Over the break, I listened to a fascinating podcast I think connects really well to our class. It’s called “What is Original?” and it aired a couple years ago on TED Radio Hour. In it, various TED speakers (including Mark Ronson, a well known music producer) explore the boundaries of what can be considered original, and whether any sort of human idea is truly novel. I think the first section that Mark Ronson narrates is specifically interesting to our class because he speaks about sampling, and how he believes we live in a “post-sampling” time. This led me to think about our class discussion on dancehall riddims and how borrowing of tracks is so common in music making. I also thought a lot about this borrowing while my group was working on constructing our soundtrack of the future.
I can’t recall if the line that Fan utters – “where you are” – is ever resolved by the end of On Such A Full Sea. But this call into the void, open to interpretation, foreshadowing an epic journey into the unknown beyond B-Mor, has stuck with me long after reading the novel. It’s a cool line. I… like it a lot. By its provocative nature, it also crops up in plenty of music.
Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Be Where You Are” is wild. Rina Sawayama’s flip – and first SoundCloud-hit – “Where U Are” is also wild. The gazillion other recordings or samples of MJ’s original are also, all, very cool. I feel like I had more examples over the last month, but I guess I’m forgetting them now. Anyways.
Thinking a lot about throwing “where you are” into the abyss has brought me to Hikaru Utada’s DISTANCE. English backing vocals in the introduction repeat “Where you are / Near or far”, which repeat throughout the song. Lyrics translated from Japanese (or sung in English) call out to a distanced lover, making reference to swimming, unspeakable feelings, being together, distances, perseverance, hope. All of these happen to be recurring themes or motifs during Fan’s journey, making DISTANCE not only a really, really, really catchy J-Pop Pop-RnB fusion song, but a song curiously relevant to On Such A Full Sea.
Some selected lyrics, translated from the original, mostly-Japanese lyrics:
I’m anxious but I can’t say anything I’m tired of swimming, even you’ve become silent
I want to see you, but an invisible wave pushes us Again, just a little more distance
Try not to stop keep it going baby If you don’t feel the same then tell me Even if your principle is to not try It’s alright to try a little
I wanna be with you now Let’s shorten the distance with the two of us We can still make it on time We can start over We can’t be as one I wanna be with you Someday even this distance We’ll be able to embrace We can start sooner After all I wanna be with you
DISTANCE – M-Flo Remix
Very, very, very cool remix. Supposedly used in Kingdom Hearts. If I were a young Asian teenager with access to an arcade in the early 2000’s, I would probably be playing Dance Dance Revolution to this remix.
