Did Yoshiki write 'Art of Life' lyrics by himself?

[nothere]

I always thought he wrote the lyrics alone.

Although, lately I read a interview he did on the
recent US Tour.He said he started learning English everyday with a teacher around the time he turned 28. Sorry I can't find it now but someone will know the one. If so this was around the time of Art of Life's release. Although who knows when he actually started writing the lyrics?

In another interview he said:
From NY interview.
__________________________________

NT: How did you learn English?

Y: When we came here, we did some kind of press conference and nobody spoke English. They said, how're you going to do this without speaking English. I said, I will learn...I said that in Japanese probably (laughs). So I just learned.

NT: How long did it take?

Y: I would say three years. Before I went to the recording studio I did like three hours lesson six days a week.
__________________________________

I don't know if the 3 year gap he is talking about is from 1990 to 1993 [Pre-Jealousy and Art of Life album] or did he learn from 1993 to 1996.[Art of Life to Dahlia album.] It definitely was not around the time he wrote Vanishing Vision lyrics


Anyway even though Yoshiki said what drives him is he still hasn't made that perfect song. I think he pretty much got as close as you can get with Art of Life...

[Ba-DiL]

if you read Yoshiki Biography, it says he's already learning english since elementary school ...

he even wrote many pre-ART OF LIFE songs on english

btw, I guess you should change your thread title to "Since when Yoshiki learn English?" ... ART OF LIFE got nothing to do with this -,-"

[peso]

Probably he wrote some version of those early English songs because if you read the credits from Blue Blood and Jealousy it says:

English proof reading: Brian Evans, Reiko Kudo, Terry Rose (Blue Blood)
English Translation: Michelle Bligh, Dan Levitan, Peter Kalish (Jealousy)

I don't have Art of Life so I can't check the credits but anyway my theory is that the guys (Yoshiki? 'cos his songs have more English than the other songs) wrote the lyrics as best as they could and those people credited on the album fixed the lyrics into understandable English.

On the other hand the "English Translation" on the Jealousy album could also mean that the lyrics were originally in Japanese and those people actually translated them into English, but it's kinda hard to believe the band members wouldn't have had any idea what the lyrics would actually be in English.

[Niwatorinator]

It is a good point and something I wondered about when I started listening to Jealousy in '91. The lyrics of Voiceless Screaming are almost perfect English (unlike many of Yoshiki's lyrics of the time). Toshi was credited as the only lyricist. Was Toshi's grasp of English really that good back then? I don't think so...

[XVikyX]

I remember wery well that in one of the latest interview (I guess it was Lollapaloosa time) Yoshiki was asked about how he'd written this song, and he said that he'd tried to express his thoughts about his own life and give some positive message with the song. No word about any co-author\translator -_-