About The Way To Say

About The Project

The Way to Say was originally created as a tribute album to the Japanese artist Ayumi Hamasaki. It was going to be a collection of her songs translated and adapted into English, created to express to the English-speaking world what Hamasaki herself cannot. But then we started to write and record other songs by other Japanese artists, and now it is a growing J-pop English music project. We are also working on French versions of a number of Ayumi songs, but as yet do not have any recorded.

This homepage of the album features a growing number of songs for your listening pleasure. Please note that all the English lyrics are copyright to The Way to Say and all pieces of music are credited to their performers. The original songs, of course, belong to the respective artists and their companies.

Feel free to download the songs and comment in our guestbook. You can sing along with the English lyrics, which you can get from our lyrics page. They're fun for karaoke and also if you just want to know what your favourite J-pop artists are singing about.

ようこそ！「The Way to Say」は英語でＪｐｏｐの歌があります。イギリス人の為に私たちは英語で浜崎あゆみやｗ－ｉｎｄｓなどの歌詞を作って、歌って、このサイトに入れた。英語のバージョンを聞きたいのなら、どうぞ左の「Downloads」に行ってください。

About The Band

The project is devised and recorded by an English all-female band called Sea Bandits. Although we are planning to record our own instruments eventually, at the moment we only have the artists' instrumental tracks as our basis to sing with. The songs up for download are just our first attempts, so the real thing should be of a high quality and more professional standard.

As fans of Ayu and students of the Japanese language for years, we have spent a lot of time creating accurate and understandable translations of her lyrics. Not only are all the songs on "The Way to Say" true to Ayu's original lyrics, but they also flow and rhyme just as if they were sung in English to begin with.
As well as working on this J-pop project, we also write and compose our own songs in English, Japanese and French. We have been writing songs for about seven years together.

We are currently creating the album cover and booklet art for our upcoming CD. Until then, the site has no photos of the band members to display.

The members of Sea Bandits are:
Cedes (Japanese-English translations, lyrics, main vocals, mixing)
Rosa (Proof-reading, main vocals, backing vocals)
Mara (Lyrics, English-French translations, artwork)
*NEW* Waka (Lyrics, guitar, musical arrangement) -CURRENTLY RECORDING-

NOTE: Sea Bandits are not professional singers and have had no professional voice training. Our recording equipment is basic and therefore the quality of the music can't be 100% perfect. We hope, though, that it's good enough so that people can enjoy listening to it.

Message to Ayu

浜崎あゆみ様へ

「伝えたい思いは溢れるのに

ねえ旨く言葉にならない・・・」

今は言葉になれるよ。日本語を分からない世界が浜崎様の伝えたい思いを届くようにこのプロジェクトできました。浜崎様の日本語の歌詞から英語の歌詞まで訳して歌いました。これでファンの皆は浜崎様の素敵な歌詞を分かれるし、自分の国語で歌えるし。

もしかして、よかったら、浜崎様はこの英語の歌詞を歌ったらいいですよ。これで英国とかアメリカとか、どこでも有名になってほしい。世界中で。

素敵な歌を歌い続けてください。自分のままでいてください。美しい思いを伝えてありがとうございます。

With love, from your AUDIENCE

「あゆが僕たちの誇り・・・」