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arashitranslation
In Voyage's NINO's Diary, he said that this was probably his favourite solo song.
This is also my favourite Nino solo, and I've translated it in 2018 to celebrate Nino's birthday.
In this episode, Nino talked about the change of lyrics.
CD lyrics: "We're always here"
28 Apr ver.: "We're always by your side"
CD lyrics: "(This is Us) All along, all along and forever"
28 Apr ver.: "We're always by your side"
Nino changed the 28 Apr version to the CD version because he thought that the "We're always by your side" is too insincere:-
"Though in normal circumstances, 'We're by your side' sounds really healing, when it came to that situation with such tremendous sense of hopelessness, such words which worked in normal situation ... but had someone said these distant words to me, I've never thought about this, but I do would have felt "How can you be by my side!". Normally one would be "Ah ... Thanks" when hearing such words, but I thought that was a situation which we couldn't imagine, so I changed the lyrics to "All along, all along, forever'." (Voyage, EP19 NINO's Diary)
This song was written in 2011. Nino said that the earthquake made him think about the importance of "tomorrow" and he thought that he had to do something, but though he progressed the arrangement of the song, he had no idea on the lyrics:-
"Different people have different feelings and reaction towards 3.11. I think it's really tough to express the feelings through singing, but it's the same tough not to sing ... I wrote the 'Energy Song' in the midst of planned power outage(1), but in fact, my feeling (towards 3.11) was so vast that I sort of didn't know how to deal with it." (Voyage, EP19 NINO's Diary)
The melody and music arrangement of this song led me to see a "spacious land", like my view was suddenly widened when listening to the music. This is significant to the listeners because after 3.11, in many places, "land" vanished and turned to "debris", and people needed to crowd in shelters, gymnasiums, etc. with no sight of "space", physically and spiritually. The music of this song was powerful to show listeners a vision of "tomorrow".
And I always like Nino's lyrics, the way he sketches "daily life", that the world we live is not perfect, there is sorrow, there is frustration, there are tears, but there is also hope, and you got to experience your life full, embracing both the cry, the fall, and the smile:-
"Voice loud with all my might. As if a proof that "I'm here".
We are not that weak, but not that strong either.
So it's fine to cry. It's not a thing to be ashamed of.
Because only people with tomorrow can do this.
Because this is the signal towards tomorrow.
Look. We breath in, we breath out. We are alive.
We are walking step by step. Just that will be fine ...
It's okay. We're always here.
So try to open your heart wholly,
so, it's fine to hold your head high and say
"This is Us"
All along, all along and forever ..."
(1) During 3.11 aftermath, Japan had planned power outage so as to save power. Sho-san wrote in his blog "Otonoha" that he stayed at home, totally dark, getting chilled because of power outage, but that was not comparable to the suffering encountered by the earthquake victims.