REVIEW · Songs & Albums
Mrs. GREEN APPLE’s “Lilac,” adults finding the speed of youth again
Karaoke song numbers
The guitar in “Lilac” keeps youth in motion instead of hanging it at a scenic distance. It moves first and makes the ear anticipate another movement. Released as the opening theme for Oblivion Battery, the song does more than arrange an old memory. It prompts a body listening now to move, even while a familiar season returns to mind. The remembered self and the present performer occupy different speeds.
The official liner notes introduce Motoki Ohmori’s starting question: what would happen if the band, now grown up, wrote a youth song again? Knowing “Ao to Natsu” makes the question more concrete. Returning to a subject does not return the same people to the same place. What the intervening years have changed becomes one useful way into the new song.
Guitar running beside the melody
Finding the song’s identity in its guitar prevents the ear from settling in one place once the vocal begins. The movement of an instrument stays in view alongside the words. Youth becomes an activity in sound before it becomes an explanation. The ear remembering the melody and the ear following the guitar’s next path can remain busy together.
The official account singles out technical guitar phrasing and a progression incorporating different rhythmic feels and irregular metre. Calling the song fast leaves those changing kinds of movement unaddressed. Forward energy can continue while the body’s sense of the beat shifts. Its rush can be heard as a succession of expressions, rather than a straight line pushed harder.
Youth without erasing the intervening years
An adult singing about youth can easily speak from the position of knowing what the younger self did not. “Lilac” becomes interesting where that distance leaves the earlier self unresolved. If anxiety and hurt can remain inside lively music, the value of a past season no longer depends on proving that everything about it was good.
A comparison with “Ao to Natsu” is consequently more useful as a change of vantage point than a maturity contest. The earlier song supplies a background for the later one; the later one sends the listener back towards familiar memories. Time between the two has passed for the musicians and for the people who have been listening to them.
The present beyond an opening sequence
An anime opening gives a song the repeated time of a beginning. Hearing it as an episode starts differs from following the complete work away from the screen. Returning to an introduction learned alongside images can lead into movements beyond that familiar stretch. A short passage already known becomes an entrance to another encounter.
When the guitar sets off again, someone may want to return to an earlier self, while someone else may want to hear that time from their present position. Neither response cancels the other. The vitality of “Lilac” lies in present playing looking towards a past. It sets youth moving at today’s speed, letting the hands playing now reach towards the self held in memory.
Music and production information
Mrs. GREEN APPLE: Lilac theme song announcement ↗ · Universal Music: official 10 liner notes ↗
