Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The actual title of this song is 「聞いてはいけない、言ってはいけない」, which is pronounced "Kiite wa Ikenai, Itte wa Ikenai". I probably ought to be more out than I am, but I like seeing the reaction of people who don't suspect when I do come out. (Doesn't work on other gay men, though.)

Like "光速/Kousoku", this song is part of a set in which I wrote the lyrics first and titled the songs in Japanese. I noticed the RSS feed doesn't take too kindly to Asian characters in the title, so I'm using English.

By the way, "casually" is a very hard word to sing.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by NemesisVex (9 comments total)

Are you a native Japanese speaker? I couldn't hear any accent, even on the "casually". Good song, it was well produced and had a catchy riff.
posted by BrnP84 at 3:12 PM on July 31, 2008

Love the feel of the song, especially the jangly guitars. One suggestion I might have (if you're looking for suggestions) it to give the chorus a little more lift, I could really hear this soar if you play around with that vocal line. Nice overall though, I was definitely nodding my head and singing along.
posted by platinum at 4:12 PM on July 31, 2008

Very well done! I like this a lot. One question: how do you feel about guitar solos? I found myself wanting one towards the end of the song, maybe before the last chorus -- or at least some fills to break up the chord-strumming interludes. Just an idea.

(For the benefit of other curious souls, here's NemesisVex's explanation for the titling: "I like how Japanese artists title their songs in English, even though they're singing in Japanese. So I decided to title my songs in Japanese, even though I'm singing in English.")
posted by danb at 8:51 PM on July 31, 2008

Oh wow I feel stupid, I just complemented a native English speaker on how good his English accent was....
posted by BrnP84 at 9:01 AM on August 1, 2008

Some nice guitar tones here, especially the first electric that starts the song.
posted by arcanecrowbar at 11:25 AM on August 1, 2008

Oddly enough, flapjax at midnite says my Japanese is pretty decent.

I should also probably come out of the closet further and say the guitar parts were all provided by Reason with somewhat meticulous programming in Cakewalk SONAR. A guitar solo would work really well toward the end, actually. I would just need to program it.

I know enough guitar to strum the chords I want to hear, but I'm not enough of a player to record an actual guitar track.
posted by NemesisVex at 12:00 PM on August 1, 2008

I would never have suspected... that those were fake guitars! Nice and jangly and poppy.
posted by not_on_display at 11:41 PM on August 1, 2008

This has such a big, great sound.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:10 AM on August 3, 2008

I like this so much; really a great song.
And the sound you got is reminding me of about 10 different people but I can't put my finger on one, which is always a great sign.
I appreciate that you did (and why you did), but I almost think it would have been kind of cool to not mention the backstory/meaning of the song...since that's sort of the crux of the whole song, no?
Regardless, great job. I really enjoyed it.
posted by chococat at 6:48 PM on August 3, 2008