This one may not play. If not, use the one below, a pretty good cover.
This cover can also play directly on YouTube.
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I'm 14 years old, I am pretty
I'm a teen tiny girl, a little lady
I live under the kitchen floor
Right here, not so far from you.
Sometimes I feel happy
Sometimes I feel blue
In my dreams O I wish I could...
Feel my hair blowing in the wind
See the sky and the summer rain
Pick a flower from the garden for you
Beyond the lane there's another world
Butterflies floating in the air
But is there someone out there for me?
And so life goes on, day after day
With knick-knacks on the floor, nooks and crannies
I live in a tiny world
But out there, someone waits for me.
I wish I had someone to watch over me
In my dreams O I wish I could...
Feel my hair blowing in the wind
See the sky and the summer rain
Pick a flower from the garden for you
Now I know there's another world
Butterflies floating in the air
There is someone out there for me.
Feel my hair blowing in the wind
See the sky and the summer rain
Pick a flower from the garden for you
Now I know there's another world
Butterflies floating in the air
There is someone out there for me.
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Lyrics by Cécile Corbel
Music by Cécile Corbel and Simon Caby
Japanese lyrics by Ihira Yoko
Transcription above "borrowed" from animelyrics.com, "'transliterated' by guuchan."
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As you can see, this lyric are very closely tied to the film and do not try to address something more universal.
Arrietty's Song (original English lyric)
Arrietty's Song: A Lyric-Writing Sample for Film
From the Far Corner of Your Eye
Here is my lyric, sung by a student from my school. Read it below.
Something wise that my father once told me
Spread its roots in the garden of my memory:
"The world is greater than we know,
Small wonders wait all around,
So keep your eyes open, and open your mind…
You’d never dream what you will find!"
From the far corner of your eye,
In the dim shadows of your room,
In the soft murmur of the trees in the night,
There are worlds that you’ve never known
On each leaf and under every stone…
So close, so small and so bright!
Now the years slowed my step and blurred my sight,
But his words I have always kept near me:
"The world is smaller than we know,
Great wonders wait to be found…"
So I kept my eyes open and what did I see?
A bright new world waiting for me!
From the far corner of your eye,
In the dim shadows of your room,
Just believe it can be and then it will start…
The overlooked and the underseen,
Below behind beyond beside between,
Small things will borrow your heart.
Commentary​
The original song of Arrietty is about a tiny girl wishing she could find friendship and love, but the story as a whole is about much more than this.
The story is (among other things) also about being aware of the ways that the smallest things can be miraculous, can change our lives. Every child watching the film wants to discover these little people in their garden. I wrote this lyric to celebrate the small things we don't notice, "the overlooked and the underseen," and how they can change us forever.
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My thought would be that a clearer and more universal theme for this song brings it to a new level. The best songs from animation and musicals, from "The Circle of Life" to "You've Got a Friend in Me," address broader ideas, offering a commentary on themes of the film while standing in their own right as excellent songs about the universal human experience. Indeed, these songs have gone on to have lives of their own, winning awards, getting radio airplay and being sung by choirs and around campfires – and earning for their respective studios additional royalties in the bargain.
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Therefore I tried to write a new lyric for the Arrietty song that was not merely about the plot of the film.
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A 6th-grade student that I know, Irmak, kindly sang the lyric that I wrote for this demo to give it a sound that calls the original to mind. What I have here closely matches the line length and cadence of the original English version of the song [which was linked above, but the link to which has, unfortunately, been disabled].
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Image: Studio Ghibli [posted by Wakumi]. “Arrietty.gif.” Nippon Syndrom: La Passion Contagieuse Du Japon: Karigurashi No Arrietty, Nippon Syndrom, 16 Nov. 2014, www.nippon-syndrom.com/t1924-karigurashi-no-arrietty-arrietty-le-petit-monde-des-chapardeurs.