Temple Garden / Karesansui

Temple Garden | 枯れ山水 (かれさんすい) is the closing tune for the Setsu album, though not the last in my release schedule. It's set in March.

As an album closer it's a bit of an epic. Slow tempo, acoustic sections build towards a punchy, rockin' outro with epic multi-part harmonies, which subside into a final poignant denouement. Lyrically, I try to revisit the characters from the other months of the album: the salary man from Sestu, the schoolgirls from Cosuplay, the Yankee Girl from the track of the same name (from July - but also referenced in Practice Perfect as the girlfriend of the Potter's son). And it also references the Shakuhachi Man, about whom you'll hear more in a few days when I release the April track, the travelling pipe player who spies on us all.

Another 'watcher' is the character at the centre of this month's track, the おばあさん (o-baa-san) who rakes the garden in her local temple. Anyone who has lived in a community with one or more of these bastions of Japanese society knows their beady glare, making sure of what everyone in the neighbourhood is doing and that they're following the rules. As a foreigner, initially you find yourself resenting the blatant staring that you can be subjected to by these senior citizens but, if you actually engage with them, usually their face will light up and they can be the most generous-spirited people you're likely to meet.

Temple Garden is about an entirely fictional old lady but is a tribute to o-baa-sans, a salute to their power and their influence as the glue that knits Japanese society together.