This will be a new weekly feature. I will take a specific song from a Japanese group or artist, and do a deep dive on the lyrics (as much as I can with my current lacking Japanese skills). The first song will be a popular AKB48 song, but I’ll pick from all sorts of groups and artists.
Oogoe diamond is a very sweet and a little heartbreaking song, written in a minor key. This actually is something I’ve noticed that Japanese pop groups tend to do – they mix modalities. A song in a minor key may still be upbeat and have upbeat lyrics, and I find the contrast to be rather interesting. This song is about someone who realizes that they love someone else just as the bus is pulling away, and she is shouting after him to finally tell him how she feels.
Does he hear? Does he love her back? Does he know as his bus drives away that she realized how much she loves him?
We don’t know, but we hear her diamond shout – crystalline, hard, sparkling with shed and unshed tears, as her heart breaks and she gives the shards to the person she finally can admit her love to.
I have loved, and I have lost, and I love now, and I could lose. Do I have the courage? Will I let her hear my diamond shout?