Okawa

After graduating from high school I got a job and started living alone for the first time
At that moment I felt as if I had become an adult

I carried an amp head in the back of my car and kept bringing it to the studio to play
Someday I want to join a punk label overseas
I shared such dreams with my friends

In the summer when I was 19 I quit my job
I had worked there for only 5 months
It was not the work I had wanted but I still enjoyed it in my own way
I had dreams and nothing but hope

The room where I had lived alone became empty after packing everything
and looking at it I felt as if I had lost everything

After returning to my parents home I helped with the fields
In between I went to the employment office and looked at job listings

My mother never scolded me for that
You are not doing nothing You are working after all
And she said to me

You want to go to Tokyo right Then you should go

I said to my mother
Please think of it as if I am attending university and give me 4 years of time

It has been 20 years since then
Although I am not exactly the person I imagined back then
I can now talk about my current self to my mother and my friends

This song is one I wrote a month before I came to Tokyo
I did not arrange it at all and the lyrics remain unchanged

At that time it was a song filled with resentment
But now it is different
Now it feels like a song of gratitude

If you had not been there my life would not have led to where I am now
I am truly thankful that you gave me a chance to run away

We cannot change our past memories
But we can change how we feel about the past

2004 11 04
I want you to hear exactly what I felt back then