The Back Horn: Kodoku na Senjyou

03.12.25
Artist: The Back Horn
Title: Kodoku na Senjyou (Lonely Battlefield)
Words: The Back Horn
Music: The Back Horn

Shibuya, it's like a sea of meat
Graffitti on the walls of the public shitters.
Can't remove the headphones from the flood of maddening noise.

The ones scattering about their insipid folk songs
The old hag loudly pestering for a donation

So many people it makes me naseous
Eh, Since they go on about how I'm such a hick anyway *1
Piss all over the wall of the train station
Ah but December is just so goddamn gentle.

Idiots are making a racket and dying, *2
sexual facial organs are laughing it up
the bitch lickin' the nape of Christ's neck
The gritty taste of gold

one, two, three people all of them deceased
again today, I'm gonna survive
in the darkness of the heart.

God, We like sad songs
so much so it upsets us.
The glaring skyscraper, a concealed knife
A lonely battlefield without meaning, offering no answers

reason is getting suffocated between the meat
What I'm afraid of, is simply that you're all human.

God, We like sad songs
so much so that it upsets us.
The glaring skyscraper, a concealed knife
A lonely battlefield without meaning, offering no answers

in the darkness keep pounding on the door
in the darkness keep pounding on the door

Translated By: Brian Stewart & Takako Sakuma

Translator's Notes: When I went to a store after The Back Horn's in store record signing I saw the advertisement they had drawn for this album 'Ikiru Sainou', it was a large poster written with markers that was basically the kanji for 'meat' written over and over several rows thick with the symbol for fire written underneath it in one solid line. This image seems to be at the heart of this song and one of the themes of the album.

*1 - inakamon is a shortened form of inakamono which means "hick" or "bumpkin". kuda wo maku refers to the sloppy talk of a drunk.

*2 - Some sarcastic wordplay.

Romaji

shibuya ha maru de niku no umi da
koushuubenjyo no rakugaki da
kuruisou na noizu no kyousui ni
heddofon ga hazusenai

nurui fo-kusongu makichirashiteru yatsura
kane wo bokin shiro to urusaku segamu babaa

hakike ga suru hodo ni ningen darake
aa douse inakamon to kuda wo maite
shonben bukkakeru eki biru no kabe
aa dakedo jyuunigatsu ga hidoku yasashii

baka ga bakasawagi shite shinderu
ganmenseiki ga waratteru
kirisuto no unaji wo nameru onna zaratsuita kin no aji

hitori futari sannin shibito darake sa kyou mo
ore ha ikitenobiteyaru kokoro no yami no naka de

kamisama oretachi ha kanashii uta ga
ki ga fureru hodo suki desu soshite konya
giratsuku matenrou kakushita naifu
imi mo naku kotae mo nai kodoku na senjyou

niku to niku no aida de chissoku shiteku risei
ore ga kowai no ha tada omaera ga ningen datte koto sa

kamisama oretachi ha kanashii uta ga
ki ga fureru hodo suki desu soshite konya
giratsuku matenrou kakushita naifu
imi mo naku kotae mo nai kodoku na senjyou

kurayami no naka doa wo tatakitsuzukero
kurayami no naka doa wo tatakitsuzukero

Romaji By: Brian Stewart