"PAPRIKA" JAPANESE BREAKFAST (2021)

Great album openers get the listeners to keep on listening. They can do this in any number of ways. Some openers set the tone by easing us in. Others jump right in and blow our minds from the very beginning. A great album opener isn’t an easy thing to create. More than a great song, it’s all about the sequence. Track 1 has to be the perfect starter. This month, I’m highlighting my favorites. #AlbumOpeningSongs

2021 turned out to be quite a year for Michelle Zauner. A Grammy-nominated album in Jubilee. A New York Times best-selling memoir in Crying in H-Mart. And a movie deal based on the same book. But, more importantly, it was a big year because Zauner had crossed over the great divide from mourning the loss of her mom to cancer into a a period where joy could be seen and experienced. This shift is felt throughout Jubilee – and “Paprika” ushers in this unmistakable joyful demeanor as the album opener.

I had the chance to catch Japanese Breakfast last year on the Jubilee tour at Brooklyn Steel. The setlist also kicked off with “Paprika”, a song that oozes with joy and wonderment in both the recording studio and on stage. Zauner hopped around on stage, looking and feeling lighter with every bang of the gong cymbal after a darker, more reflective period both musically and personally. “Paprika” uses gongs, horns, circus-like synth parts and marching band-style drums to break the spell of darkness and death that hung over for years.

“I opened the floodgates and found no water, no current, no river, no rush.”

"THE BODY IS A BLADE" JAPANESE BREAKFAST (2017)

I generally gravitate to the music first before the lyrics. But as a writer, I still marvel at well-spun verses and choruses. This month, I’m joining the music Twitter community in #SeptSongLyricChallenge

Day 2

The songs of Soft Sounds From Another Planet are like a bridge from despair to joy. It’s the necessary mourning of death and loss that make joy and hope even possible one day. I love these songs. “Diving Woman”, “Till Death”, “Boyish”, “Road Head” and this one. As Japanese Breakfast suddenly became a hot band nearly overnight last year, I was lucky to catch them live at Brooklyn Steel where they played “The Body Is A Blade”. They say your pain is more meaningful if it becomes the experience that enables you to be there for someone who goes through something similarly painful. I think that’s what Michelle Zauner was doing when she wrote these lyrics.

“Try your best to slowly withdraw. Your body is a blade that moves while your brain is writhing. Knuckled under pain, you mourn but your blood is flowing.”