By The Landlord
“More than any other city, Tokyo demonstrates that ‘city’ is a verb and not a noun.” - Toshiko Mori
”The significance of the cherry blossom tree in Japanese culture goes back hundreds of years. It represents the fragility and the beauty of life. It's a reminder that life is almost overwhelmingly beautiful but that it is also tragically short.” – Homaro Cantu
”With traditional architecture, you have to look at Japanese culture and its relationship with nature. You can actually live in a harmonious, close contact with nature - this is very unique to Japan.” – Tadao Ando
“Tenka no ou ni, hana no you ni.”
”Follow the path like a flower in bloom, regardless of the world’s course.”– Japanese proverb
”In Japanese culture, there is a belief that God is everywhere – in mountains, trees, rocks, even in our sympathy for robots or Hello Kitty toys.” – Ryuichi Sakamoto
”Oh, old pond,
a frog leaps from the shore,
sound of water.”
——-
”The temple bell stops
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.” – Matsuo Bashō (Endo period haiku poet, 1644-1694)
Land of the rising sun, creator of past and future, maker of tradition and technology. Nation of shrines, sushi, samurai, sumo, sake and superfast shinkansen. Anime to Banzai, cherry blossom to colourful carp, cars to cameras, Fuji to geisha, Honda to manga, miso to matcha, ninja to Nintendo, ramen to wa (和), yakuza to zen, it's a land of huge contrasts and contradictions but also creativity and continuity, social conservatism and outstanding cleanliness. It's one with a cruel and tragic past, but also extraordinary aesthetics, politeness and respect. Japan is quietly enigmatic, it's the cute and curious cat of all countries, but with those elegant creatures coming in herds.
As it happens, I'm right there, for the very first time, constantly wide-eyed at every new street corner, filled with wonder at the sights and sounds. Glimpses of ancient tradition and supermodern tomorrows seem to come at every turn. It feels like a surreal dream. Even the most mass produced and cheesy products seem beautifully designed, and where its people seem to sing out in squeaky high pitch or low tones of many vowels, but most of all, bow to each other, and to visitors, constantly.
To sum up Japan in any piece is impossible. This is a mere tiny dish of cultural-reference sushi, a tiny green teapot, a miniature moss garden of an taster intro.
I've visited Osaka's castles and crazy night-time Dotonbori scene, Nara's mind-blowingly enormous Buddhist temples and shrines and countless very cute tame deer who roam their surroundings. I've stood silent at the very moving sights of Hiroshima's peace museum, of images of burning flesh, and seeing that ghostly shell of a just surviving Dome building.
And now I'm in Kyoto which offers dazzling city light sights and shops and bars and cool people, further exquisite gardens, luminous towers and endless shrines, especially the extraordinary Fushimi Inari site of hundreds of red torii gates which you can quietly stroll through at night, and beyond, bamboo forests and monkeys. The adventure will continue elsewhere, further north east to the sea, to mountains and exquisite old villages, then to lakes alongside Mount Fuji, and will end in the bustling metropolis of Tokyo.
Part of the Fushimi Inari shrine, Kyoto
It's a long-held ambition, all still feeling very surreal with much more to report, but for now let's get back to the subject in hand – songs from or about Japan. So this is potentially a huge subject, as Japan is the second biggest music market in the world after the USA. But you have to start somewhere, and this week the aim is to search songs to particularly capture the culture and people of this amazing country, one which formed its a strong identity, cut off from the rest of the world for many centuries. The result? It’s undeniably different, and rather beautiful.
So, whether it's songs about it by outsiders who were influenced by or more particularly music from within Japan, or in turn Japanese musicians perhaps influenced by western music, there must definitely be some Japanese culture very potently flavouring your suggestions.
It might make reference to the rich history of this earthquake- and volcano-affected fertile island country, perhaps from the era of turmoil during 12th to 17th centuries, where samurai had ruled for 800 years, where bloody civil conflict ran red between warlords particularly in the latter period, but then came through turmoil the emergence of unifiers and infrastructure builders such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu and the period of the shogun.
Japan’s three unifiers Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Or your songs might refer to a more modern period of the 19th and 20th centuries, where despite the ravages of the Second World War and the 1945 atomic bombs, Japan managed to bounce back, forging ahead with technology and economically to lead the world. Japan always seems to marry the past with the future.
The Hiroshima Dome building, a relic of the Atomic bomb of 1945, as seen recently at night
Musically then, Japanese music itself could cover a wide variety from the very traditional forms of shōmyō (Buddhist chanting) to gagaku orchestral court music, of which there are several forms, particularly enjoyed in samurai culture, including instruments the lute-like biwa hōshi, heike biwa and goze drum. Or later the wadaiko drum.
Contrasting with those higher brow forms, meanwhile Min'yō folk music tells tales of working culture, such as those of fishermen, and might involve the three-stringed shamisen lute, taiko drums, and shakuhachi a bamboo flute, which typically accompanies singers. There's also the shinobue flute, a kane bell, tsuzumi hand drum, koto 13-stringed zither.
Min'yō folk singer of the early 20th century
Jazz might also come up, a form which became very popular in the 1920s, especially in Osaka, which boasted 20 or more dancehalls, and popularised by the The Hatano Jazz Band, and individual players such as trumpeter Fumio Nanri (1910–1975). Although jazz went very much out of fashion during WW2, it's always been greatly admired in Japan. In1933 Chigusa, Japan's surviving oldest jazz cafe, or Jazu kissa, opened in Yokohama.
There isn't a genre of music not popular with or played by Japanese artists or adored by fans, from classical to death metal, hip hop to shoegaze. But J-pop and J-rock might particularly come to mind, with bands from the 1960s onwards, putting their own spin onto these genres, influenced by Appalachian folk music, psychedelic rock, mod, the Beatles and more, from The Tempters, the Tigers, the Golden Cups, the Spiders, the Jaguars, the Ox, the Village Singers, the Carnabeats, the Wild Ones, the Mops, into the 1970s with Kenji Sawada and Kenichi Hagiwara, Tulip, Banban, Garo, the Southern All Stars, with new variants into electro pop, such as Isao Tomita, Inoue Yousui, The Yellow Magic Orchestra.
The Spiders
Perhaps your explorations might go to the 1980s and beyond, with C-C-B, Tokyo JAP, Red Warriors. Shonen Knife, the Pillows, and Tama & Little Creatures, the experimental Boredoms, or mainstream Glay.
Then also the mushrooming commercial success of the 1990s with all-time biggest record sellers B'z, as well as Mr. Children, L'Arc-en-Ciel, Glay, Southern All Stars, Judy and Mary, Tube, Spitz, Wands, T-Bolan, Field of View, Deen, Lindberg, Sharam Q, the Yellow Monkey, the Brilliant Green and Dragon Ash.
Shonen Knife
Then beyond the new millennium, with the advent of the Fuji Rock Festival and the likes of Bump of Chicken, Asian Kung–Fu Generation, One Ok Rock, Flow, Orange Range, Radwimps, Sambomaster, Remioromen, Uverworld and Aqua Timez, perhaps? This is merely scratching the surface. There's so much more to be found in the vast musical undergrowth in this Japanese rock garden with all sorts of genre cross-pollination And then of course there are also songs about Japan by outsiders ..., but is it really about Japan?
So then, what travels will this take us on? That's up to you. And tending this rock garden is returning Japanese music connoisseur ajostu! Place your nominations in the musical bento box below for consideration in time for deadline, 11pm UK time on Monday. Arigato!
Train scene from Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away
Halloween special: the recent Kyoto Hyakki Yagyō (Demon Parade) featuring 100 restless yōkai on the streets of the city
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