Phonon Belt

Lyrics

 * 1 "Words like “screech” and “whoosh” throughout the song might sound a bit awkward, but the original Japanese is full of onomatopoeia/sounds effects (which are used MUCH more commonly in Japanese than in English). The most natural translation would probably leave them out, but I tried to fit in a sound effect here and there just because it's such a striking feature of the original song."
 * 2 "明暗 (meian) literally means “light and dark”, but can also mean “light” and “dark” aspects of something, like “success and failure” or “happiness and unhappiness”. There's a phrase, 明暗を分ける, which literally means “to separate light and dark” but generally is used to mean something like “to decide the winner and the loser/the good and the bad” or (more broadly) “to decide the outcome”. So you could also translate that part of the lyrics as “That sound comes to entrust the outcome to you” or “That sound comes to place the outcome in your hands”. But I wasn't sure if that was exactly what was meant, so I went with “light and dark” in the sense that “That sound comes to entrust both the good and the bad to you”."
 * 3 "“Belt of sound” is what the lyrics say, but Mr. Hirasawa entitled the song “Phonon Belt”. Check out these definitions of “phonon”, if (like me) you are unfamiliar with the term. Basically a phonon is a quantum of sound that travels through solid matter, while a photon is a quantum of light that travels through space."
 * 4 "Just to point out another way Mr. Hirasawa cleverly plays with words: the word I translated as “army” is 軍勢 (pronounced gunzei); the word I translated at “crowd” earlier is 群集 (pronounched gunshuu). While the gun- part of these words are written with entirely different characters, they sound similar and set up a nice comparison between the group of people who form the noisy crowds (gunshuu) and the group of people that would form a noisy army (gunzei)."

Connections

 * The image of people gathering in a town square described in the lyrics also appears in "In the Square".
 * The wider theme of a calling from a larger elemental force breaking through a banal society to impart a revelation into the listener is also present in "The Double of Wind", "Grandfatherly Wind" and "Switched-On Lotus".
 * It is the only song from Planet Roll Call to mention megaphones, which feature prominently on the album's cover.