CLEVER SONG TITLES OR JUST SPELLING MISTAKES?

[J0nB0yH88]

Hey ayu fans!

so i'm sure we've all noticed ayu has some unusual song titles, and that's partly why we love her, but I have to wonder if some titles are deliberately put a certain way or if there has been a mistake in her English...for example:

'my name's WOMEN' as a pose to 'my name's woman' is this deliberate and she's saying she represents all women?

'Greatful days' this is a common mistake in English language to put greatful instead of grateful (meaning to be full of gratitude) but is ayu saying her days are full of greatness?...that would be a very clever song title if she meant to do it.

'Are You Wake Up?' ...no I don't understand this one, is she asking 'are you awake?' I cant see how this might be deliberate but maybe someone else knows


thoughts please

[Snowfox]

I personally have always chosen to believe my name's WOMEN was titled that way on purpose, in an attempt to represent women in general rather than just herself.

kiss o' kill is also an odd one. I mean, it technically means "kiss of kill" or "kiss of the kill." I'm curious what her thoughts were when penning this song and giving it that title. It seems to me something like kiss o' pain would be better...? Maybe it's a killing pain. Though I might be missing something clever here. ^^ This is why Ayu's fun, right?

I feel like Are You Wake Up? really is just a bad translation, heh.

Greatful days, I have similar thoughts as yours. I think it's possible it was a common mistake, and it's also possible it was on purpose to emphasize the "great."

[visionfactory]

"my name's WOMEN" is a quote from some old book

[rainbow_smile]

I think she even mentioned in interview that by naming it "my name's WOMEN" she wants to represent all the women. Though some think it was just an excuse

"Are you wake up?" might be a pure mistake, or a deliberate one, because it sound like "Ayu wake up"

omg I always thought "kiss o' kill" was supposed to mean kiss or kill

[Larien]

Originally Posted by J0nB0yH88

'my name's WOMEN' as a pose to 'my name's woman'

As opposed to.

Originally Posted by Snowfox

Greatful days, I have similar thoughts as yours. I think it's possible it was a common mistake, and it's also possible it was on purpose to emphasize the "great."

I think Greatful days is deliberate. The town I live in has the tagline of "heartful city," which doesn't make since to a native speaker, but I can also see what they were getting at: they assumed that the suffix -ful means "full of," so they were going for the idea that their city is "full of heart." So..."days full of greatness"? Having said that, there are a lot of silly Japangrishisms, too...

[ayu-michan]

Originally Posted by rainbow_smile

omg I always thought "kiss o' kill" was supposed to mean kiss or kill

Me too haha Honest to God her titles all sound ridiculous if you first listen to her. But then I grew to like them, and it definitely annoys me when someone asks things like "Uhh dude her English is bad, wtf is Greatful days, My name's WOMEN? Pfft"

[Delicious n Bold]

Originally Posted by Larien

As opposed to.



I think Greatful days is deliberate. The town I live in has the tagline of "heartful city," which doesn't make since to a native speaker, but I can also see what they were getting at: they assumed that the suffix -ful means "full of," so they were going for the idea that their city is "full of heart." So..."days full of greatness"? Having said that, there are a lot of silly Japangrishisms, too...

Heartful does make sense
And I always equated Greatful days to something like the difference between go and went. Greatful and goed are both more logical but English doesn't want everything regular.

[Andrenekoi]

I find it funny how native speakers are always complaining about "my name's WOMEN", because it not only makes sense, the whole lyrics are sang as "we/us" instead of "I/me".

I also tend to read "Kiss o' Kill" as "Kiss or Kill", but it doesn't make much sense with the lyrics, does it? "Kiss of Kill", as a kiss that kills reminds me of the christian imagery Kiss o' Kill uses, and so, reminds me of Judas kiss on Jesus as a way to betrayl him... But it can be just me reading too much into it...

[J0nB0yH88]

Originally Posted by Snowfox

I personally have always chosen to believe my name's WOMEN was titled that way on purpose, in an attempt to represent women in general rather than just herself.

kiss o' kill is also an odd one. I mean, it technically means "kiss of kill" or "kiss of the kill." I'm curious what her thoughts were when penning this song and giving it that title. It seems to me something like kiss o' pain would be better...? Maybe it's a killing pain. Though I might be missing something clever here. ^^ This is why Ayu's fun, right?

I feel like Are You Wake Up? really is just a bad translation, heh.

Greatful days, I have similar thoughts as yours. I think it's possible it was a common mistake, and it's also possible it was on purpose to emphasize the "great."

kiss o' kill is named after the movie Kiss or Kill, so she's abbreviated 'or' not 'of'

[J0nB0yH88]

Originally Posted by rainbow_smile

I think she even mentioned in interview that by naming it "my name's WOMEN" she wants to represent all the women. Though some think it was just an excuse

"Are you wake up?" might be a pure mistake, or a deliberate one, because it sound like "Ayu wake up"

omg I always thought "kiss o' kill" was supposed to mean kiss or kill

ah yeah I never thought of 'ayu wake up' that's a good thought! ...and yes it does mean kiss or kill, named after a film of that title

[J0nB0yH88]

Originally Posted by Larien

As opposed to.

LOL! I completely missed that, and I was writing about spelling errors too! IRONY!! how embarrassing... lolz

[kotora]

Disco-munication is a weird one but good one.

Mirrocle World is a creative name.

In The Corner ? At the Corner?

Heartplace is not a word

and I heard "M" is not just saying "M", some Japanese fans refer "M" as Maria.

[Livey~]

I've always spelled Greatful days as Grateful days on iTunes, then I realized that it was Greatful haha

To me, it looks like she/they did it on purpose.
I mean.. There must be a meticulous work behind it before they release it.
Same thing for Are You Wake Up? I guess.

About kiss o' kill, I've never seen the o' as a of.

And Mirrorcle World... just epic.

[J0nB0yH88]

yeah I really loved the original Mirror so I was really glad she made Mirrorcle World, and I thought that title was a great idea

Heartplace isn't a world but I really like that, it sounds so sweet <3

Disco-munication I think is very clever also

[NintendoHTF1242]

Originally Posted by kotora

In The Corner ? At the Corner?

In the original by Sweetbox, Jade sings, "In the corner of my mind".

[Heavenly]

I used to like the "task-" interludes (takinlude, taskinillusion, tasking, taskinst), but the last ones were meh.... taskebab, task'n'bass.... not so clever

About, taskinst, does anyone else think that the "-inst" is stated for "instrumental" ?

Btw, I don't think it's Ayu who choose the interlude titles, right ?

[Yumi(e)]

I ever think that "my name's WOMEN" it's like "my name's Legion"(?) xDD i dunno.

[Tom Punks]

Originally Posted by Andrenekoi

I find it funny how native speakers are always complaining about "my name's WOMEN", because it not only makes sense, the whole lyrics are sang as "we/us" instead of "I/me".

It would sound strange even if the title was "my name's WOMAN." That phrase is just incredibly unnatural sounding to a native ear, whether plural or singular. Whether or not it sounds OK or makes sense to a non-native speaker is honestly, and I mean no offense by this, irrelevant. I guess it's possible to pull some meaning out of it, but you have to actually look at the words and analyze them lol.

Originally Posted by Larien

I think Greatful days is deliberate. The town I live in has the tagline of "heartful city," which doesn't make since to a native speaker, but I can also see what they were getting at: they assumed that the suffix -ful means "full of," so they were going for the idea that their city is "full of heart." So..."days full of greatness"? Having said that, there are a lot of silly Japangrishisms, too...

Personally, I don't find this analogy entirely accurate, since "heart" is a noun. Adding -ful creates an adjective, whereas "great" is already an adjective. Adding -ful there is redundant. Imo, "greatful" is just a misspelling. It's easy enough a mistake to make.

Also, to the member who asked about "In The Corner" - that phrase is definitely okay as is. You would really only use "at the corner" when describing an intersection between streets/pathways, I think.

[Snowfox]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

It would sound strange even if the title was "my name's WOMAN." That phrase is just incredibly unnatural sounding to a native ear, whether plural or singular. Whether or not it sounds OK or makes sense to a non-native speaker is honestly, and I mean no offense by this, irrelevant. I guess it's possible to pull some meaning out of it, but you have to actually look at the words and analyze them lol.

This! It doesn't really matter whether or not something is fully grammatically correct or not. It can still sound unnatural regardless. There's a semi-famous example - a paragraph talking about a president's inauguration that a trainer, professor, etc will often show to students studying translation when hammering this point into us. The paragraph is grammatically correct but because of the set-up, it -sounds- wrong anyway. What sounds natural is important. Anyway, uhm...
Though I actually like how the title sounds, I remember it struck me as a little odd at first.

Also, I assumed kiss o' kill was "of" due to other common words like jack-o'-lantern and will o' the wisp being "of." Thanks, jonboy, for that title info. ^^

[Ayu-me]

Originally Posted by Tom Punks

It would sound strange even if the title was "my name's WOMAN." That phrase is just incredibly unnatural sounding to a native ear, whether plural or singular. Whether or not it sounds OK or makes sense to a non-native speaker is honestly, and I mean no offense by this, irrelevant. I guess it's possible to pull some meaning out of it, but you have to actually look at the words and analyze them lol.

Personally, I don't find this analogy entirely accurate, since "heart" is a noun. Adding -ful creates an adjective, whereas "great" is already an adjective. Adding -ful there is redundant. Imo, "greatful" is just a misspelling. It's easy enough a mistake to make.
Also, to the member who asked about "In The Corner" - that phrase is definitely okay as is. You would really only use "at the corner" when describing an intersection between streets/pathways, I think.

I've never had any problem with "my name's WOMEN", I found it quite poetic and fitting with the theme of the song. IMO, it's about making a statement, not for one's actual identity, but for one's mission or purpose; she's basically saying she's speaking and fighting for women.
When it comes to "Greatful days", technically "great" is actually a noun, meaning a very successful and/or admired person and it could apply to the song (days spent with great people). "Greatness" is also a noun, and saying "days full of greatness" or worse, "greatnessful days", would be a bit of a mouthful for an Ayu song title so simply shortening it to "greatful" makes sense. Shortening/simplifying words is nothing new in any language.
"kiss o' kill" falls a bit into that same category for me, like shortening "you" to "u". It also made think of the Swedish shortening for the word "och" (="and", pronounced either as "o" or "ock"), which is an "o" with a line under it (my elementary teachers would use it sometimes when writing on the whiteboard) so in my mind the title turns into "kiss 'n' kill", but yeah, it's most likely short for "or".
Honestly, when it comes to Ayu songs I've learned to not expect point perfect grammar, and I've come to not mind it either, it's a creative way to distinguish songs and I'm fine with it as long as I don't see blatant misspellings. "Mirrorcle World" is one of my favorite song titles (and one of my favorite songs overall) and a good example of that creativity. Song lyrics (and their titles) are essentially like a form a poetry, using wordplay and pun-like conjugations is not out of the norm when it comes to the written arts so I think of them more as clever writing tricks rather than actual mistakes.
But as with all art, it's subjective in the end so I'm just as right/wrong about it as everyone else here.