Would you mind telling us the meaning of your album's title, "A Song for XX"Ayu: The "A" in "A Song for XX" is both the "A" in
Album, and the "A" in
Ayu. As for the "XX", listeners can insert their favorite thing, the name of a person they care about, something like that. All that matters is that listeners imagine something there. Inside Ayu, there is only one meaning applied to the "XX". But, since everyone who listens will have different ideas as to who that song is about, I didn't want to limit the definition of "XX" by specifying its meaning to me, so listeners can themselves attach a meaning to it easily.
How long ago did you start recording the album?Ayu: I started in September.
But before that, you were keeping busy releasing singles, yes?Ayu: Yeah. We decided to release the 2 singles "For My Dear..." and "Depend on you" while recording, so those were recorded in parallel with the album.
Your schedule must have been busy, recording 16 songs for a work totalling an amazing 70 minutes.Ayu: I was singing "For My Dear..." on TV, recording the album, then singing on TV again & again with "Depend on you". It was just singing, singing, singing every day, haha! So there are some songs where my voice got scratchy for a bit.
Though it seems you took the vocals seriously, wasn't it also a serious undertaking to write all the songs' lyrics?Ayu: Is it really something to write that much? (lol)
Your album has a varied group of contributing songwriters that you got to meet. There are singles written by the likes of Yasuhiko Hoshino, songs by m.c.A.T and DA PUMP's producer, Akio Togashi, Mitsuru Igarashi of Every Little Thing, people like that.Ayu: With Igarashi and Togashi, we didn't do the typical "Hajimemashite, yoroshiku onegaishimasu" thing, cuz we knew each other from before already, so working with them was easy. But I only had preconceptions of the other two, so for them there was pressure for me to write songs that didn't stink. So when they gave me the DAT tapes (demos of their melodies) I couldn't listen to them at first. Once I did, though, an image definitely formed in my head. There are people who listen to the compositions well enough before writing lyrics, but with Igarashi & Togashi's music, I had the basic melody memorized before doing any writing, and after that I wouldn't hear the music that I wrote the lyrics to until the day of recording.
Compared to interviews you did before your debut, now, you give the impression that you're more confident. Really, your growth & change this past year, your natural expressions & behavior, I'm thinking that came across in your lyrics & songs.Ayu: I think so. I think alot has changed. A year ago, I didn't trust people, so I was bad at talking to people, and I kept my distance with a "wall" around me. But now, it's not that I can say "Ayu believes in you, so please believe in me too", that depends on the person, but now I've been able to trust those around me to the point where I can say "If I'm betrayed by you, then oh well". I think people have changed me.
Even so, after two months of singles, an album right after that, that's a very fast pace!Ayu: Jumping into this world, releasing a single in each of two months, I did the album. Hurry hurry hurry, sometimes the daily grind would drag me down, haha. But after it was done, there were people who believed in it, and I think they supported me and I'm thankful for that. But I don't feel like I, myself, did my best. Everyone helped me do my best. That's how this album was made.
I'm sure producer Max Matsuura gave you alot of advice during recording. Could I ask you to share some of it with us?Ayu: Although he was often sleeping, his mouth did open... haha! What am I going on about???? But, he said it'd be easy to sing once I went up there & did it. He said there are already people who know who I am, and they already think I can sing these songs, he thought I could write lyrics, and also that I could sing, and I WAS able to write the lyrics, because as my producer Max encouraged me. "Ayu can sing!" "Ayu can write lyrics!" "If it's you, then it can be done." He was able to say, "Ayu really can do it!" and that was the only way I could do it. That was how it started, he was the person who said "You can do this". Until then, in either junior high or high school, most adults around me would say "Don't bother doing anything, because you can't do it." I was changed by how this producer was treating me. When this person was recording, even if he was sleeping, even if he didn't say a word, I think he helped me perfectly, and I felt secure.
When you're around these types of people, it's more about the work you produce than your abilities. So were the songs & melodies chosen decided by you or the producers?Ayu: The songs were sorta chosen by the producers. From a group of dozens of possible songs, the producers chose some, and I would narrow it down to the ones I wanted to do. Since the producers wanted to choose the tracks based on their lyrics, they left that to me. When I was done choosing them, the music flowed in such a way that it told a story about going from the present to the future. But it seems like the producer-types wouldn't let me do that because the song "Present" is at the end.
01 A Song for XX
When making the album, this was my #1 choice for the opening song. I always consider the melody in my head first, and once I know it then I write the lyrics, but this time, while I wrote the lyrics, I had the overall sound of the music in my head, but I couldn't write it. As I wrote the characters down the song became very real, but it took a long time to get started.
As for the lyrics, I looked back on things in my childhood and wrote about that, my questions and uneasiness during that time, and the theme of the song was those feelings. Because I am older now, if I wanted to hide then I can hide, and I feel bad for my past self, and now I can put that into prettier words. But I didn't want to write a lie, and probably if I did write lies, I wouldn't have made the album at all.
02 Hana
These are lyrics that I wrote looking at a flower in my home. I didn't want to just write down everything that came to mind, looking at the flower, listing off its qualities as it was. If you don't give a flower water, it'll wither, just like until now, I couldn't live unless I got people to help me, although being so dependent was horrible, I hated it. Very little of my life was powered by me, I thought I was a truly weak child.
But every flower starts with a bud, and if you look after it's bloomed, it's beautiful. At that time, I thought to myself, is the question "Since the flower knows that one day it'll fall apart, can it ever bloom into beauty?" or is it "Since it doesn't know right now when it'll fall apart, is it blooming beautifully?" Then, since, I surely knew I'd eventually fall apart, I knew I could bloom and be beautiful now. A child who assumes this can truly be strong. If I am a flower, with only about one week of life, turning deep black and withering is unacceptable. That's what I think, anyway. I know that even if I don't like myself right now, I'll bloom into a beautiful flower. Seeing that flower, I realized that worrying about such trivial things was nothing, it was tiny. So I wrote those thoughts down.
03 FRIEND
This was the coupling song on my debut single "poker face". It's shameful, it was just like "poof!" haha. If you listen to the album from the beginning, the voice behind this song is very different. But I sang this album with no real preparation. Since this song was recorded before "poker face", it really was the first song, and I had to do my best singing this song a huge lump in my throat. Whenever I hear the song I remember myself from that time and I'm filled with nostalgia, and I think it's kinda cute.
04 FRIEND II
This song's music & arrangement is by Mitsuru Igarashi from Every Little Thing. The fourth track is "FRIEND", and then "FRIEND II" is right after it. Although it's not really a "sequel" on its own, I was thinking about the same world in the song "FRIEND" when it was written, and I think that the song "FRIEND" is different in my mind now when I think of it. Over the past year, various things happened with various incredibly interesting people that I've met in my life up until now. So instead of calling it a sequel, it's one more "FRIEND", like "FRIEND (age 19)" and "FRIEND (age 20)" instead, haha!
But if I didn't have that intention from the beginning, if I had written the song without keeping the world view present in "FRIEND" in mind, I'm sure that the me of today wouldn't have been able to write the song as it is.
05 poker face
When I wrote "poker face" , I said, "Even if I can cry, and everyone is crying, I'm actually laughing". But I was probably the one crying the most, haha. I'm sure at the time I was extraordinarily lonely. So I was writing words like "I want to show strength" and "I want to be strong".
If I hear this song and my second single, "YOU", I'm reminded of clear glass. If you put glass in an important place in your home, it keeps the wind out, because it is thick and strong, and although you feel very protected, with that barrier there, one day you'll hear a crunching sound and your protection will break into pieces. These two songs have this image, something so delicate, but holding an unreliable strength.
06 Wishing
Since I'm not the type to easily be honest with people, I have a hard time making friends. But there are those who I can make friends with if I spend enough time with them, and I think perhaps around the time I recorded "YOU"...? I met a certain person and we became friends. "Wishing" is written for & addressed to this girl.
You could call her my best friend, but everyone thinks they're someone's best friend. I don't think I'd have been able to live without my friend. Personally, I think everyone needs a friend too. But you know, making your way through life can't depend solely on your friend or best friend or whoever. Or like, if it was a lover, even if we get married and spend our whole lives together. With a close friend, being together with you won't make me happy. I would wish for you to put your own happiness first, and that would be my happiness. That is what I was trying to say in this song.
07 YOU
I wrote this song around the same time as my debut song, "poker face", saying to myself, "In singing a song, I become a singer", something I'd just realized. "poker face" and this song, "YOU", I thought I could cure someone's problems, but now, I think around this time I think I was curing myself. That comes out in the lyrics - it was something I was very preoccupied with. I wasn't feeling well during recording and ran into some issues with my vocals. It was pretty difficult.
08 As if...
The music here was written by Kazuhito Kikuchi, who also did the music for "Depend on you." When I had not met with Kazu-bou yet, I was sure he'd be the type of man with a huge unkempt mustache grown. When I heard his name, that was the image that I had in my mind, haha! So even when I wrote the lyrics along to the music, I still had this image in my head of this unkempt mustache man, so I wrote something that went with that image. And so when I saw him, and he looked much more pleasant, my brain was still tainted by that image of him, hahaha! What I saw now was completely different from what I had imagined. So, since then he's let me call him "respectfully" Kazu-bou! XD
Although Kazu-bou did only 2 songs on the album, "Depend on you" and "As if...", I really like them alot. I'd poke him alot, "I love love love them, they're great!!" I'm sure Kazu-bou knows how highly I regard him.
09 POWDER SNOW
This is sort of the song that tore down & rebuilt the image of Ayu that's permeated the world. That image that said, "Ayu's songs are always positive, fresh, pleasant, and sunny" and "She sings songs to cheer you on & songs with messages". Naturally, there are those who do those songs, and do them very well, and I encourage them to do that, because I think that's amazing, but that's not all that Ayu can do. Even when I'm falling down, I worry about it by myself. I never make a peep about it, I try not to be a bother.
In "POWDER SNOW", I was trying to say that being positive isn't necessarily good, nor is being negative necessarily bad. They're just things to be. And I think that sometimes being alone & being worried are sometimes necessary.
From the song's quiet opening, it develops to a high point, rising gradually, making it a dramatic ballad. I participated in the production a bit, and though this album was my first time doing something like that, I offered ideas & opinions even until the very end, like "put the sound of a bell in there" since I thought the last guitar solo made the song too bright.
10 Trust
At the end of May, I was writing the lyrics in my Los Angeles hotel room, but I kept hearing a pounding or drumming noise, and it became impossible to write, I said to everyone, my producer & staff, "I need to go outside", and I invited them along, so we rode around & around in the car for about 4 hours, and it was in this time that I wrote "Trust". Saying nothing, all together in a car for all of four hours, the staff were warm and kind, and I think that was the only reason I was able to write the lyrics. Everyone was probably actually thinking "Are you done yet?"... hahahaha.
When the lyrics were done, I realized that at the last high point of the song, I used the phrase "shinjiru" ("believing") twice. I thought, "Ayu, with this song, is somehow changing" and "Ayu somehow found something to believe in". Using "shinjiru" twice made me glad but very surprised at myself. In the song's PV, we put the most importance on the story's first two segments. The producer said "Up until now, we haven't seen a very expressive ayu, so I want to see lots of expressive scenes," so I cry, I smile, I look angry... I think you can see many expressions from me in this video.
