Finding Jubilee
Persimmons
I haven’t read a book in ages. It has really been a long time since I picked up a book and read it from cover to cover. Reading a book bit by bit in short stints on the commute or on a work break or whenever I could sneak a few pages in, has become completely untenable. The deterioration of my attention span for books came a few years ago. I’ve always been a slow reader, but not having a good stretch of time to enjoy a couple of chapters or fifty to a hundred pages at a time, really interferes with my ability to take in the written word. This has bothered me for some time now. For five years, I worked a mile away from home, so I didn’t sit in a commute for long periods of time. It also doesn’t help that my eyes are getting weaker and my eye prescription can’t get any higher. My eye doctor recommends I wear contacts and reading glasses in tandem to read a book. That just sounds ridiculous to me. If there’s a book I want to read, I get the audio book and listen. I’m good at listening. I retain more from listening.
Growing up I didn’t read anything I was supposed to finish in school, but I got good grades in English class, because I remembered everything in class discussions and always based writing assignments on that. I would skim around chapters, but I had no patience for just reading the text. For one thing, I never turned off the TV if nobody made me. Picture me reading text for school while some sitcom syndicated right into my mind from some antenna. Then cable had even more distractions but no matter the source, I just wasn’t comfortable in silence. I skimmed both for school and for the Kingdom Hall (church). I never saw my parents read for fun. only watchtower bible and tract society publications. Maybe faith and religion is fun for them, but certainly had zero desire to read those books in earnest. I was interested in books because of PBS and Reading Rainbow, and poetry because of the brevity and how beautiful it seemed, but I didn’t finish a novel in its entirety until I was a doorman and someone handed me I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Sitting at a front desk overnight for long stretches of silence showed me how to get lost in a book.
Then when I was twenty, I met someone on a phone chat line, and we spent a great twenty-four hours together, which ended in a trip to the Barnes and Nobles that was once across from Lincoln Center where I was handed The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice. I was told that even though it was a little different, if I saw Interview with the Vampire, I could jump right into Lestat and not miss much. While I never saw this person again, I did keep seeing Anne Rice, and read both Vampire and Witch sagas, along with their crossover books. I’m really enjoying Interview on AMC+, and I think you would too. Season one of The Witching Hour wasn’t as great, but ended with great excitement. As long as they keep making them, I’ll keep watching. But I do indeed digress.
Over the next couple of decades I read so much more, and have enjoyed it so much, so you can well imagine that my not reading is not something I’m currently happy with. Now I have a long commute to work and I’m trying to find new methods to read. I have a list of books I will attempt to read. I will begin with one and practice patience. I will not force myself or feel bad if I don’t reach a quota, I’m just going to do it when I can. In that list is a book I first heard about in 2021. Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart made all the NPR, WNYC and podcast rounds that year, and everyone was singing its praises. A big highlight in the interviews and conversations was that Michelle is also the lead singer of Japanese Breakfast, and the band was just about to debut their third studio album, their first release in four years, the time it took Zauner to write the book. I hadn’t heard of the band before, and I really wanted to buy her book. Since I didn’t believe I could finish the book, I preordered the new album, and the one before that instead. Last autumn I got to see Japanese Breakfast at Radio City Music Hall, and Zauner announced that after one more concert day, and after touring for a couple of years, she was going to Korea to write a new book. That’s when I knew that I couldn’t get to the next book without reading Crying in H Mart. Three years after its release, I’m happy today to write about an album that has never left me for more than a couple of weeks since I listened to it, Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast.
Jubilee is happiness, and I’m trying to understand what it is to be happy again. Sure I have great moments of joy every day, but I’m trying to get back to happiness during the interstitial. Is happiness when circumstances allow, or is it a state of mind that can be willed into existence? I don’t know if I can answer that today, but Jubilee will probably have some enlightenment to glean. Zauner says that after writing sadness for years, she wanted the band's next project to be jubilant. That it sure is. Welcome back to Sunday Morning Records, it’s time for Jubilee by Japanese Breakfast.
Side A
Paprika
This album begins with a bit of fairytale core. Paprika begins a bit moody and opens right up into a big great world of wonder. It speaks to the joy and dare I say, jubilation of performance. The rush of being on stage in front of a captivated audience, who are giving you with their attention and reaction, just as much as you are giving them with your words. I’m writing this as someone who gets on stage and reads poetry. Right after my first time on stage, the applause made my legs jelly and the floor was made of clouds and again the first time I read at an open mic, I thought I would just float away. I listened to this song a lot when I biked downhill at night in Prospect Park on my way home from work. It always lifts me and reminds me of that singular joy. I felt that joy in Radio City, spread from her to all of us in attendance. They played this song first and I knew we were in for a magical evening. That’s the power of Paprika. Not just an awesome spice and great film.
Be Sweet
Funky bassline pop with synths and a catchy hook, who doesn’t want it? The moral of this tale here is; come correct! If you did wrong, come correct, be sweet and make someone believe in you. We all want people to be sweet to us, we always want to believe in them. The voice here might be speaking to a specific someone to get their act together, and it still bops. It’s not damning, it’s encouraging to come correct, because it wants to believe. How beautiful and makes me want to dance and tease my hair.
Kokomo, IN
This is a dreamy catchy tune that might come from a tiki lounge by the ocean under a full moon. The voice here is reminiscing of an easier time when they were with the subject they are singing to. It's full of hope and not melancholy, both in voice and music, and still there’s this longing that feels inviting. A sad song that refuses to be sad. The chorus says it perfectly
“If ever you come back
Wherever you find your way to
And though it may not last
Just know that I'll be here longing”
But you really have to listen to it to feel it. I’m curious if anyone reads this one differently, but it’s so soothing.
Slide Tackle
A simple yet repetitive drum beat carries this groovy tune over a great guitar, some horns, and all the other instruments, with Michelle’s voice just gliding all over it. Telling someone to just hang in there, while they figure out their darkness, is something I relate to deeply. These thoughts and feelings are something that we have to get through, and we must ask our loved ones to stay with us. They probably will anyway, but it’s good to be aware. I love this ditty.
Posing In Bondage
Hot, steamy, dark, industrial and sexy, Posing in Bondage is about proximity and desire and bodies colliding and it’s pretty dope. It’s all about exploring ways of feeling good.
Side B
Sit
“Caught up in the idea of someone
Caught up in the idea of you
That's gone too soon”
Crushes can be tough. Especially when you're in a monogamous relationship. This song is about those thoughts and desires. The day dreaming of possibilities and alternate endings and understanding that it’s an idea you’re interested in, not an actual person. I dig that people write songs about these feelings. It is hard when you’re afraid of having thoughts because you're afraid of betraying someone. So it’s nice to know this is human, and many people experience it. It doesn’t have to be more than fleeting thoughts. And the song knows that this is dangerous and sexy, but it’s careful and knows where it wants to end. A steamy beginning to Side B
Savage Good Boy
Besides being an excellent pop song, it has a killer music video directed by Michelle Zauner, starring herself and Michael Imperioli. Maybe it’s about living the free lives of Savage Good Boys, but I think you should just watch this video, in which Imperioli reportedly got bitten hard for real. Please Enjoy.
In Hell
Cool shoegaze pop about losing someone and finding hell in not being able to see them again. The sound is upbeat and poppy but this one makes me cry. In its heart this is a love song to someone who is gone. Mourning takes many shapes, but reaching the stage where you can write sad love songs that feel uplifting, is a good step in the neverending process.
Tactics
A Jazzy dreamy song with vocals that make it seem like it’s from a crooning scene in a film set in a smoky bar with a stage and a spotlight. It's giving 11pm cabaret. Strings open it up to an easy keyboard riff. This is a blues song about distance. I can feel the room and the distance to the stage. It’s so sad.
Posing For Cars
Mostly played singer songwriter style, with a voice and a guitar, this song tells a story through poetry and opens up wide with a band midway at the volta. It feels country like, with a heavy bass and an electric guitar solo that sweeps you off your feet. It reminds me a bit of Life On Earth by Hurray for the Riff Raff in sound. It has the longest instrumental stretch in the album, and it rocks. Not as upbeat as most of the album, but it progresses and explodes and leaves me feeling satiated. This is an excellent way to end an epic album full of merriment and excitement.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this exploration of Jubilee. If you’d like to read more about every song on this album, James Rettig has a great interview with Michelle Zauner on Stereogum that goes down track by track with more personal insight from the artist. Also If you made it down here I want to recommend you listen to Ichiko Aoba who opened for Japanese Breakfast at the Radio City show. In that big theater, it was just a spotlight, her voice and her guitar, and let me tell you it was magical and captivating. The audience was so still and quiet until a song would end and the eruption of applause would take over the great hall.
Next week I’ll be on vacation in western Pennsylvania and I might not have a record to take pictures of if I don’t pick an album before I go. I might even write about an album I don’t own on vinyl. I’ll definitely be doing some record shopping. I’m very excited to get back to George’s Song Shop in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, plus a general search for records, including at the Westmoreland County Fair. It’ll definitely be an adventure. Thanks for being here and hope to catch you next time on Sunday Morning Records.