Ikiru (Haru Nemuri)
- Artist
- Haru Nemuri
- Digital Single
- Ikiru (生きる; To Exist)
- Released
- 2022.04.01
- Price
- ¥250
- Tracklist
- Ikiru (生きる)
- Information
"Ikiru" is a digital single released by Haru Nemuri as the lead-in to her second full album, Shunka Ryougen. It was included as track #20 of the album when it was released later the same month. The song was inspired by the poem of the same name by translator and poet Tanikawa Shuntaro.
A while after the release of the album, Haru released a statement about the song, titled "Statement for Ikiru", in Japanese and English. The English version of the statement is as follows:
Early morning on November 16th, 2020, the case happened that a homeless woman in her 60s was beaten on the head to death at the bus stop in Hatagaya, Shibuya. A man suspected was arrested 5 days later and said, ‘I intend to make her disappear by injuring'. At that time I lived in the apartment 10-seconds walk from that bus stop, woke up in the evening on that day and knew such a case had happened. I was so surprised at the fact that a person was killed just near my house, and also shivering because I did not know the existence of her even though she was near me.
After a few months since then, I moved to another city from Tokyo because it became the worst city for me. When I couldn't go outside except for my job due to the pandemic of COVID-19 and became having no opportunities to see a few friends of mine and go to the live, the yardstick as the availableness for the physical access also became having little worth for me, and basically I didn’t like where many people are. Then life in a big and developed city was nothing but stress. Where I moved is not too small a city but I decided to live in a solitary house far from the station crowded with a lot of people and shops, so I’ve been able not to care about others. It's very quiet at night and I don’t feel much inconvenience. It’s been a year since I lived here, I’m really fond of my present life.
Well, I met a stray cat near my home soon after moving. His yellow fur was bald in spots, his eyes were blurred with mucus, and his nose created nasally sounds, stuffed with. I found him and unconsciously stopped to walk, and that sick cat mewed to me. I sat there to stroke his body, he came to sleep, letting his body on my legs. I thought he had been kept by someone before because he was very friendly, my heart was just captured, and I came to go to the place where he always slept and spend the most time with him when I didn’t have business. I kept two guinea pigs at that time so it’s difficult for me to let him live in my home, but I couldn’t behave like not knowing his existence. For the time being, I thought to wait for the next payday and bring him to the animal hospital but he suddenly disappeared a week and a few days after we met. Did he find another safe bed? Did someone bring him to their home? Or did he pass away? ーー For a while, his memory occurred to me and there were many times I lost myself in thought.
Half and a month after he had disappeared, I met him again. He was at a parking lot far from the vicinity of my house where we had met for the first time, and I happened to find him taken care of as a local cat by a woman who runs a pub near there. I heard that he appeared there when he disappeared from near my house, she thought he was brought to by someone because maybe he couldn’t come here by his own foot, before that he was kept by someone or for breeding, and very aged though we couldn’t figure out how old he was correctly. Since then, I often went to that parking lot before or after I went to practice for the live in the studio outside, and I spent very trifling and irreplaceable time, feeding him and other local cats there, playing with them and being there together. When the sunlight was horribly strong in the summer, it got a little cold and sad in the fall, and too wintry in the winter, we were together. He got a full set of his fur and came to show brazenness. I thought it’s his true character, and I felt happy and lovely.
During the winter it’s too cold outside, so we set up a shed at that parking lot, getting permission from the owner. He wasn’t a cat moving agilely, often laid himself in that shed and came out of it to eat and bask in the sun when the weather was fine. From the beginning of last March I had a plan to do the North American tour for 3 weeks, so I went to the parking lot as usual to say to him, ‘Bye’ and ‘Take care’, before leaving Japan. And during my tour, I heard he disappeared again. According to those who live near the parking lot, an aged person was seen to stand in front of the shed for him and after that he disappeared. I wondered if someone brought him to their home, and if so I was happy. But finally I came to hear the bad news after finishing the tour and coming back to Japan.
A woman who always takes care of the local cats there was worried about him, contacted the animal hospitals and animal health center in the neighborhood and found he was in the animal health center, being completely sick. He was protected in a place far from the parking lot and we guessed absolutely he had been taken to by someone. We took him to the hospital, the doctor told us that his long-held sickness appeared as some symptoms because maybe he had been neglected without being given either water and food. We judged that we weren’t able to take care of him outside anymore, for now someone who had time among us took him in each home, and we talked about whether a woman could keep him or not when he could get back on his feet. Some of us went to the animal hospital in the morning, had him received intravenously, took care of him in their home ーー I also took him to my room separated from the one in which my guinea pig is ーー, and in the morning after a few days we had done such things, that woman sent a message to me.
I had a business to shoot a live video in Tokyo this afternoon on that day, minded messages from her soon after waking up such as ‘He took a sudden turn for the worse and I think he’s gonna pass away before too long’ and ‘I know you have a business today but I would like you to see him in the end if you can’, and went to where he was, really upset. He was laid out and couldn’t drink any water, and I could tell just by looking that it’s the last chance to see in-life him. Feeling his small body losing the temperature, it’s very painful that I had to board the train this day even though it's not always for me, but I couldn’t abandon it all. At the end I said goodbye to him, who just stopped breathing, and I prepared to go out, crying. I hadn’t realized he passed away yet when the train reached Tokyo, and I maybe felt like a yeasty ghost. What I remembered was when I met him for the first time, the trifling and tender time I was spending with him, the temperature that he tried to live, and the homeless woman who was beaten and killed near my home before movingーー.
Who took him? What purpose did they have? Didn’t they imagine what would happen by doing that? Did they dislike him? Or did they abuse him for taking their frustration out on because they had something ungratified in their heart? Did they ’intend to make him disappear by injuring’? To be born and die. Just in the process of that it should have never been allowed to be hurt and robbed of life and dignity. A stray cat, a person who doesn't have a house, is there. If this world can’t allow even such trifling things, I don’t need this whole world at all.
On the day he passed away, I played the song called ‘Ikiru’ in the live for the first time. Singing ‘How beautiful life is!’, my heart was messed up with the feelings both that I couldn’t think so and that I wanted to believe that I could think so, the more I thought I must have not cry, the more I was tearing, and I couldn’t so calmly sing it. I wanted to destroy all, give up on anything, vanish myself from here now ーー but music just exists here and lets me stay by the deliberate beauty of the existence itself. In the days ahead, for example the day when I’m filled with hatred toward others and the world or delight toward life, this song will always stay with me. This song exists here just without changing, both the moment I feel it tangles me like a curse and the one I feel it beats down on me like a blessing.
HARU NEMURI
Song Information
- Lyrics
- Haru Nemuri
- Music
- Haru Nemuri
- Other Information
- Production: Haru Nemuri
- Co-Production: GINPEI ITO
- Programming: Haru Nemuri
- Additional Guitar: Mitsu.J
- Recorded by Shiota Osamu at SPACE Recording Studio
- Mixed by Shiota Osamu & GINPEI ITO at SPACE Recording Studio
- Mastered by Kira Takeo at TEMAS MASTERING STUDIO
Music Video
The music video for the song was released a week after the digital single dropped, and starred actress Ishikawa Ruka. Haru herself does not appear in the video.
Koyama Takeshi directed the video, with Saito Ryo as director of photography. ZUMI and Yoshii Yumeto were the first and second CAs, respectively. Saeki Takuma was the lighting director. Ogura Hajime was the first LA. Furudate Yoshifumi was the drone camera operator. Masuda Hina choreographed the dances in the video, with assistance by Ryoki Kazusa. Yoshida Erika was the stylist and did hair and makeup, assisted by Aoki Narumi. The wardrobe was through GŸPSY and garden730. The video has subtitles in English which were translated by Matsumoto Syse from LTD. Madre.
For post-production, Hirose Yuki from Sony PCL was the colorist and Shikada Mayako was the editor. The video was produced by Watanabe Hiroaki from PARADE Tokyo Co., Ltd. Troussier, also from PARADE Tokyo Co., Ltd., was the line producer. The production managers, all also from the same place, were Otake Shogo, Ueno Naoto. and Arima Naoki.
External Links
- Streaming: Spotify | Apple Music
- Music Video
