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Where Do Shintaro Sakamoto’s Lyrics Come From?
Do you find that the difficulty of writing lyrics lies in things like whether the words match the sound, or whether they feel natural to sing? In that sense, was this time especially challenging in terms of meaning and content?
Sakamoto: I do not try to force myself to come up with themes I have never sung about before, or to search for completely new kinds of language. Even topics I have covered in the past can take on a different resonance depending on how they come out, so in the end it is more about whether the result feels right.
Ideally, the best lyrics are the ones that surprise even me, where I find myself thinking, “Why did I write something like this?” Almost as if they were written by someone else. When I am working on lyrics, I am basically in a state of waiting for something like that to suddenly fall into place.
Sakamoto: But in the process of pulling things together, I inevitably get drawn back to the kinds of thoughts I usually have. And once I imagine myself being the one to sing it, it comes down to whether it truly feels right. That keeps raising the bar higher and higher.
The ideal is when the finished song no longer feels like something I made. When I reach the point where it feels like “this is not my song” in that sense, that is what completion feels like to me. When it turns out that way, it almost feels like a song that was already there from the beginning.
So it does not feel like you wrote it, but it still passed through you. That is the ideal.
Sakamoto: Yes. That way, when I perform it or listen back to it myself, I can experience it almost as if it belongs to someone else. Rather than feeling like I am expressing myself directly, songs that exist in that way are more enjoyable to play.
When I listen to most songs in the world, they usually feel like “a song made by that person.” I hope to get closer to something that feels as if it came from a higher place, or like a song that has been passed down like an old tale.
So ideally, there should be as little trace of you as possible in the lyrics. In that sense, words like “grandpa” or “yoo-hoo,” which slipped out of you unintentionally, could be seen as clues that lead toward that kind of state.
Sakamoto: Exactly. If I start by thinking, “I am going to write about this,” and work toward that, the expression gradually becomes more logical and neatly tied together. But when a word like “grandpa” suddenly comes out, it surprises even me.
It feels like something opening up more widely, like things suddenly crack open. I try not to think too deliberately in hopes of reaching that state, but it is not easy.
So when you finally feel a song is finished, is it when it has somehow left your hands?
Sakamoto: Yes, I do think about that. A song feels finished to me when it reaches a point where anyone can interpret it freely, when it has that sense of having moved beyond my control.
It is a bit abstract, but when a song really comes together, it feels like the center suddenly disappears. My own presence fades away, and only the song remains. I think that is a beautiful state. I do not actually know how to make that happen, but I can tell the difference between when it has happened and when it has not, so I keep working at it until I get there.
That is probably why listeners can project their own feelings onto your songs and find their own interpretations in them.
Sakamoto: It is like seeing yourself in a center where no one is supposed to be. That might have something to do with what is going on in the world as well.
The way I make songs has not really changed, but in terms of word choice, something like a god’s-eye perspective does not sit right with me these days. Now that you mention it, maybe I have come to feel that I do not want to sing as if everything is someone else’s problem. That approach might just feel wrong to me now.
