Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Music to Befuddle By

The interesting Japan thing that I experienced the other day was not the Japanese guy whose hair looked very similar to the flight control chief from the Curiosity mission. Oh no. It was music.

There has seemed to me to be this thing that Japanese stores have for their version of Muzak to consist a lot of American standards. These standards are usually interpreted in a lighter way, sometimes bordering on jazz, at other times firmly planted in adult contemporary. Still other times, it is just completely weird.

While grocery shopping, with a package of the day's fresh salmon and my favorite two-liter carton of plum wine in my hand basket, I recognized the tune playing. I was simultaneously horribly confused and rabidly curious. Surely this could not be the tune I thought it was. My feet slowed down as my ears and brain scrambled over each other, vying to be the first to name that tune.

It was "Take On Me" by A-Ha, performed by a Japanese ensemble that sounded like a group that kind of wanted to be like The Bird and The Bee or First Aid Kit and couldn't decide. But that didn't stop them from recording that song – no sir!

I can't say that my life is any richer or worse for having heard it. It definitely is a little weirder.

1 comment:

  1. I remember sitting in Denny's at three in the morning and hearing the Muzak version of Ghostbusters. It's an international thing.

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