Peter Cat

Fans of Haruki Murakami know that his world is full of music, but it is not only jazz and the Beatles. Classical music turns up too, and one name appears more than most: the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, and his recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations. This post is about that connection, and about how different recordings of the same piece can suit different moods. Glenn Gould in Murakami's study Readers who have seen photos of Murakami's workspace may have noticed a framed picture on the wall of his study. According to our notes, it is connected to Glenn Gould. We would rather not describe the image more precisely than we can verify, but it fits what we know: Murakami has mentioned Gould in his writing, and the pianist's taste, discipline and eccentricity are exactly the kind of thing he admires. Gould also shows up in Murakami's very first novel, Hear the Wind Sing (1979), where the references hint at the author's refined, slightly private musical taste. ...

Some songs sound like a late night with a glass of wine, and Chet Baker's I Fall in Love Too Easily is surely one of them. Today in the Music Room we are playing it, and talking about why Chet Baker sits so comfortably inside Haruki Murakami's world. A song that falls in love for you The title does half the work. I Fall in Love Too Easily is a ballad written for the 1944 film Anchors Aweigh , with music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Sammy Cahn, and it later became a Chet Baker signature. Baker's version, with his soft, almost whispering vocal and a muted trumpet that never pushes, is romantic, sad and a little bit hopeless all at once. It is the sound of someone who knows better and does it anyway. We find it addictive in the best sense. You put it on once, and suddenly it is an hour later and you are still sitting in the dark. What Murakami said about Chet Baker Murakami, who ran a jazz bar in Tokyo before he became a novelist, has written about jazz at length, and Ch...

If you want to understand the music of Norwegian Wood , start with the Beatles. The 1987 novel is named after the song, it opens with the song, and its quietest, saddest scenes are scored by a guitar playing Beatles tunes. Here at Peter Cat we have always thought of this book as a record you can read, so let's put the needle down. Why Norwegian Wood is named after a Beatles song The title comes from "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)", the Beatles song from Rubber Soul (1965). In the novel, Toru Watanabe is in his late thirties, sitting on a plane, when the song begins to play over the speakers and sends him straight back to the late 1960s, to Naoko and to the years he has tried to hold at arm's length. The melody is the doorway into the whole story. Without it, there is no novel. Later, the song becomes something more intimate. Reiko, Naoko's older roommate at the sanatorium, plays guitar, and "Norwegian Wood" is the song Naoko asks her for agai...

"What kind of music is jazz?" Murakami says young people ask him this all the time, and he has a surprisingly moving way of answering. In his short essay on what jazz is , he skips the definitions and tells a small story about a customer, a woman in a raincoat, and Billie Holiday. Here is our summary and reflection on this piece, which we think is one of his loveliest short pieces about music. What is jazz? Murakami's problem with the question He begins by admitting the question is nearly impossible. He compares trying to answer it to throwing a ball of clay at a concrete wall: you are left with a flat lump and nothing solid. There is no single definition, just as there is no clean answer to "what is pure literature?" Yet anyone with even mild interest can tell, on hearing a record, whether it is jazz or not. Jazz has its own sound, texture and even scent, he suggests, and affects the mind differently from other music. The easy reply, "just go and l...

Every long-running show has a first night, and the Murakami Radio first episode is a charming one. In 2018, Haruki Murakami took to the airwaves as a DJ for the first time, bringing records and CDs from home and chatting for 55 minutes about the music he runs to. This post summarizes the broadcast, lists the songs, and shares the best moments. Context: a novelist behind the microphone Murakami opens by saying many listeners are hearing his voice for the very first time. His plan is simple: play favourite songs, talk a little, and answer questions. Being a former jazz bar owner, he is perfectly at home with records, and the theme of the night is "Music Murakami listens to while running". If you want to know how he ended up writing, our post on his move from jazz bar owner to author tells that story. What makes good running music? Murakami explains how running became part of his life: after closing the jazz club he gained weight, quit smoking and started jogging. Runn...

Imagine Haruki Murakami alone in his study, microphone in front of him, a mug of hot coffee and some donuts on the desk, sliding old records into a player. That is the setting of the Murakami Radio Oldies But Goodies episode, one of the warmest in the stay-home series from 2020. Here is our summary of the show, the memories behind it, and the songs that carried him back to his early teens. Already have the playlist and want only the songs? Our separate Oldies But Goodies tracklist has you covered. This post is about the stories. A show recorded from home Since the previous episode, Murakami explains, he had stopped using the usual Tokyo FM studio and was running the Stay Home Special from his own study, talking to himself and loading records and CDs. He jokes that it feels like making homemade taiyaki. (If you missed that special, see our Stay At Home Corona Special write-up.) For this episode he narrows "oldies" to the early and mid-1960s, the music of his early...

What happens when one of the world's most celebrated novelists is asked to play agony uncle? In this episode, Murakami Radio turns into a late-night advice column, and the result is funny, a little contradictory, and oddly wise. If you have ever wondered what Haruki Murakami's love advice actually sounds like, this recap of the "Peculiar Love Advice" episode is for you. We have summarized the whole show in our own words below, along with the records he spun between questions. (For the exact wording, listen to the broadcast itself.) The setting: an analog night with Miyu Sakamoto Murakami opens by saying he is not the right person to give love advice, then promises to answer anyway. He is joined by co-host Miyu Sakamoto, who reads out listener letters. The tone is relaxed from the start, helped by the fact that this is an "analog night": he has carried an armful of records from home to the studio, scratches and all. He treats the crackle as part of t...

What if you heard the early Beatles hits sung in French, played on vibraphone, or turned into a jazz ballad? That is the idea behind the Murakami Radio Beatles episode , "The Beatle Night". Instead of the originals, Haruki Murakami plays covers of songs from the band's early years, and tells a few stories along the way. Context: why early Beatles? Murakami explains that the Beatles have so many hits that he had to narrow the scope. Songs released before the album Rubber Soul are the focus. He acknowledges that the later work is usually more highly rated, with deeper lyrics and more sophisticated harmony. But he argues the early music had a natural, instantly appealing quality that left a strong mark on popular music. He plays most covers in the order the originals came out. Highlights from the show French "Please Please Me". He opens with Petula Clark's French version, "Tu perds ton temps" ("you're wasting your time"), and ...

In the middle of the 2020 lockdown, Haruki Murakami swapped his usual Tokyo studio for his own study and played songs to cheer people up. The Murakami Radio Stay Home Special is a two-hour broadcast built around the theme "Music for a Bright Tomorrow", and it remains one of our favourite episodes. Here is what happened, the full song list, and why it still works today. Context: a special episode in a strange time Murakami Radio normally airs about every two months. This one was a one-off, extended special. Instead of the broadcast station's equipment, Murakami played records and CDs on his home player, and his cat (he calls the cat Nekoyama-san) kept him company nearby. He opens by acknowledging that everyone is stuck under restrictions, unable to see people or go places, and says he picked songs that give him strength and comfort. He hopes they do the same for listeners. Highlights and themes A few moments stood out for us: Against black and white thinking. W...

If you ask Haruki Murakami who his favourite vocal jazz artist is, the answer comes back quickly: Billie Holiday. Her records show up in the way he talks about music, in his jazz-bar memories, and in some of his most vivid descriptions of what a voice can do. For a novelist who has described music so often, Billie Holiday seems to be the singer he finds hardest to explain, and that is exactly why we love reading what he says about her. In this post we'll look at the ways Murakami writes about Billie Holiday, why she keeps coming up, and how you might try his favourite way to listen. What Murakami Hears in Billie Holiday The lines we've collected from his essay writing keep returning to the same idea: her singing is both fragile and complete. He describes a voice that feels precarious and determined at once, happy enough to make you want to dance and sad enough to hurt. It seems defenceless, yet it can't be touched. He also says her songs hold something like an und...

Looking for every song from the Murakami Radio Stay Home Special? Here is the complete 19-track list, in order, from Haruki Murakami's programme of comforting, sunny music made for staying indoors. If you have not seen the show yet, our Stay At Home Corona Special with English subtitles has the full episode. The Stay Home Special tracklist Titles and artists are tidied up from our notes, with standard spellings. Look for the Silver Lining – The Modern Quartet Waitin' on a Sunny Day – Bruce Springsteen Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head – Ronald Isley & Burt Bacharach Here Comes the Sun – Nina Simone You've Got a Friend – Carole King Over the Rainbow – Ella Fitzgerald Sun Is Shining – Bob Marley & The Wailers What a Wonderful World – Louis Armstrong Happy Birthday Sweet Darling – Kate Taylor Smile – Eric Clapton My Favorite Things (feat. Kathleen Battle) – Al Jarreau She Wore a Yellow Ribbon – Risa Ono Happy Talk – Nancy Wilson They Can't ...

Here is the full tracklist for the Oldies episode of Murakami Radio, Haruki Murakami's own radio programme, in which the novelist plays the records he grew up loving. If you have watched our Murakami Radio Oldies full show with English subtitles and wanted to find a song again, this page is for you. Murakami Radio Oldies: the songs The programme leans into the sound of early rock and roll, doo-wop-era pop and surf music, the kind of records that were on the airwaves when Murakami was a teenager. We have cleaned up the spellings of titles and artists as best we can. Every Breath I Take – Gene Pitney I Will Go On Loving You – Jamie Coe Lonely Soldier Boy – Johnny Deerfield What Am I Gonna Do – Jimmy Clanton Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans – Ricky Nelson One Sided Love Affair – Elvis Presley A Boy Like Me, a Girl Like You – Elvis Presley The Phoenix Love Theme – The T-Bones Tell 'Em I'm Surfin' – Jan & Dean Wonderful World – Sam Cooke Te...

Every Murakami reader has a favourite record from his books, but one of the most haunting is an album that nobody, not even the narrator, can name. In South of the Border, West of the Sun (1992), a boy listens to a Liszt piano concerto record at the home of a girl called Shimamoto, and decades later he admits he has forgotten who played it. We have been wondering about that record ever since, so today we go looking for clues. The Liszt record in South of the Border, West of the Sun The scene is a small, quiet one. Hajime, the narrator, spends afternoons at Shimamoto's house, where her father's record collection waits. Of all those records, he loves one best: a recording of the Liszt piano concertos, one concerto on each side. He gives two reasons. The jacket is beautiful, and nobody else around him listens to Liszt, which makes the music feel like a secret garden that only he (and Shimamoto) can enter. The music itself does not win him over right away. At first it strike...

Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood and Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express have a lot in common, and it's a question we get curious about as fans: was one influenced by the other? The short answer is that we have found no evidence that either creator drew on the other. But if you love both, the echoes are impossible to ignore, and they say something about a certain kind of longing that crosses borders. Two young people, two anxious eras For some of us, there are periods in life when we are too immature, too full of reckless dreams, and unable to put into words what is stirring inside. In those years, when you feel the gap between what you want and what you can have, a few artists seem to speak directly to you. For us, those two were Murakami, discovered in a second-hand bookstore, and Wong Kar-wai, whose films we watched on VHS more times than we can count. Norwegian Wood (1987) is one of the defining works of Japanese urban sensibility, and Chungking Express (1994) is a...