Jolin Tsai – Shadow Self 《你睡醒再看》 English Translation

词：黄子源
Lyrics: Ziyuan Huang

[00:11.18]
[00:19.25]親愛的 你睡了嗎
My dear, have you slept?
[00:23.57]我有點話想講
I have something to say
[00:28.01]謝謝你 陪著我呀
Thank you for staying with me
[00:31.21]懂我的匱乏
You know what I’m short of
[00:36.06]
[00:36.81]其實我常常在想
Actually, I always think about
[00:41.09]不帶腦的衝撞
being offensive[1] before thinking twice
[00:45.66]也許只是我倔強 不肯作罷
Maybe it’s just me who’s stubborn, not willing to give up
[00:52.44]
[00:54.25]我願意投降
I’m willing to surrender
[00:58.74]再好好跟你說話
Then talking to you nicely
[01:03.20]成長總不像 童話般簡單
Growing up is not easy like the fairy tale
[01:09.32]施個咒 就完善
Everything will be fine by casting a spell
[01:11.90]
[01:12.24]就背對背好嗎
Let’s remain back to back
[01:16.53]回過頭 就知道你在哪
I would know where are you when I turn back
[01:22.67]有點晚了 訊息醒來再看吧
It’s already late, read the message when you’re awake
[01:27.57]
[01:29.94]起床後 叫我好嗎
Wake me up when you get up
[01:34.47]我想調個時差
I want to adjust to the time difference
[01:38.90]努力跟上你步伐 不想被遺忘
I’m working hard to follow in your footsteps, don’t wanna be forgotten
[01:45.83]
[01:47.83]自己睡並不可怕 怕的是寂寞呀
Sleeping alone is not scary, [Excerpt 1] only scared of lonely
[01:56.67]心要能愛得無傷 才叫堅強
You’re strong only when your heart can love without getting hurt[2] [Excerpt 2]
[02:03.73]
[02:05.50]我願意投降
I’m willing to surrender
[02:09.79]再好好跟你說話
Then talking to you nicely
[02:14.33]成長總不像 童話般簡單
Growing up is not easy like the fairy tale
[02:20.37]施個咒 就完善
Everything will be fine by casting a spell
[02:22.98]
[02:23.35]就背對背好嗎
Let’s remain back to back
[02:27.57]回過頭 就知道你在哪
I would know where are you when I turn back
[02:33.69]有點晚了 訊息醒來再看吧
It’s already late, read the message when you’re awake
[02:39.37]
[02:45.78]我該睡了
I gotta sleep
[02:54.45]你也睡吧
You should sleep too
[02:57.95]
[03:03.80]請當我倒影好嗎
Please be my shadow self
[03:08.37]看著 看著 就越喜歡它
The more I watching it, the more I like it
[03:15.55]鏡子裡的自己 你會願意嗎
Me in the mirror, would you be willing to?
[03:20.85]

Notes
[1] I’ve translated “衝撞” to ‘being offensive’, it also means arguing, hitting something or offend someone. You can understand this line as “I have the urge to be rebellious without considering the outcomes”

[Excerpt 1]: You can hear audio which is a recording from 18th Golden Melody Award. When presenting Best Female Mandarin Singer, the presenter (The Wynners) was saying, “The winner is …”

[2] This line is inspired by Zhuang Zhou (Chinese philosopher, died 287 BC).
My personal understanding about this line, if you already get prepared and trained yourself, nothing will kill you. When you broke up, you will be more rational and understanding and you will not get hurt by it easily. Thus, you can say you’re strong because you already not focusing on the pain, the pain cannot affect you.

[Excerpt 2]: Continue from [Excerpt 1], the presenter continued saying, “… Tsai Yi Lin”

[2] The title 《你睡醒再看》literally means, “Watch/Read it when you’re awake”.

[3] This song is about Jolin and her subconscious mind, how she faced her nightmare and flaws. You can hear something like she is having a lucid dream in the beginning part. Finally, she let go all the stuff and sleep.

__________________________TLDR_________________________

[4] As mentioned, Jolin Tsai seems like she woke up from the nightmare in this song. In the subconscious mind, the nightmare seems to be the night when she won the title of Best Female Mandarin Singer during the 18th Golden Melody Award. She won the title by her ‘Dancing Diva’ album but she was getting teased by the netizens and media as “A gymnast won best female singer”. FYI, she is the first Dance-pop singer who has won the title and no more since then (Amei Chang sang some Dance-pop but she is not categorised as Dance-pop singer). Ballad is mainstream in Mandopop music scene and other genres like Dancepop, Hip-hop, Rock are considered non-mainstream. Golden Melody Awards (aka Mandopop Grammys) very emphasize on the meaning, depth, mechanics (production) and the concept of music production. Thus, Dancepop music which is typically tasteless, not meaningful is very hard to get recognition from the music industry. It’s like a burden for Jolin after winning this award when her works and singing skills are being doubted. These burdens turn out to be Jolin’s motivation (although, it sucks at the beginning cuz there are too much negative and it’s definitely not easy to breakthrough for every work), she is able to give us something new and experimental (a little gimmicky) for every album (Butterfly received lots of sales but not recognition). She doesn’t repeat the same style. During MUSE, she was nominated for Best Female Mandarin Singer but she didn’t win. During PLAY, she was not nominated for Best Female Mandarin Singer (but she won AOTY). These incidents might make her doubting herself if she is really a ‘singer’.

After reading all the lyrics, I think this is Jolin’s most cohesive album ever (Why??? Why Hubby is in this album ToT). This is her darkest album yet personal.