Lyrics We Long to Move the Stars to Pity - Butane

We Long to Move the Stars to Pity

Matsutake ya / Shiranu ko-no-ha no / Hebaritsuku
And that is, literally‚ that—well‚ not literally‚ just, word-for-word, it is:
«Pine mushroom—Matsutake
Ignorance—Shiranu
Leaf of tree—ko-no-ha no
Adhesiveness—Hebaritsuku»
And Blythe‚ in his book, translates it:
«The leaf of some unknown tree sticking on the mushroom»
And I showed this translation to a Japanese composer friend—I can’t remember
whether it was Ichiyanagi, or whether it was Takahashi—at any rate‚ when I
showed it to him he said he didn’t think that translation was very interesting.
And I said,⠀
«Well, how would you translate it?»
He said,⠀
«I'll let you know in a few days.»
Two days later he came back with a translation, and it was:
«Mushroom does not know that leaf is sticking on it»
(Crowd laughs)
Which is a little—what's the word?
Portentous?
I don’t know, does that mean
heavy?
«That that’s unknown brings mushroom and leaf together»
And then, finally, I got one that I prefer to all of them:
«What leaf?
What mushroom?»
Here we are now
I have the feeling, that we are getting nowhere
We are getting nowhere, and that is a pleasure