Hitori No Yoru
Updated: Sep 27
⋆ Japanese Track
⋆ Title English Translation: This Night When I'm Alone
⋆ Release Date: August 31 2022
⋆ Genre: Lyrical Ballad
⋆ Producing Credits: Takaya Kawasaki, EL CAPITXN
⋆ Writing/Composing Credits: EL CAPITXN, Slow Rabbit, Takaya Kawasaki
ABOUT/MEANING: “Hitori no Yoru” (ひとりの夜 / “A Night Alone”) explores the loneliness of unrequited love and the painful change that occurs when simply loving someone from afar is no longer enough. The narrator once remained a “supporting role,” watching the person he loved shine from a distance, but the emergence of a new desire - to be loved by them in return - transforms his world and leaves him vulnerable to a kind of hurt he did not experience before.
He already knows that his feelings will not be returned. The person he loves shares their smiles, tears and closeness with somebody else, while he can only imagine what it would be like to stand beside them. Even that wish carries hesitation, as though being the one at their side is something he barely allows himself to imagine.
Alone at night, he is left questioning why he fell in love at all, yet cannot stop thinking about them or wishing to be loved in return. The song captures the particular ache of unrequited love: knowing that the relationship you want is beyond your reach while being unable to make the feelings themselves disappear.
LYRICS - ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Why did I end up falling in love with you?
All I can think about is being loved by you,
On this night when I'm alone
The days when all I could do was watch from afar,
You shone so brightly,
Like a scene from a movie
I remained just a supporting role
If only we had stayed as we were
Then we wouldn’t have had to be hurt at all…
But the moment this new feeling grew –
This simple desire to be loved by you –
My entire world changed
Why did I end up falling in love with you?
I already knew that I couldn’t be loved by you,
On this night when I’m alone
Your smiling face, your crying face
Shown in front of someone who isn’t me
You, leaning on another’s shoulder…
Even on cold nights when the rain falls
Even on freezing mornings
If only I could be by your side…
The phrase 僕が側で なんて (boku ga soba de... nante) is difficult to translate naturally into English because なんて (nante) adds an emotionally distancing, self-conscious nuance that has no simple English equivalent. Here, it makes the thought of “me being by your side” sound almost like something the speaker hesitates to believe he could ask for or imagine. Rather than simply expressing the wish to be beside the person he loves, the phrasing carries a sense of doubt and quiet resignation - something closer to “as if I could be by your side…” or “the thought of me being by your side…” The wish remains deeply felt, but the speaker seems conscious that it may be beyond his reach, adding a subtle ache and self-consciousness to the longing.
Why is it, when I close my eyes
All I can think about is you
And that innocent face of yours when you laugh
Why did I end up falling in love with you?
"I want to be loved by you,"
I fall asleep with that thought,
On this night when I’m alone,
On this night when I’m alone.
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