Void - a proper translation
I’ve been listening to the song Void a lot. It has grown on me over the months. Now I don’t know who Dir en Grey’s official translator is, but they do a consistent job of translating verses word for word, effectively butchering whatever poetic intent or nuance might lie beyond the very clunky clatter of Japanese grammar.
Your old man here is not happy with this. So I decided to provide a proper idiomatic - and pretentious AF - translation for free. You’re welcome. Feel free to submit my application to Sun Kraken, this starving writer will work for free gigs.
Void
As black wings crowd the sky the dead gather in the greenery where only their souls slip free and away from their demise.
If you can cross your way through time, then go. And if you can’t, what purpose is there in standing still?
If you can move beyond time, then go. And if you can’t - look around you, hold my helping hand (1).
I’ve always watched, I’ve always longed, to be someone who belongs everywhere and nowhere, to understand, those who laugh, who hope, who feel, who live.
If you can move beyond time, then go. And if you can’t, what purpose is there in standing still?
If you can move beyond time, then go. And if you can’t - look around you, hold my helping hand.
Maybe we are just living things, thinking into the void (2).
Living things, Living things.
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(1) The original Japanese does not include the pronoun "I" or "my" in this verse. It reads, word-for-word, something like "turn your eyes to your surroundings, toward the place that is being offered to you". The verb here is 差し伸べる, though, which usually means "to offer" or "to extend a hand". I took some artistic liberty in translating it as "my helping hand" since the poem has a first-person narrator. It reads more true to the intent to me.
(2) Again, I had to reformulate this part a bit so it is understandable. The original Japanese reads "living things for whom thinking is useless". It reads clunky to my ears, though, so I used a more idiomatic formulation.
