ザ・レジデンツ

The Residents in Japan: Translations

The following text is an archived version of my original forum posts about The Residents in Japan. I've done more research since making those posts, so I'll try to add additional context if I get something horribly wrong.

Translated Album Names and Song Titles

Once I was ripping a Japanese idol CD so I could play me some super commercial J-Pop on the phone for long bus rides and such. I was using one of those CD ripping programs that auto fills in the media tags in the files so the correct titles and artist info show up all nicely. Unfortunately, the information was all translated in English as opposed to being in the original language it was in! I didn't realize it at the time and got rather confused later on when talking to some other people about song titles... I had gotten used to the English translated titles while obviously everyone else was using the Japanese names. Nowadays I try to at least double check that program when ripping my CDs, or fill in the info myself so I know it's right.
(On a note related to this actual forum, didn't something like that happen with The Commercial Album CDs and iTunes?)

(This is going to be an incomplete section, since I don't have all the information right now! And probably won't for a long time... if ever.)

Most Japanese Residents releases don't have different names in Japanese and English. Actually, all albums have been released under their original names, although a few have alternate "translated" titles to accompany their official title. Yeah, The Residents didn't get any reverse version of that whole "Sukiyaki / 上を向いて歩こう" treatment here. (Does anyone get that reference?)

As an example, these albums have been released under their original names:

(Note: for the rest of this post when I write romanized Japanese, I'll be writing out English loan words in standard english instead of their romanized Japanese forms for clarity.)

These album titles tend to be written with Japanese characters on the obi (the little paper thing on the side of the album) and in the liner notes and such, but the album art is obviously not touched and these releases make it very clear what the original title in English is. And just as a reminder, in case it wasn't obvious by the re-romanized titles I wrote, these titles are just the English titles but written with Japanese characters. They are pronounced pretty the same, albeit with slight differences in pronunciation due to the nature of Japanese language.

Eventually I do want to go through some examples of some more dramatic differences in packaging between Japanese and English releases of Residents projects that I've found since I originally posted this six years ago. But that's for another time. ;)

And for the most part, all releases have been released with titles like these. Those were just some examples that I find everywhere when looking for Rz info in Japanese.

But check THESE out! If you notice on that page, you'll see they have pictures of obi from Residents albums, AND they have additional translated titles to go along with the standard English title! I don't know if these are based on any original WAVE releases, or if this was something made for a special CD rerelease. But I do find it pretty interesting.

Intermission has an Obi that translates the title as 「幕間(まくあい)（インターミッション）」 ("Makuai (Intermission)") which can be translated as... "Intermission (Intermission)" (where the second "Intermission" is literally the English word "Intermission" written out with Japanese characters).

This Mark of the Mole release also refers to it as 「もぐらの通(とお)り道(みち)」 ("Mogura no Toorimichi") which can be translated as "The Passage of Moles". One interesting thing here is that they are using the Japanese word for mole instead of simply writing "mole" as a loan word. It's kind of weird because they aren't literally moles, they're people are just referred to as "Moles". It's just a name. I guess they are kind of like symbolic moles, but whatever. Although if they did write it as an English loan word, it'd be kind of confusing since they'd be writing out as 「モール」 which is usually the word for "Mall".

Also, on that release we have some translated track names! After translating these... it appears to be more than just Mark of the Mole! The titles are pretty simple and for the most part good translations, although one of them from the second half of the CD definitely stands out from the short and direct translations.

  1. 天(てん)の声(こえ) (Ten no Koe) / "Voices of the Air"
  2. 大惨事(だいさんじ) (Daisanji) / "Great disaster"
  3. 移住(いじゅう) (Ijyuu) / "Migration"
  4. 別天地(べってんち) (Bettenchi) / "Another world"
  5. 最後(さいご)の復興(ふっこう) (Saigo no Fukkou) / "The last reconstruction"
  6. 消灯(しょうとう) (Shoutou) / "Turning lights off"
  7. ショーティーズ・ラメント (Shorty's Lament) / "Shorty's Lament"
  8. もぐらがやってくる ヤァ！！ヤァ！！ヤァ！！ (Mogura ga Yatte Kuru - Yaa! Yaa! Yaa!)
  9. 生還(せいかん ) (Seikan) / "Returning Alive"
  10. ニュー・ヒム (New Hymn) / "New Hymn"

First off, this looks like a pretty interesting release, a combination Mark of the Mole / Intermission CD (or Double LP?). Again, the titles are pretty simple, and with the exception of The Final Confrontation and Would We Be Alive, the translations are all pretty good. The title that sticks out to me, though, is 「もぐらがやってくる ヤァ！！ヤァ！！ヤァ！！」 I really just... don't know why they added that last part. It's not like it's in the actual song. Maybe it was for spacing on the Obi design.

In hindsight, they probably just added that to the end of the track name because it's fun.

Anyway, here's another Obi image that's big enough to actually read! This one is for The Tunes of Two Cities, also referring to it as 「二大都市(にだいとし)のメロディー」 ("Nidaitoshi no Melody") which can be translated as "The Melody of Two Big Cities". They probably chose the word "Melody" to use instead of "Tune" because it's a more familiar and common loan word. I don't think it's the best translation because it's implying that the cities are both huge metropolitan areas, which I don't really get from the album. Also because the english title is sort of playing with the title of A Tale of Two Cities, and the Japanese title doesn't play with the Japanese title of the book (二都物語). To be fair, though, I can't really think of a way to reference that title either. Anyway, here are the translated track names:

  1. ミッシーのセレネーデ (Missy no Serenade) / "Missy's Serenade"
  2. ジグソーパズルの迷路(めいろ) (Jigsaw Puzzle no Meiro) / "Maze of Jigsaw Puzzles"
  3. マウストラップ (Mousetrap) / "Mousetrap"
  4. ゴッド・オブ・ダークネス (God of Darkness) / "God of Darkness"
  5. 舌鼓(したつづみ)を打(う)て！ (Shitatsudzumi wo ute!) / "Smack your lips!"
  6. 呪(のろ)いの褒(ほ)め (Noroi no home) / "Praise of the Curse"
  7. オープン・アップ (Open Up) / "Open Up"
  8. アンヴィル・フォレスト (Anvil Forest) / "Anvil Forest"
  9. ミントの香(かお)り (Mint no Kaori) / "Scent of Mint"
  10. 神秘(しんぴ)の種子(しゅし) (Shinpi no Shushi) / "Secret Seed"

I'm guessing there is more to the release... since a Tunes of Two Cities release without Happy Home would be very tragic, but those are the only titles that show up in that picture of the obi. Again, there's really only one title that stands out to me, which is 舌鼓を打て！ (Smack Your Lips (Clap Your Teeth)), mainly because of the exclamation mark. And because they dropped the parenthetical when translating it. One that sticks out to just me is probably アンヴィル・フォレスト (Anvil Forest) because they didn't actually translate the title and just wrote the english title with Japanese characters even though you can write it out in Japanese (Something along the lines of 鉄床森). Open Up is spelled out the same way, and both of those songs originally come from Residue so maybe they just lifted the titles from a localized Residue release?

Anyway, these are the only translated album names and track titles that I could find, although if I find anymore I'll definitely post about them!

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