>>20769280>>20769428And here's what I pasted it onto. No, I don't think anything in this song is actually referencing this ending, but it seemed like an apt enough illustration of a similar theme.
>>20769164>9. Scuffed Up Age (Part 2, this song made me weep like a baby for 45 minutes straight the night the album dropped)>Late nights, the city feels dead, sure, but like…>The lights and sights and sounds are treasuresThe chords go further and further into the realms of parallels and augmented chords and shit that can't just be summed up with the blacks and whites we usually use for music theory, but into some progressive jazz shit that few idol producers stay in for long.
In NEXT COLOR PLANET, Arte Refact does a similar schtick for about 2 or three chords, maybe 30% of a bar total, in an instrumental dance break.
In Scuffed Up Age, Mori sings alongside Camelia for FIVE LINES STRAIGHT. At the climax of an entire goddamn album. I'm gonna need knee surgery from kneeling this hard.
Anyway, the first half of this is casting the doom and gloom we've been stuck in so far into doubt, positing that maybe there's enough out there in this wretched life that we can learn to treasure it and appreciate it, rather than just tolerate it.
>こんな世界に抗って歩く力なんて But that doesn't change the reality she's been dancing around all album. The pressure being our idol is probably too much for her to handle, even if she tries her best. Her best might not be enough, and we might all just be biding our time until she cracks from the all the pressure building up between Beast, Beats, Bloodlust, and Believing in a dream.
私にはないけど [But not for me...]
And then as the horns, strings, pads, and chords swell into an unbearable suspense, Mori finally moves past self-absorption and self-depreciation in one fell swoop, casting aside her anxieties over what's the right way to curate her story.
Because for idols, that story isn't really "for me". It's no longer her story to tell, nor is it for her sake alone.
She's staying because she loves us more than she could ever hate herself.>Face up, this world can’t kill that inner spark>Why don’t we turn this scuffed up page we’re writing inAnd then she barks out her new lore from this point forward, "turning" the "page in" she's been stuck on since Cursed Night, the page she threatened to "burn" halfway through this roller-coaster of a first album, finally finding the hope to not just believe, but *declare*, in a howling modulation that I'd need to finish my degree to understand, that Calliope, Mori, the Dead Beats, and all the members of her extended universe certainly can, and thus might as well, move on from the status quo we've been stuck in together, because the world's curses/laws just aren't enough to break our spirits.
>この夜明け [This dawn] is rarely fair, decide your fate>It’s your life 貴方を捨ててしまわないで [Don't let them throw you away]She isn't any less cynical about the way things are, but she's also accepting the fact that we have the power to keep on fighting until a better day comes.
>But the truth is rather ruthless, it might be rain>The question is, will you bear that pain?>What’s your reason to stay?Mori challenges herself one final time, acknowledging that there's no guarantee that this battle will lead to us finding happiness, and asking whether or not it's worth it to try despite that. Asking what exactly it is that motivates her to fight against fate.
>This shining world led astray>Won’t leave it all to decay>I choose to love it anywayAnd here comes the last twist: The exact same world she feared and loathed so much, the light and darkness alike, IS her reason. It's beautiful enough to fight for. It's beautiful enough to try to keep MAKING it as beautiful as you always hoped, as you always dreamed, and love it for however close it can come to that ideal. The struggle itself is self-justifying, a snake that will always find something in its own self-destruction to keep it going.
>So, don’t give in 