Butane — We Long to Move the Stars to Pity lyrics

Lyrics

Matsutake ya / Shiranu ko-no-ha no / Hebaritsuku
And that is, literally‚ that—well‚ not literally‚ just, word-for-word, it is:
«Pine mushroom—Matsutake
Ignorance—Shiranu
Leaf of tree—ko-no-ha no
Adhesiveness—Hebaritsuku»
And Blythe‚ in his book, translates it:
The leaf of some unknown tree sticking on the mushroom
And I showed this translation to a Japanese composer friend—I can’t remember
whether it was, Ichiyanagi‚ or whether it was, um, Takahashi. At any rate,
when I showed it to him he said he didn’t think that translation was very
interesting. And I said, «Well, how would you translate it?» He said «I'll let you know in a few days.» Two days later he came back with a
translation, and it was:
Mushroom does not know that leaf is sticking on it
(Crowd laughs)
Which is a little—um, what’s the word? Portentous? I don’t know,
does that mean heavy? (Laughs)
That that’s unknown brings mushroom and leaf together
And then, finally, I got one that I prefer to all of them:
What leaf? What mushroom?
Here we are now
I have the feeling, that we are getting nowhere
We are getting nowhere, and that is a pleasure