Amanda's How To: Japanese to English Lyrics

I've been getting a ton of messages lately asking how I make my English lyrics so I thought I would make a little 'how to'.  I'm going to use the lyrics that I made for my most recent English cover: Crossing Field (AmaLee) from the anime Sword Art Online. I hope this helps all of you hoping to make English lyrics of your own! And it might even give others insight as to why I change certain parts of the song/lyrics from the original translation and why I can't use the direct translation 100%. Hopefully this will also bring to light as to how much work I put into my lyrics. 

Disclaimer: Please note that there are a million different ways to make/ translate lyrics. Mine is by no means the only way and probably not the best or easiest way, either. But this is just how I go about it. Enjoy~!

I can't speak Japanese so I always have to find a translation to base my lyrics off of. If you can speak and translate Japanese then great! You're amazingly talented and I'm super jealous. But for the rest of you, like me, who can't speak Japanese, try to find an official translation. If one is not available I'll find at least 2-3 fan translations. My rule of thumb is it's always better to have more different versions of translations to look off of because there are many different ways people can translate the lyrics into English. Never directly take any translated line and put them into yours lyrics-- it's someone else's work you're taking and it's good to come up with your own. 

Note: If you're planning to make English lyrics from an anime it helps IMMENSELY if you're familiar with the show. It's not 100% necessary but I find it's a lot easier to connect with the song through what you've learned with the characters. 9/10 of the time I will purposely weave in plot points/themes from the show into my lyrics to better connect it to the show or characters. I did this with Crossing Field. 

Let's use these two translations for this 'how to': Translation 1 Translation 2 

Music. This really should be done before Step 1 but make sure that the song you want to do has an instrumental (that is if you're making these lyrics for yourself to sing) I cannot tell you how many times I've made lyrics for a song that had no instrumental and I have to trash the whole project. (Though there are ways around this, of course, like making your own music or singing a cappella). 

Workspace. Very important. I close all other programs that I'm not using and keep everything organized. Bring up the 2-3 lyrics in a internet window (I usually have them as tabs), your word doc., and itunes/youtube video. I use RhymeZone.com to find rhymes when I'm making lyrics. Rhyming isn't 100% necessary but I find it makes the song flow better. More on that later. It might also be a good idea to have a dictionary/thesaurus up to, you know, memorize when you're bored. 

This is what my computer desktop usually looks like when I'm making lyrics: Notice it's very clean. Concentration is a big part of this as it's very very easy to get frustrated/distracted and move on to other things. If I must, I'll turn off my airport/internet. 

The first line is probably the most important thing, in my personal opinion. I believe it holds the punch of the song and can make or break the song. If you have a sloppy first line then you won't grab your audience. Make your first line a KO. (see what I did there? no? .... moving on)

Let's look at the translations for the first line in Crossing Field. 

Translation 1- "I acknowledge my cowardly past"
Translation 2- "Admitting my cowardly past"

They're pretty straight forward, which is good. But they're also another thing: BORING. Let's see if we can make them more exciting. The anime this song is from: "Sword Art Online" is about characters who get stuck in a MMORPG game so let's weave some of that into the first line to make the song resonate with the show. Pleasing the fans! If you can find ways to make your lyrics different or interesting like this-- then do it! It will make people say "hey, this is pretty cool" and isn't that, well, pretty cool?

Knowing the show, this first line hits as being from the main character's POV. Let's play on that some more. "Cowardly" in games.. who's usually cowardly? And who's not? Obviously a "warrior" comes to mind first as not being cowardly, but I think the word "hero" would fit much better here. Always keep a thesaurus or a like website open when writing lyrics! It's very helpful when you can't think of the right word 

After throwing words around and humming the first line to myself over and over I get this: 

"I was never right for the hero type of role.. I admit it"

Sounds good to me. Catchy and original. You're right.. Maybe "too original". There's no "past" or being "cowardly" in that line BUT it's all hinted. By saying "I was never right" you're saying you've had a past of mistakes, right? And by saying you "weren't right for a hero role".. you're kind of saying you don't take the big risks that the heros do. It's original while still holding the rough meaning of the translation. 

People complain all of the time that "my lyrics are wrong" or "they're too different from the original" but if you literally take the translation and shove it to fit the melody, it won't flow at all and most importantly--IT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STAND ALONE AS A SONG. Meaning, someone who is listening to this song for the first time and who has never heard the Japanese version of the song will be able to appreciate and understand your version of the song as if it were written by YOU. If you can't make sense or connect to the lyrics, how do you expect your audience to? There's a huge difference between "I like these lyrics. They're pretty" and "Wow, these lyrics really touched me. I totally connect with them". Make your audience feel the latter. I also believe it's important to show originality and individuality in songs, so if that means tweaking the original meaning just a little to let you connect personally with the song, then don't hesitate to do just that. 

Just one more thing to remember when making lyrics: AVOID THE CHEESE FACTOR. Very important. Just... don't. I use to have an AP English teacher who would never let me write with cliques or cheese of any kind (or brand) and it's really helped me with writing. Now, with lyrics, you can add cliques... but I'd say limit it as much as possible. BUT AVOID THAT CHEESE. IT'S STINKY. 

If you're one of those people who believe "songs don't need to rhyme" then just skip this step. Please. 

Rhyming is really optional, but it will make a choppy song/lyric flow a lot better and will make them more memorable to the audience.. because they'll be catchy and easy to remember. It's always a good thing to get a song-- YOUR SONG -- stuck in an audience's head. Again, I use RhymeZone.com to find rhymes when I'm making lyrics. 

Something I've learned is to listen to the Japanese and pin-point where in Japanese they've rhymed. If there is a pattern I'll try and follow that pattern. For Crossing Field, however, I made up my own pattern. (It's not a very good example, I'm sorry.)

"I was never right for the hero type of role

I admit it 

With my heart shivering in fear

I can see today's reflected in each past tear

Even so it has been calling the heavens to me

But I cannot hide 

All the emptiness inside

my fleeting heart" 

What I want to point out is that bolded section above ^^^. In the song these two sentences are sung in rapid fire. I've learned that if 2 lines are sung very quickly or loudly with each other, then making them rhyme SOUNDS AMAZING, even if they originally do not rhyme. It will instantly make it catchy and flow. 

*NEVER by ANY CIRCUMSTANCE take crazy, complicated words (or words you've never heard of) and rhyme them together. It will not make you sound smarter.. it'll make the rhyme sound forced. When you're just starting out, use easy-to-rhyme words like: Heart,apart,start..you,two,too,..fear,tear,near,..me,see,key. Simple words will make simple rhymes and won't sound so forced. 

Note: If you're having a hard time making your English lyrics flow naturally with the given melody, try to pinpoint words that are 1,2, or 3 syllables in Japanese and match that syllable count to English words. I do not do this with every single word in every single sentence as that would take forever but it's what I turn to when I can't make a certain sentence flow. Sometimes I'll even count the # of syllables in a sentence and work from there. 

The chorus! Lyrics can take me anywhere from a few hours to a few full days of working depending on the song. If you have to spend a lot of time on ONE PART of the song, make it be the chorus. Usually the chorus will most likely be repeated multiple times in a song. Singing poorly written lyrics once is bad enough but multiple times? Yikes.

Let's look at the chorus I wrote for my English version of Crossing Field. Just for fun I'll also post translation 1 and translation 2 so you can look how I changed the lyrics to flow and rhyme. I did alter my lyrics A LOT from the Japanese now that I look at the translations but I made sure to keep the meaning as a whole intact. It's okay to stray from a translation as long as the gist of what's happening in the original is still there. 

For example: "they mean the world to me" and "I love them" are both ways to describe love, but doesn't the first have a little bit more punch than the latter? It's the same feelings, just different words to describe them. 

      Please note that my lyrics are not perfect in any way, shape or form... Imperfections are part of writing and improving. 

       Note: See that awkward "yeah" at the end of both Translation 1 and Translation 2? I hope you laughed and didn't think "why didn't she put that in her lyrics?!" If I'm not sure if something sounds weird, I'll read it out loud to myself like a poem (just speaking/not singing) and if it sounds weird, I won't write it. "A long dream, yeah" sounds bizarre when you say it out loud seriously. Unless.. you're trying to imitate some bad Scottish accent

You're almost done! You can just smell it! That or, you've been working on these lyrics for so long you haven't bathed. 

I want to point out the two RAPID FIRE RHYMES pointed out with the arrows above. These two lines follow the same melody in the song, so make them rhyme in the same places. Enunciation when singing is huge, so make it easy for yourself and don't throw in extra syllables and try your best not to hold out syllables. Make sure the amount of syllables is the EXACT number that you need in a line. This is more a personal preference and sometimes it will sound OK, but I've found it's better to not hold out a single word for multiple notes. 

Annnnnd you're finished? Nope. Sing them over several times. If there are areas where you stumble or that you notice aren't flowing well.. CHANGE THE LINE to make it work better. Just change it. It happens all of the time to me and usually by this step I end up re-writing entire stanzas. If you have a friend who can proof them over for you, even better. 

*If you can't make your lyrics in a single sitting, then when you start your next "lyric making session", if you will, let the first thing you do be singing over the lyrics that you've written so far. This will help your lyrics flow as a whole because usually song points in the beginning will either be repeated or touched on later in the song. For example, in Crossing Field, there are several points where a dark/light theme is mentioned. For example: "lighting up the dark" "with every dawn" and "light to guide me thought the night". 

I hope that helped! Happy lyric writing!