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Gonna Go to Japan

Metadata

title
Gonna Go to Japan
meaning
Pre-flight Japan fantasy on Moonlight Beach: Shinkansen ramen, capybara onsen, Mount Fuji: 日本に行きたい until けど今できない.
year
2023
release
Moonlight Beach
releaseType
album
artist
Scoobert Doobert
artistId
#scoobert
credits
Written, performed, and mixed by Luke Francis Walton. Mastered by Riley Knapp. Album art by Gentle Giant Illustrations.
apple
https://music.apple.com/us/album/gonna-go-to-japan/1675559395?i=1675559406
spotify
https://open.spotify.com/album/2l5r7AyE9hDNI7VUH6FLlA
themes
  • Japan
  • travel
  • anticipation
  • Moonlight Beach
isrc
QZTB62253074
isrcSource
soundexchange
draft
false
press

Lyrics

I'm gonna go to Japan
Been a minute
Watching the pre-flight safety video
Like I don't know how to buckle my seat belt
Been a minute
Since I felt the turbulence
Shake shake shake
Got a pit in my stomach
But my butterflies are overwhelming it
Too stoked to feel fear

Gonna ride the Shinkansen
While I eat seven-eleven ramen
Capybara onsen
Gonna hike a mountain
To the very very top like a Miyazaki film

Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Yeah, I'm gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Yeah, I'm gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Yeah, I'm gonna go to Japan

Oh yeah yeah yeah
Oh yeah yeah yeah

Can you believe it?
Seeing Mount Fuji out the window
Put down my Nintendo switch
Touch down in Narita in a little bit
Yeah, can you believe it?
Like a time traveler
On a setting sun
Yeah, I'm almost done
Hope that I get through immigration

Gonna ride the Shinkansen
Under the ocean
Heading to Sapporo
Gonna drink beer out in the snow
お祭り, we got to go
Bundle up
Wanna ride the shinkansen
国立公園
日本に行きたい
行きたい
日本に行きたい
行きたいな
けど今できない

Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Yeah, I'm gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Yeah, I'm gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Gonna go to Japan
Yeah, I'm gonna go to Japan

Oh yeah yeah yeah
Oh yeah yeah yeah
Oh yeah yeah yeah
Oh yeah yeah yeah

Content

Track eight on Moonlight Beach: the Japan song on a California place-record. After KŌAN opened the Japan thread (Japanese lyrics, Zen paradox, spatial sound), this keeps the longing alive while Encinitas is still home base.

It's a whole trip taken entirely in the imagination: pre-flight jitters that lose to butterflies, a maximalist tourist itinerary of Shinkansen and 7-Eleven ramen, capybara onsen, a Miyazaki mountain hike, beer in the Sapporo snow. The chorus stacks gonna go to Japan until belief almost feels like booking. Then the brake: after the Japanese builds (日本に行きたい, I want to go to Japan), the last line lands, けど今できない, but I can't right now. The whole song is future tense, and that's the honest crack in it.

The gap closes on I, recorded partly on the Tōkaidō, San'yō, and Tōhoku Shinkansen. On Moonlight Beach Japan is still the horizon. Points forward to MÖB and the Möbius tag on the closer too.

Before the Shinkansen sessions: Luke's first night in Japan — landing on his birthday — ended in a four-hour Kanda jam (20+ songs with local musicians). Instagram TV archive.

Europe-facing radio traces (modest, verified): GRRIF's public title-search log for 25 septembre 2023 lists gonna go to japan twice (12:28, 17:25): a petite trace radio in French-language Switzerland, not a hit narrative. Radio Nova's catalogue des titres lists GONNA GO TO JAPAN by Scoobert Doobert as title ID #38775 (03:05); the accessible search result does not confirm a dated broadcast, so treat it as a catalog / editorial-system artifact unless a dated Nova playlist log surfaces. Un petit fossile public — another public trace on the road, not a Paris radio campaign.