BABTYMETAL's "Maya". Exploring illusion. BM walk-through #40 with AJ Hartley
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- čas přidán 9. 11. 2023
- An appropriately deceptively tricky one, this.
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I appreciate your lecture as always ありがとううございます💛。 I had no knowledge about the word "Maya" at all until seeing this video.
This song was played 9 times during their North American tour with DETHKLOK. (I believe they played Mirror-Mirror in Atlanta show where you attended.) The performance in USA was different from this video filmed on Day-1 (April 1) in Yokohama when the performance had been done right before the dawn of newly born BABYMETAL. Momometal was not official member yet and she did not have a mic back then.
[FYI : I witnessed this very performance. I can't explain how amazing it was with my English vocabulary 😍 The band was Western Kamis at the venue. Japanese fans always appreciate the devoted support by Chris, CJ, Anthony and Clint (Ryan replaced in the tour). They are unsung heroes but everybody loves them. ]
Regarding "Maya", Su said in an interview "The lyrics in English 'How would you know ... is all an illusion' is not the kind of expression that BABYMETAL have not had in the past." She added " When it comes to sound, I like a part where my voice seem to fade into fog but it does exist there" [source: magazine PMC vol. 27 page 40]
Our queen has grown up into a lady with a philosophical viewpoint, I guess.
Nice. Thanks. I hadn't realized Mirror Mirror in ATL was so unusual, though it was a pleasant surprise on the night. I appreciate your support of the western Kamis who don't always get the respect they deserve.
@@AndrewHartley Thank you. Actually many Japanese fans are following Western Kamis' accounts in Instagram and X. So do I. Their posts that give inklings of relation with Japan and BM are interesting and sometimes funny. Anthony Barone is popular among others, because his love toward Japan went as far as getting a diploma in level N4 of JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). The test is fairly difficult even for native Japanese 😅
@@flugelhornoldman1362 I didn't Know that about Barone. That is very cool
When Su-metal leaves the stage, Nakamoto Suzuka san disappears into the night. And that's how it should be.
I'll take the illusion if that's the only option 💓
Yeah, I meant to say something about the members metal names as indicating the separateness of their private identities but forgot :)
And let's not forget that Suzuka Nakamoto is just a disguise that Su-Metal uses to stealthily walk among humans😉 czcams.com/video/91miSpVBYO8/video.html
They go out of their way to make sure it is the only option we have. When them posting one picture of themselves wearing the hoodies of the lokal baseball team (?) instead of their costumes caused some kind of stir among the fans, you know they achieved this mission.
Thanks. Great discussion as always. Another song that fits is That's Not my Name by the Ting Tings. I can see a connection there. Also Su once said in a radio interview :When I am in costume I lead the Metal Resistance, otherwise I stealthily move through the world in my guise as an ordinary girl." You only see them in costume, you never see the real Babymetal, only the fantasy.
Yes, the Ting Tings! I should have mentioned that. And of course the 2 Sus seem especially resonant in a song like this, even if she's talking to herself.
As usual top-notch professor. Regarding them being an illusion. I think they have been pretty straight about that. They have let us know several times (specially su in several interviews) that they are performing a character. She has actually told Susuka Nakamoto is a different person from Sumetal. Moa hasn't been as open as Su regarding this Matter. Momo we all know she was in a reality show to be a J-pop idol group. So we do know she is playing a metal character.
The way I see it. Su knows exactly what she is doing. She knows she is performing a character. Moa just loves dancing and being on stage and Momo she is an artist and metal is also art. Thank you professor. If there were a major in Babymetal you were the university Dean.
Ha! Thanks :) Yes, I should have said more about the difference between their real names and their stage names. I meant to, but forgot. But yes, I think you are right. They have made the distinction clear, even if the fictional frame has softened some of late.
thank you for your insight. I listen to the song and didn't go nearly into the lyrics as deeply, and i just took the line "Say my name", and thought about the deception part of it. When you say a tricksters/demons name, it does break that illusion and you see them for what they really are. But, I also took it with a human level and thought that yeah, the illusion is broken ( love is blind, you see what you want of that person), and they become a real entity, not something you dream about, and maybe that can develop into a real relationship.
Again, I didn't really break down all the lyrics, so that's how I interpreted the song.
Yeah, I think that's perfectly valid
I always look forward to your posts!
Thank you!! from Japan.😊
Thanks for watching!
Thank you for your analysis! "Maya" is one of my favourites on the new album so it's cool to see that there's some depth to it as well apart from being a certified banger. 🙂 Btw if everything goes according to plan I'll see BABYMETAL live for the first time in my life next weekend in Hamburg, yeah. I hope they'll play Maya there.
Nice! Enjoy the show :)
Thanks for setting me straight. My take on the song had been different but is no longer sustainable after listening to this episode.
It seems safe to say that the song is about the illusionary and deceptive nature of human relations, including but not limited to romantic ones.
If we accept that this may or is even intended to be applied to the relation between us and Babymetal in the way you explained, than we get sucked into a mental tailspin. We are told that everything is an illusion through a performance that is itself highly theatrical and therefore an illusion. It sounds like opening up ("I've got to tell you something: I've put a spell on you") but the three use their magic performance to cast a spell on us in that very moment. It's like that Greek paradox where a guy from Crete says that all guys from Crete are liars. What can we believe in? Or are we told that embracing the illusion is the only way forward anyway?
Thank you for mentioning Rita Hayworth. Apart from Gilda I adore her work as a dancer, especially with Fred Astaire. She was IMHO the best partner Fred ever had. There is also a more personal connection: My parents, both decidedly pre Rock 'n Roll, liked her movies so much that they named my sister after her (her first name is Rita, not Hayworth 😄)
As always, professor, thank you for your time and effort in making these videos. They are a treasure trove of information and insights.
Ah yes, the Cretan liar. I remember him from undergrad philosophy classes :) You also remind me of another relevant song: here performed by the incomparable Nina Simone czcams.com/video/WCjzNfJLHa0/video.html
Thanks.
You do an excellent job highlighting the ambiguities of omitted pronouns in Japanese! As someone who primarily focuses on interview translations, this is much less of a problem as the various subjects are fairly clear in comparison.
But in this case, i think the ambiguity is rather fascinating and perhaps intentional, fitting very well with the theme of "real" and virtual and observing the same thing from different perspectives being an act that may very well change the meaning!
I didn't actually dive deeply into the lyrics until now, so you have performed an excellent public service as always. As I've dabbled somewhat into Zen Buddhism as of late, the observations of temporal existence and how what we see is an illusion or deceptive resonates strongly!
I think you are on to something. When you write a song about illusion and deceit it seems to be logical to use any options in your language to create illusions or to at least confuse the listener in such a way that we end up with the conclusion that there is nothing we can trust in, not even the song who tells us so. Add the fact that the performance itself and the stage persona are also illusionary, and we have no firm ground to stand on.
Thanks, man! That was my sense of the interviews (I was trying to explain this on my patreon page the other day) because someone was asking why Japanese people aren't confused by ordinary conversation. Contact usually clarifies, as you say. Songs are a different kettle of fish.
@@AndrewHartley it is also a major reason why machine translations struggle so much with Japanese!
@@funnytoss Exactly. Very challenging.
@@AndrewHartley Reconciling approaches from different perspectives to the same text - that is what I always enjoy in working with @funnytoss on translating those articles of interviews.📑
Fantastic break down as always! Now, if you'll excuse me; I am going to go have an existential crisis
Ha! :)
interesting insight, Andrew-Metal Professor of BABYMETAL theory, when you are actually there Live when this song starts, it does have a unique and somewhat long intro, made up of that pulsing sound, the whole building was vibrating before the instruments even kicked in, I kinda wish they would not have cut it out of this video, but I guess it would make the song a minute and half, maybe two minutes extra to the song, the BluRays have all of it for all the new songs. I think it would be incredible if they did a concept concert with the Other ONE in its entirety with all kinds of LORE.
Good point. From my perspective, the long intros present the problem that I don't have much to say and the longer the clip, the more likely I am to get tagged with copyright issues (though these seem to have lessened of late). But yes, for the atmosphere of the live show, I'm sure that's awesome.
Again a good analysis of a Babymetal song - thumbs up. on Thursday 16 November I'm going to another Babymetal concert.
Congrats! Enjoy :)
@@AndrewHartley - i will - thanks :D
I like MAYA because it has a good beat and I can dance to it.
As others have said elsewhere, probably the song should be understood in the context of the songs that come before and after it on the album.
The word "mayakashi" まやかし in the Japanese lyrics, meaning "deception" or "fakery", has an unclear etymology, and the "maya" may be derived from the Sanskrit "maya"-maybe some word-play in the song. There may be more word-play going on, because the "kashi" of "mayakashi" is a homophone of "kashi" 歌詞 meaning "lyrics", which could suggest that the lyrics of the song are also a deception, i.e., a meta-deception.
The concept of maya is Hindu in origin, but it's a Buddhist term too, and its best-known appearance in the East Asian Buddhist corpus is in the Diamond Sutra. The Sutra consists of a dialogue between Buddha and a disciple concerning emptiness and illusion. Rhetorically it follows the via negativa. Well, the song's lyrics may be seen as a dialogue, and the "no more" and the "ここにはいないから" may be seen as apophatic. There's a reference to a lightning bolt in the Sutra, and the lyrics have 火花 which means "spark" and can refer generally to a discharge of light.
But the above is probably a stretch. (I had too much time on my hands this evening.)
Thanks. I know the feeling re. too much time... I found this one particularly hard to come to grips with for some reason, so Im not especially confident in my readings. Probably overthinking it, but then that's how I find what makes sense to me...
When I first heard "Say my name", I immediately thought of the movie Candyman, where saying his name three times made him become real. So, Maya is enticing us to believe her illusion, without which she cannot exist to us.
As always, I enjoy your videos. We've had the WOWOW show to watch for a while now but this video only hit CZcams last week, so you're not that late. The Divine Attack live video was released about the same time.
Thanks! Good to know. And of course, the power of naming is a deep and ancient element of religion and mythology. I esoterically love how it functions in Ursula LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea. I should have talked about this... :)
They used to say: the camera never lies, wasn't true, but as many have pointed out even in the very early days of they were already trying to 'fix' photos and doing ingenious tricks to create things which didn't happen. Or even just having people pose (because it needed long exposure times) already doesn't show reality.
I'm gonna interpret what you said loosely, because as you said, that's probably how it's meant to be.
--
When you said dreams are illusions and the dreams are broken and get to know people.
It definitely is true: you really get to know people when they run into reality and their dreams are broken.
--
If in this song has a sub-text was meant that it's about Babymetal and their illusion and you said something along the lines of the person(s) doing illusion might not want it anymore...?
Looking over the years they've become more human over time as well, for example Su-metal has merged with Su-chan in many ways and it seems we see more of the person she is than before.
In some sense if it was and the illusion was gone, so would be Babymetal..., right ?
So maybe what they've ended up with is creating an illusion which is real ???
Ha. Interesting perspective. Yeah, I can get on board with that
I was interested and amused as always, thank you.
Honestly, I don't take this lyric as something romantic. Following the officially described theme of this song, it might be a dialogue or interaction between one's ego and alter ego or between one's external self and internal self during one night's dream.
Yeah, that's why I think there are multiple possible readings in play. What I struggle with with the more abstract reading (apart from the tonality of the sparks flying etc. which sounds intimate to me) is that if one version of the self is an illusion, I don't see how there can be a true dialogue between them, since that suggests that both parties are conscious, which surely isn't possible for an illusion... But as I say, various readings seem possible.
@@AndrewHartley
Now I'm imagining a developing battle to recover one's realty/authenticity between both versions of the self or ego.
I added a few thoughts to my note thanks to this suggestive video of yours.😉
教授どうか字幕を付けて下さい。🙏
貴方の解説をもっと詳しく理解したいのです。
自動キャプションが入力されるまでには少し時間がかかり、その後、日本語訳が利用できるようになる。もちろん完璧ではないが、ないよりはましだ。もう1日くらい待ってみよう。
ありがとうございます。少しせっかちでしたね。
Five days of this and still no CC available? Mmmh I'll come back later if you can fix that. Nice to see you around either way.🦊🤘🔥
I think I found the problem. Sorry for the delay
A question quickly formed in my impertinent brain that only Doctor Who could answer: what would Shakespear think of Babymetal's music?!?
"The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils."
In other words, he'd rock out.
@@AndrewHartley As an Italian, I didn't study Shakespeare at school, but Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Homer, Virgil, Catullus, de Cervantes (who is Spanish)... what a disappointment!!!
What is the truth: white or black earphones?!?
Ha. Well spotted. It's all highly significant... ;)
Actually, I couldn't find my regular earphones at first and had to start with some inferior ones, then found the good ones again and reshot.