Challenging English Lyrics

There are two tracks in the album ‘A.O.R.’ that are fully written in English, ‘Beginning’ and ‘Stellar Compass’.

Kageyama: I myself wrote those lyrics in English, but it was so hard and I felt like I almost died doing so.

Mr. Kageyama, you are exposed to English, right?

Kageyama: I have more opportunities to be exposed to English compared to the other members of JAM Project, but I started going to an English school and learning English when I was 48 years old [He is 56 years old now]. We have been performing overseas as JAM Project a lot lately and as I’m the one to do the main talk on stage, I thought I should try to learn the language to communicate better in English. Since I found it fun to learn English, I’m still at it. But speaking English in general and actually writing English lyrics are on a completely different level.

I heard that your English conversation teacher helped you with the lyrics.

Kageyama: Yes. One of my favorite English teachers is Australian and she loves music. I showed her the lyrics I wrote in English and she taught me ways to correct them, like ‘You shouldn’t word it this way,’ ‘You can use this word, but it sounds too formal here,’ and so on, and I tried hard to make it sound natural in English. Sometimes, she gave me the thumbs up with a lyric, but I ended up finding it too short for the melody later and had to reconsider it. I spent at least a month or so doing such routines and exchanges with her to complete the lyrics. It was extremely tough.

You were enthusiastic enough to go to such lengths to write English lyrics.

Kageyama: I strongly wanted to accomplish it somehow, as well as I wanted people outside Japan to directly listen to my music. I just wanted to achieve it so that I can write songs that more people can understand without having to read the translations.

I also heard that you had a very difficult time trying to pronounce them for recording.

Kageyama: Pronunciation is one of the tough parts of the work. [laugh] We spent two days recording one track under David Foster’s direction, and what he most often said to me was ‘Be very careful with that pronunciation there, or it doesn’t sound like what the lyrics say at all.’ At the recording, we made a basic OK track on the first day, and he picked up the parts where I pronounced it badly and we re-recorded them on the second day. There were more than 20 parts that David didn’t like, and I had to re-record each of them over and over until he gave me the okay.

But David encouraged me, saying ‘Even Celine Dion couldn’t speak English at first and she had a tough time recording too.’ He always created a happy and positive atmosphere in the studio to lead us all. That helped me a lot and I managed to make it in the end.

Anything memorable about your interaction with David Foster?

Kageyama: We went to one of the recording studios he owns; its security was amazingly strict. One of the security guards was really big like an American football player. He put a pass sticker on my chest to let me through. Then, as soon as I went inside and gave David a greeting, he abruptly peeled it off my chest and threw it away in a trash can. He said, ‘A star doesn’t need one.’ That’s the first moment I learned that he is such a nice person, and I had a great time working with him.

（Next page: Questions from the MANGA.TOKYO readers dig deeper into Mr. Kageyama’s personality）