As the bitter cold temperatures seem to finally be out of the danger zone, I can’t help but feel the annual hope that spring is right around the corner; warm temperatures, pleasant walks outside and good music to accompany them are pleasantly imminent.  

Music and the seasons are incredibly intertwined for me — most evidently — and I find myself already plotting and scheming up potential music for my near-drawing spring playlist. Warm weather is obviously amazing, but whimsical, bountiful, hopeful spring music might be better. 

Spring for me, and I’m sure many others, is a time of renewal, rejuvenation and comforting pseudo-summer nostalgia. With these things in mind, the artist whom I feel in my bones will fill up many spots in my playlist is none other than Japanese Breakfast. 

Japanese Breakfast is incredible. Incredible, I tell you. 

There’s a nuanced essence of hope, melancholia and of course, as is the nature of spring-associated music, whimsy that every single Japanese Breakfast track captures for me. 

Japanese Breakfast is the stage name of Michelle Zauner, a Korean-American native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Zauner’s musical career began with the band Little Big League in 2011. The band released two albums before Zauner began releasing music under the name Japanese Breakfast in 2013, leaving the band in 2014. 

Now, the name Japanese Breakfast may seem a little misleading, given that Zauner is Korean. However, in a 2017 Teen Vogue interview, Zauner discusses why she chose the name Japanese Breakfast. 

“When I grew up, there was no Korean popular culture in America,” Zauner said. “So I grew up relating to Japanese culture quite a bit because it felt like the closest thing I had.”

Zauner said she wanted to pair something that felt very American to her, like breakfast, with something that most Americans deem exotic or foreign. Choosing Japanese as the other part of her stage name speaks to the inclination of many to lump all Asian people into one ethnic category.   

Now knowing the background of Zauner, let’s dive into some of my favorite stand-out songs from Japanese Breakfast. 

The first track I listened to — and one I have already written about —  was “Rugged Country” off of Japanese Breakfast’s 2016 album, “Psychopomp.” 

Listening to the song, I am brought back vividly to springtime during quarantine. Lying on a hill at a local park, I played my music on shuffle, letting the universe decide what sort of musical backdrop would accompany me. This song played and it’s been on loop ever since. 

Leaning into a rock-heavy sound accompanied by rough, emotionally raw vocals, this song fills me with the full magnitude of happiness and sadness all at once. 

“’Cause I was lonely here and it’s lonely still / In the rugged country where the weeds grow fierce / Quicker than the crop I keep running from / In this rugged country.”

Her most critically acclaimed album, earning several Grammy nominations, is 2021’s “Jubilee,” which features several of my favorite songs of all time. 

“Posing for Cars” packages nostalgic, melancholic memory-filled lyrics with what at first is soothingly subtle and somber plucked guitar chords to a roaring closing act with riveting vibrato and electric edges. 

This track closes off “Jubilee,” and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The last two and a half minutes are droning strings, percussion and piano; it’s like an ending to the best coming-of-age film ever. 

“And how could you ever conceive / How much I need you, how truly barren I can be? / They say that time, it is the only certainty / But it’s been one o’clock for hours / Oh, the day is long, untangling.” 

At the start of the song, the listener is faced with grief, sadness and loss, but by the end, there’s an overwhelming sense of hope, happiness and closure. The nature of this song is so spring-like to me. 

Although definitely having a few appearances on my winter playlist, I most associate Japanese Breakfast with the spring. This is exacerbated by the fact that I found myself listening to her a lot last spring while I was studying abroad in Japan (I mean, it’s all in the name, really).  

There are several more tracks that I could write about, but I encourage you to discover those on your own. Give this talented artist a listen. 

Hirata can be reached at [email protected].