Thanks to Zagunsousan for providing this! After reading the liner notes, I suppose it’s good to read now what the creators of the songs themselves thought about the music.

“All for Music”
Chief Director Shoji Kawamori x Composer Yoko Kanno
Additional text by TAC YAMAMOTO
Translated by Zagunsousan

A game of catch with creation gave birth to Macross F

Simultaneously with their releases, the opening theme song “Triangler” and the insert song “Iteza☆gogo kuji Don’t be late / Diamond Crevasse” sung by Sheryl Nome both ranked 3rd on the various charts! In “Macross F”, like its predecessors in the Macross series, “music” is an important element in the work.

Shoji Kawamori, chief director (hereafter Kawamori): Sosei no Aquarion had just finished around the time we began planning on ~F, so there were discussions about only asking Ms. Kanno to do an entire series after at least one project in between.

Yoko Kanno (hereafter Kanno): At first, we talked about doing a few songs, mainly songs with vocals. But around that time, when I heard that there was also going to be enka, I told them, ‘The enka, at least, I will do!!’ (laughs). When I first took it on, because I had just finished Aquarion and because it requires a lot of stamina to pile on another project with a large amount of composing, I was expecting it to be a tough job.

Kawamori: I think there is hardly a work of anime that has prepared as many vocal songs, right?

Kanno: If you start thinking, ‘let’s make some songs,’ you can make as many as you want, but it’s a matter of time in the end, isn’t it? Even if you think about it simply, with the vocal practice, the recording of the chorus, the difficult mixing, there is overwhelmingly more work for songs than there is for background music.

Kawamori: It’s the same for transformable mechas, you see (laughs). Even though you are designing one object, between the transformed appearance and verifying how the transformation works, it will end up taking several times the amount of time.

Kanno: That I was able to work without feeling that kind of stress was due to Ranka and Sheryl’s good vocal senses. Every day after completing something, I could feel, ‘ahh, we did a good job.’

Kawamori: Also, having a double uta-hime was because, in an environment like our present one in which people are receptive to various music scenes, it was impossible to have one girl’s vocals take on every genre. Because we were in that kind of situation, we hit upon creating the characters of Ranka and Sheryl. Out at the very least was using similar voices and similar styles of singing.

Kanno: I think it’s common practice to have an individual composer or individual arranger for each character so that it doesn’t seem unnatural… but more than that, I also wanted to try my hand at Idol-pop music (laughs).

Kawamori: The way ~F was made was really like a musical. I’ve heard that in musicals, the composer is involved in the storyline. Ms. Kanno’s role was just that.

Kanno: No matter what project I am involved in, I believe it is always my job to show through music what the images cannot express. But almost always, once I hand over the score to the director, my job is over. It’s a one-way flow of my ideas. But this time around, I would tell them ‘I handled it in this manner and made it like this,’ and a response from Mr. Kawamori would come immediately. This is my first time doing a job that is not a one-way flow. So, to have been involved in this project, I am happier than anyone can imagine.

Kawamori: Even in myself, there is a realization that I’ve been able to really collaborate closely with Ms. Kanno.

Kanno: This time I also completely did not feel the uneasiness of whether the fans would be receptive. More than anything else, I really want everyone to see Ranka and Sheryl and the two girls who performed them!

Kawamori: I’m already at that age where I wind up saying things like ‘young people these days..,’ but as long as I’m only watching Megumi Nakajima and May’n, girls seem to be doing alright (laughs).

Kanno: Our girls have great talent (laughs).

Kawamori: It’s good we chose them, but if either one were to overshadow the other, it would mean the worst possible situation for the show. That was the biggest gamble, but they fell into their roles wonderfully.

Kanno: It was our greatest fortune to meet those two. We were so happy and had all this energy and momentum that we ended up making twice as many songs as we were asked.

Kawamori: I wanted to put those great songs into great scenes, so I told them in advance not to use them. We actually redrew the finished storyboards, not to mention going so far as to even have the script changed (laughs). Actually, hearing Kanno say, ‘Even if they were to sing these songs one year later, it would not be the same song they sang at 18,’ I thought that we should do something that couldn’t be done at any other time. In those words, I realized again how important the “now” in which we are making this work called Frontier is. Besides not sleeping, this ‘live’ style of production is really quite enjoyable (laughs).

Commentary on all the songs
The inside story from the two on all the vocal songs that have appeared thus far.

My Boyfriend is a Pilot
Kanno: For this song, I only lightly touched the original arrangement. Ranka did an amazing dance in the competition hall, didn’t she? It was so cute.
Kawamori: A young talented animator was in charge of Ranka’s drawings. He put so much effort into it even doing the choreography himself. He was saying something like, “What’s cute is not Ranka but my dancing” (laughs).

Iteza☆gogo kuji Don’t be late
Kanno: This is the first song we made for F. But at the time I finished it, we still did not know who was going to sing it.
Kawamori: At first, in my head, I assumed it would be Ranka’s voice. We were seeking a Sheryl with an entirely different vocal direction. The first time I heard May’n’s voice, I was sure she would work for Sheryl.

Triangler
Kanno: It was difficult to say what kind of song the theme song should be. A song different from Sheryl and Ranka, a song belonging to no one, but also a song that applies to everyone. And then, “A love triangle would be good” plain and simple (laughs).
Kawamori: You gave it some thought and came up with quite a decent answer (laughs). We were searching through the various song patterns in the Macross series, but we realized there weren’t really any songs that expressed a love triangle so straight-forwardly.

What’bout my star?
Kawamori: Iteza was more of a ‘cool’ song, so, as a song that is more on the emotional side, I gave the order for a cute coquettish song.
Kanno: When Ranka sings it at the mall, the opening is sung acappella. I didn’t make it that way deliberately, but I became quite addicted to it. Even though it’s the same song Sheryl and Ranka are singing, because there are differences in the way each sings, it became a song that you can enjoy twice as much.

SMS Platoon Song ~ That Chick’s an Alien
Note: lyrics by Eiji Kurokawa 黒河影次, Shoji Kawamori’s pen-name.
Kawamori: I’ve always liked this kind of foolish light-hearted army song, so I wanted to have one no matter what. But we really had requested so many songs, so I almost had to give up on it.
Kanno: With a glance at Mr. Kawamori’s order, I thought, ‘I’ve been waiting for this!’ I’ve always wanted to make a military song one day. Foolish and fun.

宇宙兄弟船　Cosmic Brother Ship
Kanno: The lyrics are the greatest, aren’t they? They’re amazing (laughs). Even though they are enka lyrics, I was laughing because of the random words that pop-up like black hole and gravity.
Kawamori: Just like that you have a perfect mood for a space opera. We had a talk about wanting to make various songs that used an abundance of words that might have appeared in old-school science-fiction.

Ninjiin loves you yeah!
Kanno: For a CM song, 15 seconds should be okay, so why the full chorus right? Moreover, why did they arrange for carrots to have such an elaborate role… (laughs).
Kawamori: We thought a lot about it and decided on a carrot suit since it would be the most ridiculous. It was also perfect because (Nakajima) Megumi-chan happened to tell us she utterly hates carrots (laughs).

Neko Nikki
Kawamori: It’s such a shame that we used this so poorly. We were worrying up to the last minute where to use it and the timing.
Kanno: I guess you might even call it a personal song. When it comes to expressing affection, Ranka seems very shy, the type that can never really express herself directly. I made this song holding on to that image of her.

Super Dimension Chinese Restaurant Nyan Nyan
Kawamori: It’s really great to have this song give you that peculiar weakening of the knees feeling (laughs).
Kanno: Somehow or other, doing CM work, I’ve been in the advertisement industry for more than 15 years. So when Mr. Kawamori ordered me to make the Nyan Nyan CM song, I immediately replied, ‘If you’re looking for the CM song of the future, leave it to me.’ And then one second after I received the lyrics, it was done (laughs). Isn’t that fast!

Diamond Crevasse
Kanno: Because I started this song after it was decided May’n would be singing as “song Sheryl,” I wrote this song to make the best use of her voice. I think it expresses very well a manner that is both Sheryl and May’n.
Kawamori: After this song was finished, it was the song most suitable for the ending theme although very sad and vast sounding.

Infinity
Kawamori: For this song too, we were constantly thinking about where to put the song. While we were doing work on the storyboards for episode 7, I had a hunch that it would work best as a duet of Ranka and Sheryl expressing their feelings while worrying for Alto out on the battlefield.
Kanno: I was creating a song planned for either to sing, but I tried making the other sing it and then making both sing it in synchronization. That kind of change is fun to do for the creator as well.

Aimo
Kanno: I wrote this song aiming to make a short song like a simple lullaby. I thought, if it could become a song that gives a tug at your heart! I changed it for the movie arrangement in the “Bird Man” scene.
Kawamori: Recently I heard that when you were a kid, you dug up fossils for fun (laughs). It is no different for this song, but I’ve been getting the feeling that maybe the source of that lyricism that flows into the foundation of Ms. Kanno’s music may be all that fossil digging.

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