Speaking of first attempts, this album includes the first song that was both written and composed by the band, ‘Very Special’.
MAMI: It started with the B-side on the first release of 2011, ‘Pride’, which was RINA’s song (‘Emotion’). The B-side for ‘Haruka’ was mine (‘Want You’), then ‘LOVE SURVIVE’ was TOMO’s ……
(T/N: I think she actually forgot; the B-side was ‘Hikare’; RINA wrote the lyrics and she wrote the music with MAMI)
When we say that we can write our own songs, it’s also like saying that we’re one step closer to reaching our dreams. Maybe we’ve matured a bit since our previous works, on this album.
TOMOMI: Like RINA said at the beginning, up until ‘TEMPTATION BOX’, we had a lot of songs that said, ‘This is who we are!’ BABY ACTION is like a present that we want to give, or thoughts we want to share; there really are a lot of songs written ‘for you’. Recently, there has been a lot of dramatic news, and our thoughts in regards to these things are expressed in our lyrics. After the earthquake, I wrote down my thoughts word for word. It was the same way I had written lyrics previously, but at the same time the melody fell into place, so to speak. It wasn’t that we were aiming to make something in particular, but our everyday lives make us think about what the ‘present’ is – and that was the only thing I could write about in this song.
What would you say this song is about?
TOMOMI: I think it’s that the earthquake was a big thing. On one hand, the earthquake brings back terrible memories for some people, but in completely different places, there were other consequences of the earthquake. To say that we lived in these times …… so once again, we double check if we have special people and special things in our lives. The ‘human-ness’ within us resonates strongly, and we want to see if we can still feel the things we have carried for a long time. I believe we all have meanness and kindness within us, but usually we can’t show these sides, and we forget things that are ‘too precious’. They’re hard to express, but I want to convey that all of these things are important.
Could you tell us what some of these Very Special things are?
RINA: For me, it’s the other members. I really don’t want them to tell me, “RINA, leave the band.” (laughs).
MAMI: And what would you do if we told you that? (Bullying!)
RINA: I don’t even want to imagine that (laughs). To me, the existence of this band is Very Special. Because we’re all here together, I was able to meet people I wouldn’t have been able to meet otherwise, and I can feel things I wouldn’t have been able to feel before. Every day, I get the sense that I can see what my dreams are because of the other members. Every day, I feel like the four of us are becoming closer to being one. Times when we have our band-esque conversations like, ‘how’s the chorus developing?’, are also Very Special to me. There’s a big difference but, within each day, finding those Very Special things are calming.
HARUNA: Everyone we are able to meet throughout our lives is Very Special, I think. I believe that our encounters are all the result of our fate. Even encounters that are connected to unpleasant or painful things, for example, even if it’s something like someone noticing your mistakes, they all evoke special feelings. So, after the earthquake, I came to feel grateful just to be alive. It might be a bit over-dramatic to say this, but I was glad to be born, and it was because I was born that I was able to feel this way; I felt strongly that it would be nice to sing about the happiness in the trivial events of our everyday lives.
MAMI: I also believe that being born in this world is Very Special. The other members, my family, everyone who I’ve met – in other words, I have to be alive to meet them, right? Maybe the four of us being able to meet each other was decided from the start. I mean, there were a lot of people who started playing instruments at the same time, at the same school.
