Uragiru BERO

Romaji and English translation of the song 裏切る舌 (Uragiru BERO) from the album NINTH by the GazettE.

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.

Uragiru BERO¹: Romaji

[BERO]

Daft’Back stabber’

Akuratsu [resu²] ni shikai wa oborete imashita
Saigo no tawamure wa ano hi mita bishou

Byouteki ni nejire magaru sono kao ga tada

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Mukui no su ni karamaru
Boku wa waraete imasu ka?
Tsudzuri kaesu tabi ni wana ni ochite iku

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Tsuranari kami no manegoto ka
Kamikiru shita mo nai

Shi wo negaedo hatenu yume obitadashiki yume

Kore wa sou kakusenai mukuna zaregoto

Saa ochiro ayamachi to
「We won’t die」

Kore ga funare ni omoi egaita risou ga
Gurui guru mawaru kimi no shita ni wa
Ima mo mumi no uwabe ga korogaru
Zaigou ni kawareta

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Mukui no su ni karamaru
Boku wa waraete imasu ka?
Tsudzuri kaesu tabi ni wana ni ochite iku

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Tsuranari kami no manegoto ka
Kamikiru shita mo nai

Shi wo negaedo hatenu yume obitadashiki yume
Kimi wa yagate toki no kuzu musebi naki kuruu kodoku to kashi

Saa ochiro ayamachi to
「We won’t die」

Traitorous Tongue: Translation

[Tongue]

Daft’Back stabber’

I was drowning [in a sea of] viciousness stretching as far as the eye can see
The last trick was the smile you saw that day

That face contorting into a twisted, grotesque expression is just…

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Am I still smiling³?
Tangled in a web of spite
I fall into the trap of writing and rewriting, over and over again

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Are they all [just] an imitation of God?
I don’t even have a tongue to bite off⁴

Even when I wish for death, my dream doesn’t die my immense dream

I can’t hide the fact that [my dream] is just one big naïve joke

So we fall because of our mistakes, [but]
「We won’t die」

I can’t envision perfection based on my inexperience
Even now, [nothing but] dull superficialities fall from
Your tongue that just keeps on wagging⁵
Cultivated by your offenses

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Am I still smiling?
Tangled in a web of spite
I fall into the trap of writing and rewriting, over and over again

[Daft’Back stabber’]

Are they all　[just] an imitation of God?
I don’t even have a tongue to bite off

Even when I wish for death, my dream doesn’t die my immense dream
Before long the remnants of time will reduce you⁶ to a crazy mess of loneliness, choking on your own tears

So we fall because of our mistakes, [but]
「We won’t die」

The kanji 舌 is pronounced shita and means “tongue”. It seems that for the title of the song only, he pronounces it BERO – which also means “tongue” but is typically written in kana as ベロ. He does say BERO at the very beginning of the song (not printed in the lyrics); every other time 舌 appears in the song he sings it as shita. Ruki likes to switch stuff up, what can I say.

Also, I can’t remember for the life of me which radio show it was, but at one point Ruki accidentally mispronounces his own title as Uragiru shita when introducing the song and one of the guys catches him on it (Reita, maybe?), and he’s basically like, “Oh really, did I? Oops, I meant BERO!”
It’s not in the booklet, but it he adds what sounds to me like れす resu which can indicate the suffering passive (basically used when someone is moaning/complaining about something) here.
I think he’s asking about the grotesque, twisted expression in the line above. Like, “Look, I’m trying to smile – am I doing it?”
This whole section seems to be connected to the line about rewriting over and over. The feeling I get from it is, “Is my stuff really any good like I want it to be, or just counterfeit crap trying to look like the real thing? I feel like I can’t find the words I want, so everything I’m trying to do is pointless.” Like he has these great aspirations of what he wants to write, but since he can’t get his thoughts out properly, he feels like a failure. This is also where the title comes in: since he can’t find the words he wants, he feels like his tongue is betraying him and it’s almost like he doesn’t even have one to begin with for all the good it’s doing him.
The words usedぐるいぐる廻る gurui guru mawaru literally mean “rolling/spinning around and around in circles;” it basically means keep chattering on and on without stopping. (In English, sometimes you hear a saying regarding someone with a wagging tongue who chatters and gossips and talks non-stop; it’s basically this same thing.) It also seems kind of ironic that he was just saying he’s unable to find the words he wants – but this person seems to have no lack of words at their disposal.
He only actually wrote “you” twice in the whole song (don’t forget, pronouns are implied/determined by context in Japanese, but we usually use them in English so they’re added in when translating), but while he uses the same form of “you” both times, he writes it with different characters. The first time (where he talked about “Your tongue that just keeps on wagging”), he wrote it the regular way in kanji: 君 kimi. Here, however, he’s written it in katakana as キミ kimi, so there’s some difference between the two. Either he’s talking about different people, or, more likely IMO, it indicates a change of feelings towards the original person, such as emotionally distancing himself, or thinking negatively of them, etc. Kimi is also a familiar form of “you,” so the person he’s talking about is someone close to him, not a stranger or acquaintance.