanese history. He wasn’t sure about what the arms represent,though.
There’s some real time shenanigans going on in this song. The first two lines describe the machine in present time. The following 4 lines in the stanza are past tense talking about how it fell in love and stuff. In those lines it’s mentioned how the machine was very big in the beginning. At the end of the song, the machine is seemingly broken, so what were those two first lines about? So while this appears to be a very sad song about the machine breaking, it appears it lives on in a smaller form. The lyrics also talk about re-assembling their dream which is very similar to the painting from Bokura no Koi.
Now, of course the elephant in the room is why the protagonist would describe himself as a machine that grows arms. He hasn’t been very positive about himself in the previous songs even saying he can’t love in Bokura no Koi. I think it was in Hyakunen no Natsu when he said that the girl had taught him everything.
Hmm… I hadn’t honestly considered the possibility of the protagonist being the same in more than a couple of songs. I guess the fact that Ao no Yume’s protag seemed so different from the others made me think most of them were different people. Although, it would explain why the dream isn’t elaborated on if this is carrying over from earlier entries.
I can go with the interpretation that a personified machine might be his way of putting himself down, his way of expressing how distant and difficult it is for him to connect with someone. He has to grow arms just to be able to physically connect with the person he loves.
As has bene mentioned, a number of these songs seem to follow a similar structure, what with two lovers being separated/traumatized by tragedy. Could some of these be retellings of the same events from different points on one’s emotional journey?
Also, I wonder if leaving the arms behind, even after it’s parts have been used for scrap, shows that the machine, in spite of its feeling of isolation, was closer to humans than it thought it ever could be. His present state of eternal existence does additionally echo the eternal suffering the protagonist felt in track 6.
I’m skeptical of if the Gramophone is supposed to be the equivalent of the “boy” from the other songs. I wonder if the “boy” isn’t supposed to be the minstrel, and the gramophone is supposed to be stand in for the dreams or ambitions of the girl. In a few song the subject came up, but Azure Dream eluded to the idea the girl had her own dream that she was moving towards independent of the POV character of most of the songs so far. The gramophone breaks when girl is no longer there dream of it, but the memories are left.
The minstrel as the boy being almostt non-character is part of why I think this. Basically the minstrel is there to “sing what he saw” - but he acts almost as observer of the girl and the gramophone.
Hmm… So, the arms the gramophone’s left represents the memories of the girl’s dream? I can see that, but the last line indicates the “they” shared a dream, rather than having opposite goals here. Unless “war” is a metaphor for something else, it feels like a conflict they weren’t expecting separated them in this song.
Gaahh. This song is weird and I can’t really connect with it. Perhaps not being a Gramophone is the reason.
I thought the girl was the minstrel since it was mentioned that she’s a singer and a traveler. She and the Gramophone sang what they saw throughout their journey yet time got the better of them. The girl eventually passed away and the Gramophone’s song isn’t as good as before. They both grew old.
Yeah I always thought the girl was the minstrel, since she’s described as singing earlier in the song. Dunno why people were convinced it was a different character 
Actually, yeah, without thinking about it, I was also reminded of clannad. I believe the gramophone represents a person who, well, doesn’t feel all that much like a person; at least, until he meets the minstrel he falls in love with.
They continue their relationship (and for 10 years, too!) And the girl loves him despite (or maybe because of?) his unique charms. Tragedy strikes, and he cries own, denying his own humanity, and throwing away the arms; the only thing making him feel human.
This is the story of a broken man, who could only feel human while he was with his love. Despite having loved and lost, their memories remain, reminding him of the time when he was once human.
Hmm… I’m not sure about whether the gramophone leaves it’s arms by choice or not. I believe the line “Leaving only the arms” could simply refer to what was left after the machine was turned to scrap. Potentially, it just goes to show that while his mechanical body was only temporary, the human parts of him he’d denied for so long live on as a testament to the very real feelings he had for her.
