Untitled (It May not Always be So)

Works | 2006年08月21日(月)

I hand-wrote (copied) the text of a song sung by Bjork, who took the text from an e.e. cummings poem. A man first authored the poem, and then it was turned into a song, which was sung by a woman. What interests me with this appropriation, and what is strange to me, is a Western language tendency that when someone covers a song originally sung by a person of opposite sex, the pronouns are changed, i.e., he to she or vice versa. This changes does not happen within Japanese singing. If a male singer wants to cover a song by a female singer, he keeps the lyrics as written and performed originally. Bjork changed “he’s” in the poem to “she’s”, slightly changing the context and overall meaning of the poem. Then I covered the song by hand-writing it, but kept the “she’s” form Bjork¹s version. Now this “she” and “you” have become kind of obscure, mysterious figures, given that I am gay. Also the super euphoria of this particular poem is interesting to me. And transition of the context from cummings (American) to Bjork (Icelandic) to me (Okinawan) adds an additional layer to the work.

トップページへ戻る