During the year end and the beginning of the new year, I wrote some blog texts for our “personal” Japanese website. It’s really nothing. I’m not even sure if we should post them on our English “official” website or social media pages, because those are very personal, spiritual, and may dismay some people. However, at the same time I want to see how Automatic Translation by Mr.GPT performs for this kind of long, complex and personal texts.
So here it is. The New Year Blog Post part1 of 3.
(Originally written in Japanese, in a very personal style. This English translation might be incorrect in some parts.)
Well, it’s funny to post this using automatic translation because this is a story about things lost in translation.
[Translation accuracy evaluation: 95%]
“The Truth Beyond Translation”
Lately, a bit belatedly, I have been reading books about Van Halen, or rather about Eddie Van Halen.
Since Edward Van Halen passed away in 2020, many books have been published about him, including biographies, interview collections, and photo books.
The two books I read this time were Tonechaser: Understanding Edward by Steve Rosen, and Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen by Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill.
I had been interested in Tonechaser ever since it was published a few years ago and had wanted to read it for a long time, but it was hard to get in Japan. Recently, however, it finally became available on Kindle and similar platforms, so I bought the digital edition.
I have not finished either book yet, but I am reading both of them in English. They are extremely interesting. That said, Eruption also quotes many interviews conducted by Steve Rosen, so there is a considerable overlap between the content of these two books.
This is something I have felt, pointed out, and talked about for at least the past fifteen years. Back when we were kids, we used to read interviews with major musicians like this in music magazines published in Japan. Of course, those interviews were translated into Japanese.
But as we entered the 21st century and the internet age, it became possible to read those interviews online in their original language, meaning English. If you can read English, this is clearly better, because you can read musicians’ words much closer to how they were actually spoken, basically as they are. On top of that, the information reaches you much faster. By the time an interview was translated into Japanese and published in a Japanese magazine or website, several days or weeks would pass, and in the case of print media, it would often take months.
These days, that situation has improved quite a bit. Japanese translations of interviews sometimes appear online as early as the next day, and the language barrier itself has been greatly lowered thanks to AI-powered machine translation. Still, mistranslations remain, and subtle differences in nuance are common, even with the latest AI tools.
In addition to the two Kindle books mentioned above, I recently decided on a whim to buy Guitar Magazine Archives Vol. 8: Eddie Van Halen, a Japanese publication that came out not long ago.
As I more or less expected, however, most of the interviews included overlap heavily with those in Tonechaser and Eruption. I would say about eighty percent, or maybe even ninety percent. That might be an exaggeration. Perhaps around seventy percent. In other words, this Guitar Magazine archive can be described as a translated compilation of material from those books.
What this means is that when it comes to interviews with Edward Van Halen, Steve Rosen conducted a great number of precious interviews, especially in Eddie’s younger years, and those interviews have become valuable source material worldwide.
That said, Japanese magazines are beautifully made and include many high-quality photographs, so they are enjoyable in their own way.
I do not know what the editorial policy of Guitar Magazine was like back then, but one thing I always respected about Young Guitar was their effort to conduct original interviews whenever possible. At least, when I look at old issues, that is the impression I get. It feels like interviews conducted by Japanese journalists themselves, in Japan.
That said, Young Guitar also had its own editorial policy, or rather, its own magazine “color.” In my view, their interviews had a distinctive tone, and musicians’ words were often edited and translated to fit that tone. It was very much in line with a wholesome, youth-oriented Japanese magazine style, probably with educational considerations in mind. In that sense, it was peaceful and very Japanese, and not necessarily a bad thing. But it does mean that musicians were not always saying exactly what the articles made it seem they were saying, so readers needed to take that into account.
In any case, I do not own a collection of old Young Guitar issues. The few old magazines I had brought from my parents’ house were almost all lost in a fire two and a half years ago. In that sense, this might be a good opportunity to pick up some Young Guitar interview collections as well.
Either way, translation is a tricky thing.
And the same can be said about importing products or working as an import agent.
Translation is often softened and embellished to suit business needs and to avoid causing friction in various directions. This is true not only for words but also for things like food.
If you dislike that, the only option is to make the effort to read the original language. Scholars and people who seriously study things learn languages precisely so they can access original texts.
Convenient translation has existed for a long time. For example, when Christianity was introduced to Japan during the Warring States period, Roman Catholic Jesuit missionaries from Europe preached their teachings, and Japanese interpreters did their best to translate them. Because those translations were somewhat softened, people apparently misunderstood Christianity as a sect of Buddhism and believed in it under that misunderstanding. I have heard stories like that.
There must be countless examples like this throughout history, all over the world.
This shows how difficult it is to convey ideas, and how difficult it is for human beings to truly understand anything. When people talk about reading the Bible, they often say that without a sudden insight, an inspiration, what is called guidance by the Holy Spirit, humans may not be able to understand anything at all. That may be a misunderstanding itself, but overcoming misunderstandings one by one is also part of the process of understanding.
Japanese rock is a culture built on misunderstandings.
Everyone misunderstood something.
Lost in translation. Mistranslation. Misheard lyrics. Turns of phrase. Differences in assumptions. Differences in environment. When languages differ, worldviews differ as well, so misunderstanding is, in a sense, inevitable.
This is true not only for words, but also for sound and music itself. People often say that music has no borders, that it is a universal language. But if you look at how music exists in modern society, misunderstandings around sound itself may actually be even greater. Just think about guitars or audio equipment. In fact, this problem is more serious, especially now that we live in an age where people listen to music on smartphones.
Of course, misunderstandings are not always bad. Many things are born from misunderstanding. You could even say that new and creative things are born from misunderstanding. Much of Eddie Van Halen’s creativity, after all, was born from mistakes, ignorance, and misunderstanding.
Still, there are moments when you want to go beyond misunderstanding and get closer to something real.
That something might be Jesus Christ, or God, or truth itself.
For me this time, it is Edward Van Halen.
When you want to understand a person beyond translation, mistranslation, and what is lost in translation, you feel the urge to cross barriers of culture, language, time, and environment, one by one, even if it is troublesome. In that sense, understanding cannot exist without love.
This Guitar Magazine archive includes pages from the original 1980s issues, and in some cases it is unclear when the translations were done. But even taking all that into account, there are many mistranslations. Comparing it with the two books mentioned above and with English interviews available online, mistranslations appear again and again. Not just occasionally, but quite often. It leaves me feeling frustrated.
Old music magazines probably contained many mistranslations as well. But through those mistranslations, we misunderstood artists and rock music, and through those misunderstandings, we came to understand them in our own way.
In the past, Western rock records and CDs in Japan often came with detailed liner notes and Japanese translations of the lyrics. Those liner notes were a uniquely Japanese music culture and quite fascinating in their own right.
I do not know who translated those lyrics or how they did it, but they were full of mistranslations and strange interpretations. Of course, there were occasional brilliant translations as well. Now that I am an adult and can understand English reasonably well, looking back at them makes me laugh at how wildly off some of those translations were. Someone should really write a feature about them. They sit somewhere between misheard lyrics and Engrish.
A similar topic is Japanese release titles. This may no longer be common in music, but it still exists in the film world. Titles that make you wonder why on earth they were translated that way.
You could talk endlessly about language barriers. And this is not limited to Japanese people. It happens both ways, including when people from other countries look at Japan.
As a band that has operated in the somewhat complicated position of being a Japanese Christian band, we have struggled a great deal with these language barriers. We have stumbled many times, to the point where it has actually affected our activities.
That is why I do not want to gloss over these issues. I am the type of person who cannot help but be curious about what lies beyond words. At the same time, misunderstanding is a step toward understanding, and you could even say that all understanding is misunderstanding. In the end, what matters is not how others see you, but how you yourself face things, how you face the world, and how you sound your own truth within it.
Sound, in other words truth, exists beyond words. The question is how you face the truth beyond words, and how sincerely you can do so.
And of course, when it comes to translation, Christianity is no exception. There is the translation of the Bible itself, and there is the question of how Christianity has been received in different countries and regions.
It is a topic even more deeply entangled with translation than music. If you dig into it, it becomes an endless historical quagmire. Yet at its core, Christianity is simple. The cross. How you face the cross. Whether you take up your own cross or not. Whether you face Jesus Christ or turn your back on him.
Rock, at its core, should be the same.
The reason I suddenly felt compelled to read books about Edward Van Halen recently, after all this time, is probably because I wanted to understand the suffering he carried.
For example, a Christian might wish to carry even a fraction of the cross that Jesus Christ bore, or to understand even a tiny part of the suffering he endured during the Passion. To be precise, Jesus supposedly bore the sins and suffering of all humanity, so even a billionth of that would be more than I would care to take on.
There are figures we respect, admire, and wish to follow, even from far away. For me, there are at least two such people: Eddie Van Halen and Yoshimura from Bloodthirsty Butchers.
The suffering they endured as musicians and artists must have been beyond imagination, especially in the later years of their lives.
Perhaps only a fraction of that, but I believe I too carry a similar kind of suffering, a similar cross, without even realizing it. I make music from the awkward position of being part of a Japanese Christian metal band, and I am an unknown indie musician. In that sense, I consider my anonymity a blessing. Even so, anyone who has continued creating over a long period carries a certain kind of pain.
To face my own pain, I wanted to peek, even slightly, into the inner world of Edward Van Halen. In other words, this too is part of my own cross as I face the truth of rock.
Eddie Van Halen is one of the most famous rock stars in the history of rock, and at the same time, I believe he was one of the most misunderstood figures in the world. Because of that, the darker, more painful parts of his life are not easily visible through translations packaged as products.
In that sense, Steve Rosen’s Tonechaser feels like it goes one step deeper than the usual glossy biographies. I do not know how accurate every detail is, but as a work, it carries intensity, commitment, power, and love. That was, of course, Steve Rosen’s own first-rate misunderstanding.
But that is fine.
Perhaps love itself is a highly refined form of misunderstanding.