WHAT'S IN Self Liner Notes

Thanks again to Eleonora, who translated the What's In Self Liner Notes. I deleted her own comments (they can be read on the ARK No.14758) and cleaned up the grammar.

JESUS CHRIST

I composed Jesus Christ thinking it was the first lyric I wanted to write. I wanted to depict somehow the contradiction for people that believe in God. At first I thought, “What should I write?” But, when I had words that contained spirituality, the lyric became this one. Having it as the first track on the album was present from the beginning. I thought, "If I begin with this one, it'd be cool.” …The last part of the song also feels good. Even when I listened to it, I got goosebumps. About the music, even as a demo it was good, so we made it match the demo. The piano was KAZ's idea. Since he managed to drive into that phrase, I asked the pianist to play it as it was.

COUNTDOWN

The planet is going towards the last stair, that countdown has already begun, though, without any doubt, humans are bringing this destruction. There isn't even a will to take some measures, indulging in their desires. The theme is about this. The countdown starts from 13, simply because I like the number 13.

MADE IN HEAVEN

It became a song clearly full of cynicism in the contents. "If humans were made in the image of God, why can they do only bad things?" The starting point was that question. If there is a God, omniscient and omnipotent, he wouldn't consent to such things, would he? If you create something, you shouldn’t get angry at how it turns out, if your creation acts violently. For example, if I made a computer and there were problems with it, I'd think it's my fault, right? To say it's the computer’s fault would be irrational. Linking to this, I used the words MADE IN HEAVEN. Wanting it to be a song to heat up a live, I made it starting from the guitar riff.

I CAN FEEL

I wrote it with a feeling overflowing with love. It felt right to have the lyrics in English. Unintentionally, I tended toward that direction. Where there's Japanese I did it feeling it was possible. This music is KAZ's. At first it was more illusion/ethereal. To give it strength and add some rhythm, we tried arranging it by adding a different taste. It was a song that I came to like. I wanted a shining song for the live. "I wanted a song you can participate in with no rest for the drummer."

SEASON'S CALL

It's a love song. However, I think the lyrics I wrote are different from the typical love song. I can't write a lyric about realistic love. That is, I don't care to write it. I'm saying this, but maybe for the next album I might use a heart mark. This song was also the opening theme of BLOOD+. I did my personal interpretation of the story. I thought about the main character then I mixed them inside me to have this atmosphere. While doing the melody for the chorus, nannan, the key became higher than I thought, so singing it was difficult.

FAITH

I think that Christ, at the moment of his death, didn't think that his will would be the root of evil, giving birth to so many wars. Definitely, there's an interesting difference between how his will was interpreted at the time and the pure thinking he was harboring in that moment. With this song lyric, I started out trying to put into words his pure feeling. To succeed in writing it, I did research. Not just on the surface, but researching both the negative and positive factions. I built it by judging a truth that in some parts mingles together both points of view. The melody was made by KAZ, and the moment I heard it I thought it was complete. I didn't add any ideas of mine.

DOLLY

At the moment, the advance of civilization and science is causing many contradictions, and the cloned sheep, Dolly, is a symbol of that. Since before the case of Dolly, I thought of wanting to have a text. The moment I heard the music, that fact came back to my mind and I gave it form. I don't know whether cloning is right or wrong. But, I think that, if the person you love should die, even if the world is your enemy, it'd be human to want to bring that person back from death. In this there's the voice of Dolly. Finishing, I had a scary feeling about it.

PERFECT MOMENT

This is for me the experience of a moment, like when singing. If compared to that moment, both joy and anguish lose meaning. Paradise discovered in a person's life. That's a sort of secret, and I CAN FEEL is a work that depicts this theme from a different angle. However, maybe it's more a spiritual song than religious. One more thing about this song--when death visits me, I don't think there will be anything after. It seems unlikely to me that you go to Paradise if you behave well. So, we should live in this world with all our might…In a live, among violent songs, when performing this type of song, it feels good, so I did it aiming at that. In the former album, this role was for UNEXPECTED. It felt incredibly good to play in a sweating live house combined with that song's clean and detailed sound, so even this time I thought it'd be good to have such a song.

MISSION

I don’t think that while I'm living the world will become what I wish for. If we were all a bit wiser, it'd be very easy to realize, so I wrote it with this positive feeling that with time it might become so. The will in live is to heat up all together, in harmony, and the wish of becoming one thing, I mixed them together. As for the sound, I thought it'd be good having a song where the audience could become as one. It became a song with that sort of energy. At first I didn't mean to include the acoustic guitar, but there weren't songs with acoustic guitar, so I decided to give it a try, in a hurry. I acquired an acoustic guitar in L.A., added it in and since the sound was great, I was satisfied.

IT'S SAD

Since I wrote it to be clear in the meaning, maybe it's fine interpreted as it is. To say it in a few words, I don't think anything exists that is as cruel and evil as humans. The content of the lyric is the same of the manga, Devilman. It feels like two songs in one. The music already had a very catchy chorus, but thinking it too catchy, I combined it with a wild song. Even for this I thought of wanting a song to heat the live. Since I wanted to conclude with heating up, it became the last.