ADDENDUM

        1. An Objection
 In the period from the release of "Duty" to that of "I am...", there appeared not a few people who tried to think seriously about her lyrics and songs. It is a good thing of course. But, to be honest, I could not help feeling dissatisfied with many of their studies. The main purpose when I started writing this article was to dispel various misunderstandings about her and reveal the truth as much as possible. If so, I think I have to object to them, too.
 But, as it is impossible to touch on every part of them minutely, I would like to object to them focusing on the most central theme here. As I had written before, there often appears the emotions of deep sorrow, loneliness, despair in her lyrics, which often surprise people. (Among the songs in this period, "M", "NEVER EVER", "Endless sorrow" have such types of lyrics.) Why? Their answers are roughly divided into two groups. One is because she has some unidentified dark part in herself. The other is because she has the existential anxiety. I think both of them are misunderstandings. Firstly, some examples of the former.
 ・ Yes, what Hamasaki Ayumi is emitting by her music is extremely big "negative power".  (Shikano Atsushi, chief editor of "ROCKIN' ON JAPAN")
 ・ I was attracted by the deep darkness Hamasaki Ayumi has in herself and ...  (Toujou Sachie, music reviewer)
 ・ Her mental world reminds me of the bottomless black darkness, thoroughgoing loneliness,but...  (Joijoi-san)
 Especially the parts I have underlined, did they write them with conviction after trying to underdtand her to their satisfaction? I don't think so. It rather seem to me on the contrary that they stopped trying to understand her halfway and called the remained incomprehensible part as "negative power" or "the deep darkness" by their vague impressions.
 I think it is a very superficial judgement to regard a singer as a negative person because he sings sad and unhappy songs. We should look how he is doing with sadness or unhappiness, whether he is going to give himself over to them or get over them. -- If I refer to some other singers here, Nakajima Miyuki has a certain tendency to feel a kind of coziness in sadness or unhappiness and give herself over to them. And Shiina Ringo transforms her sense of alienation or inferior complex into madly destructive energy and brings forth the extasy of rock. It can be said that they would have "negative power" to some extent. (But no more than to some extent. Even they don't have extremely big negative power. A person who has such power would not write a lyrics to begin with. He would be either extremely apathetic or extremely offensive.)
 But how about in the case of Hamasaki Ayumi? Has she ever made a song in which she was going to give herself over to sadness or unhappiness? What I have in my mind is "POWDER SNOW" only. I feel her will to get over them in every other song. Moreover, has she ever made a song with destructive impulse attacking herself or others, after she made her way to rock? Never. It can be said on the contrary that her rock is one of the most sound and healthy of all the genres of rock music. (I hear she prefers Smashing Pumpkins, but she is not at all influenced by the warped pessimism of Billy Corgan. I wonder how she likes Smashing Pumpkins.) As I had written before that she has "the seeking mind for the fulfillment of life", the thought has not changed at all. What I feel directly from her songs is not "the deep darkness" but the sorrow or suffering fully understandable, not "negative power" but the direct opposite, the "positive power" always trying to make for the light. And I am impressed by that she has kept on holding the power, whatever difficulties she was in.
 On the other hand, as the example of the latter.
 ・ The lyrics of Hamasaki Ayumi contains the firm feelings which can be said as her "believes" forming her thoughts. "The sense of uncertainty" and "anxiety to be exist".She negates "eternity"thoroughgoingly.  (Setsuka-san)
 ・ The suffering of not finding the way out. It was not the suffering as a musician. Because she had been successful as a musician. This is the unique agony of the soul who can no more have interests in all the comforts. A soul without vigor, with every wish being thin and weak...  (Calvados-san)
 They were in fact both written as the interpretation on "NEVER EVER". But are they right? I agree that we feel her suffering a lot from the lyric of "NEVER EVER". But was the suffering metaphysical and philosophical as they say, in other words, coming from "the existential anxiety"? No, no. My thought is that she was not suffering from such a big proposition, but from the problems more concrete and direct.
 First of all, we should not forget she had always been under the pressure that she had to make songs one after another since her debut as a singer. She tried to cut the new way by challenging composition and making for rock after the release of "Duty". But she was much disturbed by the "A BEST" affair at the beginning of 2001, and she came to go wrong with Mr. Matsuura without enough mutual communication. I think the feeble lyrics and relatively inferior melody of "NEVER EVER" reflects such incidents directly. (Calvados-san puts the chapter of "A BEST" after that of "NEVER EVER", which seems in wrong order. The order of release was so, to be sure, but that of production was the reverse. Possibly he might overlook the point.) It is interesting that Setsuka-san's interpretation why the song title is all in capital letter is just the opposite to mine.
 Also, with respect to the content of the lyrics of "NEVER EVER", I think it is not more than nor less than what she narrated her experiences and thoughts honestly. She often had bitter experiences in regard to human relations since the day when she was lied to by her father at the very beginning of her life. And it can be supposed by her words and behaviours that she was dissapointed in love and friendship after she became a singer, too. It would be natural that she thought as neither love nor friendship last long. Natural as it is, it was not yet her firm thought and could be well corrected depending on the development of her life from that time on. In fact, soon after that, a strong phrase "Freedom in the right hand, love in the left" appeared in the song "UNITE!". And "All the things may happen necessarily, not casually at all" in "Daybreak", "Now I feel I can go naturally, sharing freedom and loneliness" in "Naturally", both written near the end of the year. -- How are these phrases explained by Setsuka-san's theory? Isn't it bad to him that a person who was shivering with "the absolute loneliness" or "the existential anxiety" have found hope or relience so soon and easily?
 It seems that they regard her as a philosopher or a thinker, in which I suppose the basic misunderstanding lies. (Setsuka-san's theory would be existentialism. I have seen Calvados-san's trans-personal theory for the first time, but my impression is it is also the theory which started from existentialism.) She is a person who thinks, to be sure, but not of a thinker type. She always writes lyrics from concrete occurences or personal experiences, but generality and universality are added to them by her excellent intuition and thinking power at the same time. (Let's take "Hana" of the first album as one of the most intelligible examples. How many people on earth would think about his and man's destiny looking at a flower? Additionaly speaking, the reason why the song title is not "Flower" is "Hana" has one more meaning, "prime", of course.) Well, then, which type of a person is she, to whom to feel and to think are the same thing and to write lyrics and to live are related very closely? -- Certainly a poet type, I think. (A poet -- but she is closely related to the poets before the war who were sincere and making much of words rather than most of the modern poets who are always kneading and toying with words.) And, if I define more closely, she is to be called of a clearly moral poet type.
 Anyway
 Act concretely
 If you act concretely
 You will have a concrete answer  (Aida Mitsuo)
 I don't know which poems of Aida Mitsuo she prefers. But I think she surely likes this phrase and may make it as one of her mottos. I think this short phrase shows admirably that morality is the principle of action, not the principle of thought.


        2. What is Changeable and What is Unchangeable
 Her "thoughts" are changeable. Then, what is unchangeable in her? Honesty, modesty, conscientiousness ... in addition to these characteristics which are quite obvious, here I would like to add especially three. That is, the power of believing in life, putting a value on strength and the confidence in words.
 Firstly the power of believing in life is the same as "the seeking mind for the fulfillment of life" and "the positive power" I had written before. I lined up the four main mental characteristics of hers at the very beginning of this article. Trauma of her infancy, intelligence looking inside, morality and her self-recognition as common. -- You will see they are the factors of making her hard in going through the world in this country. There are not so many people who have trauma in their infancies, most of the people are not so intelligent nor moral as her, and as she regards herself as common in spite of them, various misunderstandings and frictions are caused one after another. But she never gives up. She keeps on seeking love, friendship, trust, peace of mind, mutual understandings, unity, fulfillment, happiness -- in other words, all the spiritual values she could not get in the earliest days of her life. This is because she has a firm belief that anyhow the life she was given in this world must not be vain and meaningless. The belief may be called as the basic and primitive faith-like will, or the energy of life, rather than a mental characteristic.
 After the debut as a singer, too, the road she has been following was not level at all but with successive difficulties as we have already seen. But how did she do with such destiny? She endured patiently on the days of bad weather lasting long, and when she occasionally felt something like a ray of hope, she tried to catch it with the whole body. (She is a person who makes such an exciting song as "evolution" only because we have greeted the 21st century.) It can be said that she is not at all similar to the boys and girls who get mad for trivial reasons, as has often been said recently, but of the opposite type of them. (It is really impolite to her that when juvenile crimes are treated on TV, her songs are played at the back.) And I think the basic energy of life which was often held down has been released out and come to the front for the first time in this album, "I am..."
 Secondly, have you noticed that she had long been sticking to and thinking about the theme of "strength" and "weakness"? For example, the following phrase appears in "A Song for XX".
 
Itsukara (When) tsuyoku (strong) natta (got)?
 Itsukara (When) yowasa (weakness) kanjita (came to feel)?  ("A Song for XX")

 It is rather difficult to see who are calling to whom in the two lines, as no personal pronoun is used there. But, comparing this part with that of the first stanza, you will be able to interprete as she in the childhood is calling to herself. Also, in the end of the leaflet of her second album, the following soliloquy.
 
When I had nothing to lose
 Even if something happened, for instance
 I thought it was my strength
 Now I have what I have to protect
 If something happens, for instance
 I have noticed I am certainly stronger
 Than in those days

 As she is thinking about what is the true strength here, what is clear to her with no need of thinking is that strength is a good value. This is of course closely connected to "the power of believing in life" I have mentioned above, for we have to be strong to believe in life. But it occasionally happens that to try to be strong is in conflict with another firm belief of hers, to try to be honest. When I had considered about the maxi-single "A", I divided the four songs into two groups. She is admitting her weakness in "too late" and "End roll" but they are honest songs, while "Trauma" and "monochrome" are strong songs but sounds unnatural. And in reaction to the unnaturalness, the music was roughly cut off just after the last phrase in "monochrome", and her other self shed blood from the breast in a concert of the Tour 2000 Act 1. She is quite an honest person but occasionally lies only when she tries to be strong or she feels she will break down if she shows her weakness.
 One more thing which is unchangeable in her is the confidence in words. She always writes consise and clear lyrics and never decorates nor toys with words. However hard situations she was in, her lyrics had never got in disorder. And in this album where she is turning her eyes clearly to the outer world, she is trying to put confidence in the words not only as a means of expressing her thoughts and feelings but also of communicating them.
 
Please listen well, as I keep on trying to shout till you understand
 I am always here, here, here  ("I am ...")

 What a strong phrase this is! It is common that many Japanese people including me cannot trust words as a means of communication like this. Indeed, we give up before saying in many cases, thinking it will avail nothing. But this phrase teaches us that it is a kind of negligence, not a right attitude and man should try to communicate in words. Because there is not yet any means of expressing our thoughts and feelings so closely and precisely as words.
 I assotiate with Inoue Yousui here. He appeared in the musical scene in the 1970's as a sincere artist and excellent lyricist just like her, but by and by got seized by the powerless feelings for words, especially as a means of communication. Listening to his album in order of release, everyone will notice that his music style changed quite a lot from his sixth original album, "white". There were of course several masterpiece albums and a lot of great songs after "white", too. But at the same time, trashy songs like random displays of words appeared and increased in number. I think it was regrettable, though there might be many reasons.
 It is going too far, however, to say that Hamasaki Ayumi puts full confidence in words as a means of communication. She is making for it, but sometime seized by the powerless feelings for words, as seen at the end of "no more words", and the fact would be she is wavering now. Will she be able to keep on putting confidence in words after this, too? And especially in words as a means of communication? It will be an important focus in her future musical activities.



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