day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere

The Beatles - Hey Jude




Uhm, there are a couple places this song reminds me of. The second one is something I’m nowhere near prepared to talk about, so I’ll just go with the first.

I first went to Japan in my senior year of high school as part of a school trip. We all stayed in Kyoto for a couple days, and during our stay there we all went to a trip to a karaoke tower. In the bigger cities they tend to have giant structures filled with the one thing you want instead of just having one floor dedicated to it. Karaoke is a popular commodity anyways, so they’d easily benefit from renting an entire building.

Anyway, we stayed there for what I think was a couple of hours. I only sang one song because I was a *shy-boy* or some shit, and one song was a big enough accomplishment for me. At the end of the night the main chaperone guy suggested that we all sing Hey Jude. I had never heard the song in full before, but I knew the naaaaaaanaaanaaanananaanaaaanaaaananananananaanaaa a part so I just did that. It was a nice way to round out the evening, getting everybody involved.

Then on the last day of our stay, down in Hiroshima with our host families, we all went to this buffet-style Shabu-sen restaurant (best food I’ve ever eaten btw, really have to get shabu-shabu sometime soon). There just so happened to be a karaoke machine there; not sure if it was lugged in just for our being there, but we took advantage of it nonetheless. We sang some of the basics: the ABCs (in a really stupid rhythm because the Japanese don’t understand rhyme scheme and just make shit up as they go along), Oh Suzanna I think was in there, maybe something like Sekai Wa Hitotsu Dake No Hana, or something at least as popular as that. But one of the last songs we sang was Hey Jude, which surprised me because I had no idea it was such a popular song in Japan.

I’ve since made it a habit to sing this song whenever I go to Karaoke.