You know the feeling, of having experienced something in early childhood--a book, a TV show, a song--whose title you cannot remember, but which has recurred frequently in your memory ever since, even though you have not encountered any guise of it in more than a decade? And not just any book or show or song--one that's so good that it's killing you with curiosity over what its title is?
Basically, for the past thirteen years, there's been one such song in my memory. When I was five, an anime series aired on TV with this astoundingly catchy theme song. The chorus had the sort of perky, syncopated, memorable melody that probably got stuck in my head repeatedly, and which I likely hummed along with when it played on TV. I know I remember another thing: flashes of cartoon images that accompanied the song during the opening sequence of the show, most associated with sunniness and a girl in brownish clothes.
Of course, this song was in Japanese. Which meant that I never had a chance to memorise its lyrics, however much I loved it, because I knew not a word of Japanese. So for a whole 13 years since, I've lived with remembering nothing but its tune--and sometimes, there's this desolateness accompanying the thought that I'll never rediscover this wonderful tune of my childhood and never hear it again.
And believe me, it has haunted me like a ghost. I've wondered about it throughout my life ever since. At certain random points in time in Primary School, I'd suddenly think of it, but without harbouring any hopes of ever finding it again. I lived with it I guess.
I remember trying to satiate myself by insisting in my mind that I was confusing it with another song and replacing the lyrics in my mind with Japanese. That's what my sister told me when I sang the tune to her, anyway--and it's understandable why she'd think so. Haha. Time passed as always, and I started to believe myself at times--that it's a figment of my imagination.
Even then, I continued to remember this stupendously distinct tune, which refused to be erased even after near a decade had passed--and though the memory had been thinned so much by time, I was certain I hadn't imagined it. I wondered about it in secondary school, and sang it sometimes for friends who knew me well and with whom the topic was brought up.
Then one day, they were playing song requests in the canteen--and out of the blue, this Japanese song began to play that sounded uncannily similar to this one. I eagerly ran about the canteen asking if anyone knew what its title was--yes, I was certain it was THE song.
Lydia, who was queueing at one of the canteen stalls, knew its title, and told it to me. But when I eagerly explained my excitement as being because "I've been searching for it since I was 5", she seemed shocked. I was then disappointed to learn, then, that it'd been released in 2005--not my song. Of course I later realised (after this song, Weeeek by NEWS, itself became among my favourite J-pop titles of all time) that the singers of the song I sought were FEMALE.
The song hung about in the periphery of my thoughts, and I believe it only did because I was so intensely desperate to find out what it was and HEAR IT AGAIN. I think I did sing it to more friends, though no one said they did.
It was around Sec 4 that I grew extremely desirous of it again--probably following my discovery of Weeeek. I thought I'd type the melody out on Noteworthy Composer and go around on FB asking my otaku friends if they knew where it came from, and then going about publicising it on Youtube.
I also formulated this most absurd and desperate plan that year: I'd become a famous songwriter, and release a song with the exact same melody and instrumentation as that song--and just wait for some Japanese songwriter to walk up to me and sue me for plagiarism of his/her melody. Even if I had to pay $45720984332 for it, I'd FINALLY have its title and know its origin! (Silly plan.)
Of course, I tried my luck on YouTube, and searched for the opening themes of every single anime I remembered ever watching in my life--mostly around Sec 4 and J1. I tried everything from Dragon Ball to Digimon to Magic Knight Rayearth (and some rubbish) but NOTHING! I tried this on two or three occasions, but never got anything, clearly, though I was certain that if I remembered the theme song then I must remember the anime.
Then came today--in the midst of my Preliminary Examinations, near my A levels--when I was on Goodreads and decided to add more old books to my list of read books. I added The Amulet of Komondor (read in P5), and on the book's page, I discovered a link to a "What is the title of this book" forum post, in which someone was searching for the title of this very book through descriptions of it.
Of course I was immediately reminded of my own search for this old song. The melody was still as sharp as ever in my mind. So deciding that TODAY was the day I'd finally get properly serious about it, and CERTAIN it was somewhere out there, I began on my search.
I believe I began arbitrarily by googling "anime theme song", and there found a link to a forum thread regarding favourite anime theme songs. The top title on the first post was Sakura Saku from Love Hina--which was obviously not the song I sought, but which stoked me because it was in a similar-ish style. I began on my standard theme song searches, going through series I hadn't gone through yet.
One of these then led me to a series of videos of title such as "Top 20 Anime Songs" "Top 20 Anime Openings" "Top 100 Anime Openings in 15 minutes". I thought those were my best bets, since they were compact collections of anime themes. I went through every single song in all these, but no luck.
I really hit on a vein when I found a staggering 1:39:00 video of the same sort. Except this one was "Top 555"--and frankly, 555 is such a frightfully huge number that this godly video creator couldn't possibly have missed any prominent anime in this list--especially not one popular enough to have been aired in Singapore. I decided I'd devote my next 1.5 hours to it, and I did, delving tirelessly through the horrifyingly huge collection of theme song clips this guy had cobbled together in the video.
In the process, I also managed to draw up an entire .txt list of good-sounding songs that I picked up on the way, and it looked like this:
kouga ninpouchouI took the gamble devoting myself to the 555 songs in the video, quite certain it was the only way I was ever going to find it anyway, and the closest I might ever come (bad timing for passionate whims, really). After 150 songs, I was already in that "meh deluged with J-pop" state. I'd pretty much convinced myself it didn't matter whether or not I found the song, because there was so much good stuff here anyway, and it probably never existed anyway.
sky's the limit - shihoko hirata
pre-parade - rie kugimiya, eri kitamura
motteke sailor fuku - aya hirano
endless story yukari tamura
silly-go-round fictionjunction yuuka
brand new morning mizuhashi mai
god only knows daisanmaku - oratorio the worl god only knows
daydream syndrome marina fujiwara
Bokura no Kiseki -Ishida Yoko
Shang ri-la - Angela
tabidatsu kimi he - rsp
beautiful world - ai maeda
Canta Per Me - Kaida Yuriko
Irony - Claris
magia kalafina
Towa no kizuna - daisy x daisy
gekkou symphonia - akino and aiki
Melody - Shion Tsuji
Innocent Starter Nana Mizuki
Toki wo Kizamu Uta - Lia
Zankoku yo kibou to nare - aira yuki
gravity - m o e v
I'd just gotten by the really pretty theme of CLAMP in Wonderland, and was making the standard mental notes about how there had been two theme songs from shows about swordsmen in a row. After CLAMP was some really retro-sounding thing from the 1980s, and the music faded straight into yet another J-pop thing...
Then OH MY GOD. It suddenly hit me that it was THE SONG--playing, there, like that. Note for note.
I was pretty much stunned when that voice sang my memory tune--sounding exactly as it did had in my mind all these years. It was just there, this song like any other among these things from 1985 to 2012--except not just like any other.
Immediate thought: VIDEO CREATOR, THE WORLD IS BLESSED TO HAVE ANIME-OBSESSED PEOPLE LIKE YOU. PEOPLE WHO WOULD WATCH 600 ANIME SERIES AND THEN COMPILE THEIR THEME SONGS INTO ONE GIGANTIC 1.5 HOUR MOVIE.
Best thing is, he/she of this video trimmed the song down to the chorus, so it got straight to the part I recognised. I'm so utterly thankful for that, you know--for this person's diligent work--that I want to fly halfway across the globe just to fangirl this person face to face? Can you imagine if it'd started with the intro? I may never have recognised it (though now I think about it, the intro melody is reminiscent of the chorus too)!
I think I spent the next half an hour listening to it again and again and suddenly having all those old synaptic links fired again. And laughing because I was so damn happy just listening to this relic from my childhood, all the dust brushed off--HERE, IN THE PRESENT. Oh that ecstasy!
Right now, I'm just wondering about how my life will change now this Great Mystery of Life that has haunted me since kindergarten has at last been solved (now I think about it, I'm pretty sure it's my trip to Australia that erased it from my mind). Obviously not much is actually going to change--and obviously too, I glorify this song too much. But it really is a big deal to me. It's rediscovering a crucial part of your life--not just as a child, but as a teenager too, and all through the time you've lived.
/fangirlgush
I realise I haven't even mentioned what the song is.
