My father was diagnosed with dementia in July of 2022. My brother was the one who shared the news saying he and his wife had taken our father to a specialist. This had me thinking about memories and consciousness. How do we share memories if we can’t remember? Did we even have the same memories to begin with even if we experienced things together?
I started with the lyrics. I wrote about running jokes I had with my father and my brother growing up, catching crawfish in ponds in Tokyo near our apartment in Kokubunji, my father’s Sunday special natto omelet breakfast, the times we'd go to the beach in Chiba, how we'd play in the water all day and our sunburned skin would hurt in the bath. How my father would go buy kakigori after we had slipped under the futon, how I insisted I'd get the same flavor as him even though matcha was too bitter for me and I really just wanted the neon red strawberry.
I worked on a melody with the lyrics and set it to a bass line and drums. This ended up mellow and sappy at 90 BPM in e minor, then, as fate would have it, my GarageBand crashed and I lost the entire piece. I took this as an opportunity to turn it upbeat, 125 BPM, and in G major, a key I always associate with brightness, color of sunshine. This turned into a different way of conceptualizing the "same story" from various perspectives compared to “Heron in moonlight.” I kept the mellow acoustic sound of the original lost recording in the first 16 bars while pushing it to become an 80's pop/dance tune. The piece existed as an instrumental track until I finally recorded the vocals in January 2023, seven months later, upon my return from Japan, after seeing my father for the first time since dementia diagnosis.
lyrics
ザリガニ釣り
するめを付けて
家に大切に
連れ帰って
納豆オムレツ
キャッチボール
犬の散歩
毎年行った
岩地の海
波と１日遊んで
こんがり焼けて
並んだお布団に入ってから
買ってきた かき氷
お父さんと一緒がいいと言ったね
でも抹茶は苦かった
本当はイチゴが欲しかった
後でみんなして笑ったよね
お父さんも同じ思い出なの？
無くさないで
------
Catching crawfish
with dried squid
Taking them home
like some treasure.
Natto omelet
Playing catch
walking the dogs.
Every summer we went
to the sea at Iwachi
Playing with waves all day
our skin acrisp.
Futons lined up, tuckered away
You went and got us kakigori
I said I wanted the same flavor as Dad.
But matcha was too bitter
I wanted strawberry instead.
We all laughed at the end.
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