NINTH ODD SMELL

Romaji and English translation of the song NINTH ODD SMELL from the album NINTH by the GazettE.

There are sooooooo many notes on this one, but IMO they are totally worth it – this is one of my absolute favorite songs lyrically (I mean, and musically, too – it’s just an all-around great song).

Lyrics originally sung in English are in italics , and words or phrases I felt were implied are in [brackets] in the translation.

I also (usually) put repeats of chorus/verses/stanzas in [brackets] if they’re not written that way in the original lyrics for ease of singing along.

If he writes a word in the lyrics but doesn’t sing it, I put it in light grey to make it easier to skip when singing along.

I usually romajize katakana characters in CAPITALS, and keep punctuation and line spacing as close to the original booklet as possible. If you see me putting spaces before punctuation at the end of a sentence or writing things in mixed-case capitals, that’s because it’s how it was in the booklet.

Any comments I had during the romajization/translation process will be included as footnotes so as not to disturb the flow of the song. They’re not required reading, but Ruki does some pretty nifty things with his lyrics/kanji choices, or sometimes there’s further explanations about words or phrases in there.

NINTH ODD SMELL: Romaji

This soul can never die

Daiichi “konton” wa muchi no yaiba
Itan wa hangyaku no naka yubiki tate

Kyoumei to kakeagari
Mukau kudan no yoku
Daini no “mu”
Yami wo saita mirai
Nameless lights

Tsumikasanari ugomeku Rubbish
Yagate kuru koku no maebure

Guren matou zetsubou honogurai soko wo hai
Gishinanki no tou miorosu sekai

Doku wo nodo ni karamase uzumaita hibi
Chigirete iku kokoro ga itai
Suitai ni ukitatsu kanjou wa
Yuganda ikei no naka de
Juusan-kai ni tadori tsuku
Sou kuroi kuroi kuroi yami wo daite

[Die]
We fucking never die
This soul can never die
We fucking never die
Can’t never die

Ryoute hiroge yubi hitotsu hiite
Mukau owari ni
Sei wo tsurushi hajike tobu

Genzai koko ni mazari ai
Keisei sareta sugata
Daikyuu “ikite kita shoumei”

Tokete chiru made
Sabitsuita kokoro wo tokashi
Tada kowareta you ni risou egaku
Hishimeku koe to yuugen no naka de
Yamanu fushou sae
Sou kurae kurae kurae kurae

[Die]
We fucking never die
This soul can never die
We fucking never die
Can’t ever LIE
[Die]
We fucking never die
This soul can never die
We fucking never die
I won’t ever lie

Guuzou suuhai Inside me

NINTH ODD SMELL: Translation

This soul can never die

First　「disorder¹」　is an ignorant blade
Heresy² raising its middle finger in rebellion

Reverberation running rampant
heading towards the ninth stair of desire
Second 「nil³」 the future that tore through the darkness
Nameless lights

The grim precursor soon becomes
Stacked up, wriggling Rubbish⁴

Draped in crimson⁵ despair crawling from the murky⁶ depths
A tower of fear and doubt⁷ looks down upon the world

Poison⁸ gripping your voice as the days jumble around you
Your heart painfully being sliced⁹ to shreds
Exhilarating in the feeling of destruction
Filled with strange distortions¹⁰
You fight your way to the 13^th stage¹¹
So embrace the black black black darkness

[Die]
We fucking never die
This soul can never die
We fucking never die
Can’t never die

Both hands spread wide¹² take one finger away¹³
Moving towards the end
But, still partially entangled, you’re held back from flying

And now　here, joined together
Its figure has taken shape
Ninth¹⁴: “The proof that we lived”

Until we break apart and disappear¹⁵
We’ll soften our rusted hearts
Our clamoring voices may reach their breaking point
But we won’t stop as long as we can shock¹⁶ you
So take it¹⁷, take it, take it, take it

[Die]
We fucking never die
This soul can never die
We fucking never die
Can’t ever LIE
[Die]
We fucking never die
This soul can never die
We fucking never die
I won’t ever lie

Idol worship¹⁸ Inside me

So basically this whole song is a band history/discography of their studio albums up through NINTH. It’s freaking clever and I love it to pieces.

混沌 konton can also mean “chaos,” but this verse is about their first studio album, DISORDER.
HERESY is the name of their fan club.
無 mu also means “nothing, nothingness” – but this verse is about their second album NIL.
積み重なり tsumikasanari means “to pile on, to accumulate” – third album STACKED RUBBISH.
This uses the word 紅蓮 guren – as in the song on DIM of the same name.
Also, murky = fourth album DIM. I love this song so much. I can’t even.
In past interviews, Ruki has said that there was a reason that DIM was such a dark album; it seems like the DIM era may have been a rough time for them as a band and they had to struggle to make it through (and “crawl out of the murky depths”).
毒 doku can also mean “toxicant, harm, evil influence” – but this is the fifth album TOXIC.
千切れて chigirete is “to cut up fine” – and another term for cut/slice is divide; this is the sixth album DIVISION.
This is the seventh album BEAUTIFUL DEFORMITY.
Their eighth album (DOGMA) was released the year of their 13th anniversary.
Album artwork for DOGMA shows the Goddess with her arms outstretched (the picture actually continues on the individual covers for the singles UGLY and UNDYING – one of her arms is on each cover). It might not mean this specifically because of the fingers in the next line, and her fingers are crumbled away on UNDYING, but it’s the first thing I thought of, honestly.
10 fingers – 1 finger = 9 = the next album, NINTH.
There’s kind of a play on words here. Read separately as 解けて散る tokete chiru, this means “break apart and disappear” – but if you get rid of the hiragana and only use the kanji in the line, it’s the word 解散 kaisan – which means “disbandment / dissolution / break-up” (what no one wants to hear in reference to their favorite band). So basically the line is “until we break up / disband and go our separate ways, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing” without actually using the word for “disband” because bad juju, I assume.
Obvs. NINTH.
不祥 fushou can mean “disgraceful, scandalous” among a few other things; “shock” fit better with the verse – basically that as long as they’re able to bring it all – hardcore and damn the reactions – they will.
喰らえ kurae can be translated as “to eat/drink, to receive (as in a blow)” – so basically, this could be “take it” or “eat it” as in, “we’re shoving this in your face, like it or not.”
偶像崇拝 guuzou suuhai means “worship, idolatry” – yup, we just got told to keep worshiping them. LOL I love these guys so much.