This is a song I stole from an anime I absolutely adore and I don’t give even one shit, let alone two, that it’s for little girls under the age of 12.  Nope.  Don’t care.  Just like I don’t care that I love ninja turtles or anything else.  Cardcaptor Sakura has a lot to offer in it, even to a grown up woman.  The characters are outstanding, the character development is superb and subtle and utterly charming, and the life lessons help when sometimes you need to be reminded that you can handle what life throws at you.

I sing a lot of Japanese songs from anime, actually.  Basically any anime that gives me music I like, I’ll eventually learn to sing in full.  And if there’s a dance involved, I learn that, too — notably, I’ve mastered the dance to “Seikan Hikou” from Macross Frontier.  Which I have NOT recorded, thank you very much, but I can dance it!

Part of the reason we programmed this song was that I wanted something gentle to follow “Jagged,” something soothing but that would also give people the chance to think and feel before I asked them to really listen again.  Singing in a foreign language is good for that sort of thing.  Sarah wasn’t overwhelmingly happy that I programmed it because the guitar part didn’t exist anywhere in any form she could use, so she had to make it up off the audio track directly.  But I love what she did with it.  I only wish it weren’t quite so weirdly complicated and she could sing the harmony with me!

This is the basic translation to the Japanese verses:

In the night sky, they twinkle
The far stars of gold
The same color as the small bird
That looked up in my dream last night

In the sleepless night,
I sing this song alone
Together with the blowing wind,
I fly riding on my thoughts

In the night sky, it sparkles
The distant moon of silver
The same color as the wild rose
That was blooming in my dream last night

In the gentle night,
I sing this song alone
Let me sing with you tomorrow
Riding the wings of our dreams

*Please note that this entry has been backdated.  Basically, the summer got completely away from me AND I lost access to posting on the site from the reliable computer I’d been using — and posting via smartphone is not as elegant as it sounds.  So, to make up for it, I’ve retroactively put this entry here.  Hopefully this won’t become an annual trend!