Happy Shonen Knife Day. It’s great that Shonen Knife has kept going for 30+ years and that is all due to main member and primary songwriter Naoko Yamano. Obvs. But for new fans of the band, and for those who don’t read liner notes, it may have been possible that the contributions of former member Michie Nakatani has been overlooked. She’s the George Harrison of the group. Not only because she only had a few songs per album, but she was also important as a player. Although not exactly a prodigy as a bass player or a singer, the group is structured so that the bass is almaboost equal to the guitar. (She also sometimes played keyboard.)

So she was a big part of most of the songs, but some more than others. Thus shall these songs be named “the Michie Songs”.

I trust you, reader. I know if you give a shit you can find whatever album. I’m also tired of putting a bunch of links that no one clicks on. So I’m just going to put one big Amazon link HERE

And heeere’s the top songs that are pretty much all Michie (written and sung):

1. Banana Fish

   
   Shonen Knife are famously thought of as being a mostly Ramones-punk band which has in turn inspired other similar bands, but early songs show influences from other girl post-punk bands of the late 70s/early 80s. (Find out more that here.) This song however, comes out of nowhere. As far as I know it has no influence and has influenced no one. Also, the lyrics, unlike Naoko’s which are mostly wonderfully devoid of metaphor, are based partly on the story within a story by J.D. Salinger about a guy that’s kills himself because people are horrible. (That’s what you get with Michie songs. There’s a hidden darkness and ironic self-awareness. Sometimes.

2. Catnip Dream

   
   This is the song has some interesting things going on. The chorus has been described as 15/8 but it sounds like alternating bars of 7/4 and 8/4 to me. The harmonized guitar is great and Michie plays the mellotron. And it’s about drugs. Cats talking drugs, right? Ok. There was supposedly another Michie song that was more explicitly about pot that got banned, but I have never been able to find out more about it. Maybe it was just a rumor. This song does seem very free of judgement of the “cat” in question, who unlike most “cats” takes “puffs” of this substance. He is even called “very smart”. Hmm. No, wait, there some cat sounds. Only about cats.

3. Animal Song

   
   The is another one that sounds very happy and bouncy but is also weirdly creepy. The refrain “what is this?” perfectly captures the feeling of the listener. There’s a version all in English on the Get the Wow EP. But the lyrics are basically nonsense. She may have been messing with Naoko from the very beginning. Pure speculation.

4. Devil House

   
   Altho never mentioned by name, this song retells the plot of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. At least the first half of it. A lesser songwriter would have tried to take you through the whole thing. I like the original Japanese version a little better, but you’d never believe it was literally scene by scene. There’s that generic horror movie soundtrack intro just to throw you offfff…ahg! I just spent an hour trying to look up what that is. Wasn’t it used in a Bugs Bunny cartoon? I can’t find anyone that even mentions that this song contains contains an exact quote of another song, but a million that think it kinda sounds like a Buzzcocks song. Right, the Buzzcocks song that quotes the Bugs Bunny Haunted House episode. One reviewer said that like 20 years ago, it’s not that close. Please leave a comment if you know what I’m talking about.

5. Butterfly Boy

   
   Yeah, Thurston Moore plays some guitar on this one. It’s easy to forget because he’s pretty subdued in the final mix. The solo is Michie on keys. It’s sounds a little like she’s saying “Butt Fly”, so what, grow up.

6. Fish Eyes

   
   If this song isn’t about eyelid surgery…there’s not really an if. But framed in a Kafkaesque fantasy about literally waking up with giant fish-like eyes and the ensuing internal torment, of course. The kind of Kafkaesque parable of modern angst you expect from…Shonen Knife. I like the old locomotive rhythm. And there’s a nice bridge.

7. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny

   
   I used to like how this song came after the Very Metal “Cobra vs. Mongoose”; it’s just gratuitously cheery. But it’s also a pretty good song on it’s own. It’s just so goofy it’s genius. Even if you were fully accepting the whole Shonen Knife package when you put this record on, when you get to this song it’s like you can’t believe what you’re listening to. Shonen Knife is still good and all, but with two writers pushing each other like this it reached amazing levels or ridiculousness in the best way possible. Naoko’s really playing with that guitar line, bending it around like that. But I’m going on.

8. Another Day

   
   This is the first attempt at a serious ballad. It must have been someone at the label’s idea to have some serious songs. I believe it was Page Porrazzo who thought he was Phil Spector with this group. Some people must hate it, but I thought it came out great. It’s not that far off from early ballad(ish) song “Bye Bye”, just a little lot more straight lyrically, and almost guitar at all. I remember when I first heard this song and feeling very nostalgic, which is the intention of the song of course. I used to feel a lot more nostalgic about stuff when I was younger. It’s weird. Anyway, I like how certain words like “bottle” and “shadows” kinda fall out of her mouth, she has this same way with pronunciation in Japanese too, some syllables are almost spit out or rushed, or she picks words with certain combinations of consonants that are odd. Maybe it’s an Osakan thing, but Naoko doesn’t do the same thing at all.

9. Ice Cream City

   
   This song is another one that has a version on the Get the Wow EP. I guess the label was still hoping to sell some copies of that when it put out the Birds and the B-Sides comp, which has this live version. There’s nothing wrong with the live version I’m just telling you that’s how it went down. (The comp was also not approved by the band according the their book Shonen Knife Land but that’s a little off topic.) The original Japanese version of this one is not as good because Michie could not quite pronounce “city” correctly yet. Some mispronunciations you can ignore, but that one’s pretty tough. I’m not trying to laugh at them. The English lyrics are pretty good: funny-weird and abstract, not anything dark here. Except the Soft Serve King is “melting with happiness”. He gonna die. Too far? Well maybe the whole thing is hallucination someone is having while they during a heatstroke on the beach. Makes sense.

10. The Perfect World

    Judging by the lack of availability of this song on youtube, I would say it’s one of the least popular Shonen Knife songs. Which is a shame because it’s one of my favorite but it also makes sense because it in no way resembles anything like a Shonen Knife song. This is an unabashed love song. There’s not even any other subject matter that you can pretend it’s about. And it’s not even the “yay, I’m in love, I’m happy” type of thing which itself is barely mentioned (closest to that is their cover of “Top of the World”), no, this song is languid, even sultry. This is not just a song about love, but sex:

    Over my head, really
    Never felt like this before, maybe
    Can’t say the reason clearly
    the rhythm beats me

    And this is from the 1997 album Brand New Knife, which looks like this. It features Michie on droning mellotron and an eye-rolling solo from Naoko who does not know what to do in this situation. It’s not a bad or mocking solo, but you can sense the awkwardness. (Naoko is on record as being “embarrassed” by love songs, altho she is married and has kids.) Michie only stayed with the group one more year after this and it was shocking when she left but looking back, I kinda get it.

✿✿✿✿✿

Honorable Mentions:

In the course of making this list, I have gone through the original liner notes for each album (it’s been a draft for over a year). So I might as well list every single song Michie wrote or sang:

• Cycling Is Fun (would have made top 10 at one point but doesn’t hold up as well as the others)
• An Angel has Come (Such a weird song, I really like it, but it’s pretty similar to Animal Song)
• Catch Your Bus (corny but genuinely uplifting, I’m a little angry no one uploaded it)
• Jackalope (half-dumb, half-brilliant)

  UPDATE: I forgot 3 songs from Yama no Attchan, which are pretty good but apparently forgettable:

• Chinese Song (totally odd)
• Cannibal Papaya (bass drops! one of the best choruses)
• Dali’s Sunflower (one of their ‘most punk’ songs)

  2ND UPDATE: I forgot another one, thanks, eris.

• Merman (b-side on the the Wonder Wine single, which never had a physical copy of. Has a pretty cool underwater psyche vibe. I’m just now listening to it more than once I think and it’s growing on me. That’s a really forgotten one. A not quite fully polished gem.)
  

  Semi-Honorable Mention:

• The Moon World (just an ok one)
• Frogphobia (something bugs me about this one)
• Gomi Day (cute idea, not that great a song)
• Planet X (a demo they never finished)
  

  Most Honorable Mention:

• Miracles and Watchin’ Girl are probably my two favorite SK songs. I have to fit that in while preserving the integrity of the list format. Carry on.
  

  Songs written by Michie, sung by Naoko (or both):

• Miracles (Naoko verses)
• Watchin’ Girl (Naoko verses)
• Summertime Boogie (Michie verses)
  

  Songs written by Michie, sung by Atsuko:

• Fruits & Vegetables
• Neon Zebra
  Atsuko did not sing lead on Neon Zebra. I don’t know why I thought that.

  Co-written songs: [sung by Michie]

• Neon Zebra (w/ Pat Fear)
  Couldn’t find either studio version, but here’s a live video of it from ’91. It’s a little rough! They were only a band at this point for…10 years? You’ve gotta appreciate the tenacity.

• White Flag (w/ Steve Davis)
• Expo ’90 (w/ Steve Davis)
  I like these two songs (esp. the fuzz bass) but have never been able to find out who this “Steve Davis” is. Maybe she was dating this session dude and he was down for whatever. Little much to give him writing credit. But if it’s this guy that had nothing to do with punk maybe that made sense to him. It’s weird. The two songs have nothing to do with each other. Maybe he helped with the lyrics, but the lyrics are not even very good English. Bah! Expo ’90 is not even as good as The Moon World, which now I’m thinking was pretty good. White Flag, tho. Pretty hardcore. Doesn’t really make any sense but whatever.

• Loop-Di-Loop (w/ Naoko & Atsuko)
  This was the only SK song ever credited to the group as a whole and the result was kinda meh.

  UPDATE 2015.01.20:

• Mysterious Drugstore (w/ Naoko)
  B-side of the quite difficult to find It’s a New Find EP. Only found out about this from the defunct (but informative) Rock of Japan as it appeared on the mostly needless comp Millennium Edition. Not exactly a classic, but there it is.

  Written by Naoko, sung by Michie:

• I Am a Cat
  Could be a mistake in the credits since it’s the only song like that.

  Covers:

• Saboten
  It’s Delta 5’s “You” with Japanese lyrics

• Hokey Pokey
  You might like to forget that SK did a completely faithful version of the Hokey Pokey, what with the legitimacy and the post-punk and the mellotrons and the time signatures and the adult(ish) themes and whatnot. But it happened. (Personally I think she was messing with the audience at this point.)

%