Nagai aida biography final fantasy

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It's Only Love: Modern Japanese Love Song Lyrics as Texts

Nora Stevens

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Introduction
After hearing so many different kinds of songs in class, I began thinking about the ones I had personally come across in my travels to Japan. I realized that love--whether new, unrequited, or lost--is probably the most common topic for songs in just about any country, and Japan is no exception. I narrowed my field of study to Japanese love songs, especially the more modern ones, mostly from the last decade.
However, it did not seem fair to compare Japanese love songs with American ones, at the risk of falling into the "X is better than Y" trap. As a linguist and Japanese major, too, I am perhaps most interested in song lyrics--how each song says what it says. Thus, I chose to zero in on the words of these love songs.
Finally, I wanted to examine several different styles of love songs, from singer-songwriter material to pieces from one of the most modern musical media: video games. I chose two examples of each (usually one male and one female, where applicable) and proceeded to analyze them both separately and together. I took special care to consider devices such as structure and meter along with theme and vocabulary. The full text of all songs used in this paper is available here, and was translated by me (with professorial fine-tuning) unless otherwise indicated.

Singer-Songwriters: Male: It's Only Love
Popular in the summer of , this interesting piece portrays a young man who thought breaking up with his girlfriend was the best thing that happened to him--until he realizes he is still overwhelmed by his feelings for her. Japanese (female) friends of mine were captivated by this song, which shows what sensitivity can lie beneath the typical Japanese guy's coolly stoic exterior. (Or maybe it only showed what sensitivity they hoped was there, and that's why it was so popular.)
The song has some narrative elements, which include the speaker, alone, being drawn to

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