I am posting the full lyrics of the song here (taken from the official OST booklet), so that fans can sing along whenever the trademark chorus appears. Unfortunately, I cannot post any YouTube links to the song because there is a high chance it will be taken down for copyright infringement.
Do take note, that there are some minor grammatical errors in the lyrics. I will leave them unedited to preserve the originality of the song.
====================
Before my body is dry
Lyrics by mpi & David Whitaker
Vocals by Mika Kobayashi
Rap by David Whitaker
In the dusty basement where we met
May you surprised me so much
Because you’re talking now
I gotta find the truth from many fights
But I’m all alone
You’re the only one who can help me out
We’ll be as one
We’re ready to fight
Look over there
They try to kill us for stars
Our bond has got much stronger than before
<Chorus>
*Don’t lose your way in your mind
We have to be as one
Don’t be afraid my sweetheart
This is the way to be more strong
Harbour my deep secret
It makes me so blue
Run through this game before my body is dry
<Rap>
So it seems there’s no other choice
But to go all out
Stay with me and let’s stand out
and outshine those trying to get our stars now
All we have to do is figure out how strong we are
and what it takes to stay alive
Sync and learn what we can do to take ’em down
It’s revenge and survive
For now, we know in part
And you can feel my heart
So help me to stay focused so I don’t fall apart
I wanna be complete
It’s not in me to retreat
I could lose on my own so I really need you with me
I gotta find out who killed my dad
I hear the voice of you in my mind
I gotta find out who killed my dad
I hear the voice of you in my mind so
<Rap>
My blood is pumping
I’m ready to fight when you are
Let’s let no one break the bond that is ours
Show them what it means to be a shining star
You have my body
Let’s fight as one
Can’t move my feet in the dark
I don’t wanna be all alone
Can’t feel the heat in my blood
Do you remember what he said
*Repeat chorus
<Rap>
I really need you with me
Help me to stay focused
I wanna be complete
Fight as one with me
Let’s take ’em down
Be a shining star
You have my body
I’m ready to fight when you are
====================
Comments: yes, there’s a rap in this song. I am not the biggest fan of rap, but the contrasting male rap is supposed to allude to the symbiotic relationship between Ryuko (female voice) and Senketsu (male voice), so I am willing to let that pass.
So Kill la Kill fans, next time you start screaming “Don’t lose your way…”, remember to finish the rest of the entire chorus!
Cruel Ultimatum 
Just a little mistake on the chorus, the second line is ”We have to be as a one” u missed the ”a”.
n.n just trying to help don’t take it like im angry or something. love the lyrics
Hi Ryuko’s Bellybutton, I have double checked my OST booklet, and the line is printed as “We have to be as one”.
Well the writers of the song can’t be wrong.. right? well but when i hear the song it sound like the ”a” is there. listen to the song and you’ll hear it too.
Are you seriously trying to argue against the OST booklet? I bought the OST, the booklet lists that line as “We have to be as one”, and I even took a photo of it and uploaded it as proof.
Sorry, but my trust is on the lyrics printed in the booklet.
It’s not “as a one”. That’s just an artifact of Japanese english pronunciation. “アス” “asu”.
Well that explains it. thx
You can tell that the singer is fluent, or at least has an understanding of English as the rest of her pronunciation in the song is quite all right. This is unlike Blumenkranz, where it’s clear the singer is not a German speaker (still a good song though).
Hey Ryuuko’s bellybutton have you seen Satsuki’s nose?
thats racist. usually japanese ppl speaking english add an unnecesary a or u (not on purpose) to some words because japanese words usually end with a vowel.
Thank you so much for posting this!!
Thanks for the lyrics!
I’m not the biggest fan of rap either but works in this song. It reminds me a bit of how it was used in Gurren Lagann’s Libera Me From Hell and I liked it there too.
Could anyone explain to me why japanese songs tend to have lyrics with lines that seem incoherent?
The Japanese alphabet has fewer consonants compared to English, eg. a, k, g, s, t, d, n, h, b, p, m, y, r, w. Out of all the phonetic sounds in Japanese, there is only one true consonant sound: ん (n).
Therefore, it is quite difficult to use the Japanese alphabet to replicate the pronunciations of foreign loanwords and English words. One earlier commenter mentioned that a simple English word like “as” has to be phoneticised as “asu” 「アス」, because there is no equivalent “s” phonetic sound in Japanese. The “-u” at the end of “asu” is supposed to be silent, however, there is no fixed rule in Japanese for silent vowels: some people will still pronounce the vowel at the end, and they are technically not wrong with their pronunciation.
So when non-English-native-speaking Japanese speakers start using another foreign language, it can be quite difficult to understand their pronunciation. This stems from one of the biggest flaws of the Japanese language: it is severely limited for replicating foreign loanwords, and it kind of spills over into whatever second language Japanese people try to learn or speak.
i didn’t mean english lyrics, i meant japanese (mostly anime) songs in general. all song which i’ve heard (and read the subtitles) mostly consisted of seemingly random statements.
Then you will have to ask the songwriters. Not all song lyrics have to make absolute 100% sense, sometimes redundant and incoherent lyrics have to be padded out in order to maintain the rhythm and rhyme of the song.
The entire song for “Before my body is dry” was written by David Whitaker, a rapper, who also did the male portions of the rap. Rap songs have to maintain their rhythm a lot more compared to other genres, and it’s very common for rap songs to have “random statements”. This is one of the reasons why I don’t like rap: I am a writer myself, and I value the importance of having meaningful, well thought out lyrics. There ARE some good rap songs and good rappers, but those are very few and far between.
To be “One earlier commenter”… なんか気持ちいい～
“One earlier commenter” だけ、そんな名前を呼べば、気持ちがよくなったか？？そうですね。。。
Doobie Doo, Skalala, all that makes coherent sense? Judging rap by what is popular is like judging rock musicians by Nickleback… Anime music in native Japanese has incoherent lines DUE TO LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES. A fun example is White Urinal and Pure Virgin are both the same in Japan thanks to many words having multiple, situational, gender, or placement based meanings… That’s not even figuring in slang words, phrases, and uses.
I am no expert on rap (not really my kind of genre), but I’ve listened to a few good rap songs in videogames and anime with coherent lyrics.
I believe if you put in the effort to make grammatical, coherent sense with your lyrics, your listeners will appreciate the song better.
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Reblogged this on Hoi Ching's Weblog v7.
As I unerstand the lyrics, the rp part is Senketsu replying to Ryuko.
Hi! Thank you for the lyrics but just a query…where it says they try kill us for stars shouldn’t it be the try TO kill us for stars? I have listened to this part multiple times and I was just wondering what the OST booklet says. I’m not trying to be rude. I’m just asking 😀
You are absolutely right, it is “try to kill us for stars.” I somehow left out the “to” when copying the lyrics. Thank you for spotting the error.
Holy snap! I never thought it’d be COMPLETELY in English! :O
CAN CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS UP TO EPISODE 10
I really like this song because it is so great at actually summing up most of the early story of Kill la Kill. The lyrics mention that Ryuko finds Senketsju in a basement and that he can speak, that the students try to fight her to get uniforms with more stars and that they are now much stronger than in the beginning. The chorous also contains the line “Run through this game before my body is dry” (maybe a reference to the fact that if she uses Senketsu too long, she will suffer from blood loss?).
Then there’s the rap, representing Senketsu’s response, further refining the references to the story.
After that, there’s the line “I gotta find out who killed my dad”, which is one of the main motivations for Ryuko, because Satsuki Kiryuin said she would tell her if she did something if she could beat all students who have a goku uniform.
All in all, it is a great song as it is just one big box of Kill la Kill content filled to the brim with awesome references (and also some Engrish things *cough*This is the way to be more strong*cough*
Reblogged this on Glitch and commented:
Letra de Don’t lose your way
Anime: Kill la Kill
this so definitely doesn’t have the best lyrics especially with the rapping that doesn’t entirely rhyme. But hearing that chorus every time Ryuuko got serious X3 and oh man this song is epic!
I don’t care that you dont like rap! It sounded great. If you post lyrics just do that.
Have you listened to the remixed guitar version? It’s way better than the original, just because of the absence of the rap track.
In the part -I gotta find out who killed my dad, I hear the voice of you in my mind- thats what it says but the song says -I hear the voice of you in my mind AND SOUL- The part that is on caps aren’t written down on the page. Just letting you know, don’t want to be rude. By the way thank you for the lyrics 🙂
I’ve listened to that part many times now, and I’ve always believed that it’s actually “I hear the voice of you in my mind… (pause) sooooo…”. It’s definitely not “and soul”, I’m listening to the FLAC version on my best headphones and I can’t hear any “and”.
The “soooo…” is just something added in for the singer to transition to the next part.