歌詞和訳 Nirvana – Big Long Now

92年発表のコンピアルバム Incesticide 所収。

Big Long Now

(Kurt Cobain)

Chad: Yeah. Well, the first one was “About A Girl.” I remember we were rehearsing the song not long before we went in and recorded the record, Bleach. Kurt was just playing the song and we were working it out. I asked Kurt what the song was, and Kurt was like, “Well, I don’t really know.” And then I said, “Well, what’s it about?” And he says, “It’s about a girl.” And I said, “Well, why don’t you just call it ‘About A Girl’?” And he just kind of looked at me and smiled and said, “Okay.” We went with that.

And then the other song that comes to mind is a song called “Big Long Now.” I think we might have even been in the studio recording, because that was like, “Okay, so what’s this one about?” And he goes, “Well, I don’t really have a title for it,” and so I just off the top of my head, “big… long… now?” I was trying to think of something how the song felt. Because it was slow, heavy, and something that we were doing now. So I thought, “big long now?” And once again, Kurt was like, “Okay, let’s do that.”

ドラムを叩いたチャドチャニングによれば、彼が呟いた本作の印象がそのまま表題になった模様。

Big ← heavy
Long ← slow
Now ← something that we were doing now

この表題が作者カートコベイン自身のパラフレーズによるものではないのが特異で、面白い。そして何よりチャニングの述懐のおかげで、表題と本文の関係について、また表題そのものの意味合いについて、あれこれ無駄な詮索をせずに済んだ。

引用文前半からは About a Girl の表題が決まったのもコベインとチャニングの会話がきっかけだったと分かる。

巷の解釈は大別して二つ。地球外生命体との遭遇、片や、ベッド上での男女のぎこちなさ。
筆者は後者に一票。ただ、詞の解釈などより、「これを聞いてると落ち着く」みたいな、曲調が与える心理的効果に言及する者が動画コメント欄には多い。

その動画のコベインの胸に描かれているのはアニメ The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends の Natasha Fatale という名のロシア人スパイ風キャラクター。

Nirvana ファンがピンと来るTシャツ

Nirvana を知らない人が着るTシャツ