The Mishawaka Star
17 September 1965
How does a Sunday Girl Live?by Leik Medren It was around this time three years ago that most of the country first heard The Sunday Girls. A simple three-chord surf jam was all it took to catapult them beyond the small following they had in Kyman. Ever since then, their fame has only grown, leaving in its wake curious observers trying to gauge its evolution, lovestruck followers, and legions of new musicians eagerly forming bands.
Album after diligently-recorded album, their fame has become an incontestable fact. In a country that has sought to define itself through a celebratory diversity and exhilaratingly messy equality between its groups, The Sunday Girls have achieved the remarkable feat of forging as close to a consensus as possible within the disjointed musical landscape. They have achieved the rarefied position at the top that practically has no equivalent in Gylias. A mere five years past it would have been unimaginable, and even today the whirlwind of rapturous attention, eagerly awaiting fans, and shallow aspirations to rebellion for the purpose of
épater l'bourgeois, that so often forms the model of "pop stars" elsewhere, seems unreal and alien.
For better or worse, The Sunday Girls are our first idols. It is a stroke of good fortune that they are also the idols we deserve.
Far from adopting the conspicuous trappings of their stable life of success, the foursome still live securely in Kyman, instead of secluding themselves away in outer neighbourhoods or fleeing at the first taste of success for more puffed up surroundings like Velouria. They insist, tongues firmly in cheek, that they live within "spitting distance" of each other, though the actual distances involved may disagree.
Actual boundaries between their dwellings are nonexistent. Sæna may drop in on Haruka and Tsukasa; Haruka and Tsukasa may drop in on Sæna; Meja tends to split equally between visiting the siblings and Sæna, or three of them might round up and all go round to the last one remaining. When not visiting each other, they often relax outdoors, drop by local pubs and teahouses, watch films or television, play records, play games, and while away the small hours making tapes.
They haven't worked since the release of
At Home With, nor have they needed to. Gylias isn't likely to forget their existing oeuvre so quickly. "It's healthy to disappear for a year, I'd recommend it to any band.", Haruka said. "It prevents music from becoming a chore, it's a respite to think about what you're doing and why..." Even on a break, she can't stop herself from naturally being the authority figure who keeps the whole team together.
"...and it makes your listeners anticipate your next release even more!", Tsukasa interrupted.
~*~
Most of the glamour has gone to the state-of-the-art Sunday Studio, much to Maarika Linna's delight. The Morishima family residence, by contrast, is the same as it was when the band first formed: a two-story, rent-controlled, red brick and concrete block of flats, nestled snugly on a small street sprinkled with trees and gardens. There's little indication of anything out of the ordinary on the outside. Knocks on the door are answered with warm greetings from Hiroshi and Misaki, the siblings' parents, and the obligatory offers for tea.
"We simply don't allow our visitors to leave if they haven't had tea with us.", Misaki cracks with an innocent smile.
This is supposed to be the residence of two of the women (it bears emphasising, the
women) who have drawn howls of terror from self-appointed cultural Nakovs, whose lyrics have provoked screams for censorship, or up north, screeds about the destruction of society.
There are four rooms in the heavily carpeted, white-walled flat, not counting the kitchen and the bathrooms. Haruka and Tsukasa live upstairs. Hiroshi and Misaki have long grown used to their talent for losing track of time, eating at odd hours, subjecting each other's lyrics to trials by ordeal, and staying up late into the night banging out chords or melodies on guitar and pianet, warbling lyrics into their tape recorders. Hiroshi recounts a favourite anecdote, of Haruka clumsily stumbling into the kitchen and out of the blue asking what day it was.
Apart from a television set, the living room, furnished in a Miranian style, has been repurposed as the nucleus of Making Records. Stacks of papers compete for space on the table, receipts are carefully arranged and stored on bookshelves, fanmail is sorted in a large box on the floor. The label is a true family affair: Hiroshi and Misaki its managers, Haruka and Tsukasa part of its flagship band. "We made it all up as we went along.", Hiroshi cheerfully admitted. The trial and error has allowed Making Records to become a highly successful operation, its existing model happily swiped, reproduced and adapted across Gylias: reciprocity and treating fans with respect produces more loyal listeners, eager to expand the audience.
Haruka and Tsukasa emerge from upstairs around this time, the mood of the room noticeably changing. Misaki and Hiroshi don't do much speaking; they defer to the knowledge that unfamiliar visitors are most likely seeking their daughters. They also don't possess their fluency in English, making conversations awkward. Hiroshi is completely at a loss; Misaki manages with great effort to produce halting, heavily-accented stabs at it. Conversations in the household often dissolve into a blur of English and Miranian, the siblings often called upon to play translator.
~*~
I. Haruka: Responsible Leader of the Pack Haruka Morishima's 25th birthday is due in a week. She has recently ended a romantic relationship. "We just drifted apart, that's how it goes.", she said. "There was some petty jealousy in there too. Feeling threatened by my sister and friends is basically guaranteeing it won't work." She's unconcerned about the future, explaining, "I've got my bandmates, and my friends. I'm not gonna die if I go without a lover for a while."
There is also a cat, named Nekochan. It roams around the house, providing both companionship and endless fodder for Tsukasa's jibes about how much thought went into the name. (The name is Miranian for "little kitty".) Neither of the siblings can remember who first brought in the cat; their parents' memories are even hazier. They couldn't decide who the cat belonged to, so it became a collective pet. Currently, it has taken place of honour on Haruka's lap and has successfully obtained a petting after some insistent exhortation.
Haruka is much the same as she was before fame struck. Her striking blue eyes have not lost either their capacity to soothe or peer intently. She is still charming, quick-witted, easy-going, still a demanding perfectionist. Her enthusiasm is undimmed, and she insists on sharing it. On her vinyl player, she puts on something called
"Dripsody". "That was pretty cool, wasn't it?", she asks after the record ends not two minutes later. "It's amazing this - fun to hear too!" She sweeps her hand in the air, pointing towards her large music collection. "Some of the others don't sound nearly as nice. But even when it's more unpleasant, it's still new sounds. Electronic ones! Very exciting."
A responsibility to the bandWhile the Sunday Girls remain very much a democracy where all members have an equal voice and lively discussions are plentiful, the other members still recognise Haruka as the band's undisputed leader. It is a relationship marked by trust and a greater degree of restraint than the summary might imply. Songs are a group effort, with everyone contributing to recording. What gets released and in what order is decided collectively. But in administrative matters, Haruka is the final authority. When she says they must rehearse, they rehearse. When she decides a concert must be played, a concert will be arranged. When she decides they must work on a new release, they all round up at the studio. Haruka's orders are also acceded to with nary a protest or grumble.
But if one were to point out to Haruka that she has achieved a status other musicians would lust madly after, she is the first to play down her position and emphasise the responsibilities involved. "I got to this point after years of being together and earning their trust.", she said. "Every decision I've taken was first and foremost for the good of the band. If somebody has any other ulterior motives, they aren't meant to be in such a position." She laughs. "The funny thing is, people get fixated on me being the leader, but forget that I got there by giving my mates good reason to trust me with that, and that I don't overwork or exploit them like some people think I do. We actually have a lot more time to be things other than The Sunday Girls, than we would if we'd had somebody else managing."
All in the household take turns doing the shopping, both for the entire family and for themselves. Haruka usually haunts Temly Street's shops for groceries and has visited practically every music outlet in Kyman at least once. She speaks as if daydreaming about visiting similar shops and in the other cities they've been to, and laughs wryly about the experience of being offered particular releases simply because she's Haruka Morishima. "I think that's when I first realised, fuck's sake, I'm famous now?", she said; she seemed disconcerted by it. "It was a weird time, before that we were pretty well insulated from it. I'd get recognised on the street now and then, probably more because people know what clothes I wear. But it gets to a point where you think, 'oh, shit, am I getting pulled away?'." She sighs with great relief. "No, thank Amatsuka. Yes, we get recognised, people know who we are, but at least they're polite. We don't get our privacy invaded or end up treated like a rack of meat being thrown to a hungry crowd. And we're not put on a pedestal either."
We did a speedy tour of the house and the sisters' rooms; one feels that their possessions are firmly kept in check. Haruka lingers over each of the objects; the tape recorder, the three television sets (one for her, one for Tsukasa, one for their parents); the boxes of vinyls; the shelf of books and manga; the two small radios; the gloriously bulging wardrobe. Her room's table is a mess of pencils and papers, lyrics and scrawlings. Propped up against it is her trusty acoustic guitar. "I've been thinking about buying an organ.", Haruka said. "It's good to have a keyboard at home."
But before she can continue, Tsukasa added with a laugh, "We already have the family piano, nēchan!"
They then explain that the family piano is actually a small pianet since a grand or upright piano wouldn't fit in the house ("They're made for upper-crust places", Haruka scoffs), and that it's actually in Tsukasa's room at the moment. Haruka reaches out with one hand to tenderly pet Tsukasa's head. "Much as I enjoy bossing around my beautiful little sister", she says, voice thick with affectionate goading, "it's in her room, full stop. I can't be going around borrowing it all the time. That's not right."
Small hoursHaruka is very keen on books, and will always ask what is good to read. Her large quantities of books are split between the ones kept tidily on her room's shelf, the ones she leaves with Tsukasa, and the ones kept tidily in her parents' room that she occasionally borrows to read. She has Angela Déurey, Polyxeni Katsaros, Éina Atradeg, Zedía Radeshak, Hendrik Dirchs. Then there's the family heirlooms of her childhood, Ran Saito, Noriko Nishimura, Hachirō Matsumoto, the expensive leather-bound editions of the
Asajiki and
Tsukaga Monogatari diligently passed down the family line for generations, of which she now finds herself the custodian.
She approaches reading with a lively interest, nurtured by the education received from her parents and the PA. "I've read a lot of books", she said, "that's why I seem to know things." She is obsessed by history. "I'm on Gylias' side.", she said. "All those bloody blue-eyed blonde upper-crusters chopping people up and condemning them to misery, I have an awful feeling. The converters - it's easy for me to say that I would've never done that, but, principles are harder when the alternative's poverty. But principles are supposed to stay for good or ill; how does that formula go, 'in sickness or in health'? It's how you measure someone's character by tempting them with bribes; you know they're solid if they resist that."
She can sleep almost indefinitely but remains probably the most conscientious person in the household. "Tsukasa calls me her alarm clock.", she said, giggling. "We take turns who's the lazier one; that way we can both grow to be nice and soft." She betrays a feminine abhorrence towards labour and notions of 'work ethic', one of the few elements of libertarianism she playfully admits to having a good knowledge of. "The thing about where we are now, is the world is so old, but we've seen so much change in such a short time historically.", she said. "The best thing that could happen is that we get to the point where we have machines that do all the work, and then our lives will be devoted only to creativity and pleasure."
She gazes out her window and smiles, her delicate features illuminated by sunlight. "I'm not denying that indolence is seductive, but no one would want to have a life of just that. It'd get boring awfully fast.", she continued. "When I see large groups of people together, large ones, scurrying everywhere, I feel an urge to do the opposite." She taps her forehead. "People might think I'm lazy, but I'm actually thinking about many things. I write songs. I wouldn't be able to write songs if I didn't have all the time I needed to write them. I feel lucky to live in a country that prizes such things for their own value; we fought against the denigration of everything but money, right? It'd be a nightmare to live in a place that doesn't recognise any other values but monetary."
Money can't buy me love "Don't you feel like a change of scenery?", she asks. However, the answer is already decided. I am pulled along outside the flat, and we bowl along amiably through the gardens in the vicinity. Clearly, among Haruka's many talents is the ability to ask a question at the right time and in the right way so that only one answer can be given, while her interlocutor believes they have made the decision themselves, without feeling like they've been infringed. It's a talent she's perfected over years as the leader of the Sunday Girls.
The discussion turns to money; Haruka does not dispute the description of them as "loaded". "I'm alright for money", she says. "I don't want a lot, and I'm happy with what I have. When my parents were my age, you could either be born rich, or chase money just to be rich. Having money was power without having to be powerful. Now, you don't have to be rich to feel safe. All my money could run out tomorrow, but I don't have to be afraid that I'll go hungry, or that I won't have shelter over my head. And you don't have to be an upper-crust twit to be able to take the time away from work to do what you're interested in; though if you ask me that privilege was wasted on brainless dolts like them."
She finds the success of The Sunday Girls quite easy to handle, and believes it to be a sign of progress. "Somebody had to get there first, and it happened to be us. If it wasn't us, it could've been anyone. Nobody has to think anymore, that they'll be famous or rich or whatever, if only they'd had the Latin, or they went to the right private school, or went to the right church. We didn't jump through the hoops somebody else put up, but we took our own path. Mum used to say, 'You'll make it with that voice, Haru-chan.'" She merrily adds that her mother made sure of that, actually.
Talk briefly turns to politics, more specifically the cabinet. "It actually makes me comfortable that Aliska and Rin are in the government.", she said. "Especially Aliska. A lot of the others, Kirigiri knows they're doing a good job, but I just feel sorry for them. They had to live through the war and all that... look at the Prime Minister, really. They just seems haunted. And the others, I'd be scared by a cabinet of just ascetics. I've heard some pretty stupid insults hurled at Aliska, but honestly, I'm glad they's in government. When I see them out and about, going to the theatre, wearing jewellery, it's reassuring really; they're more human that way. I like the way they knows how to pamper themself."
Happy where we areShe said that to live and laugh were the things to do; but would that be enough for a restless spirit?
"Kyman", she said, looking around, "isn't just our hometown. It's what made us, us. There's always going to be other things I want to do - things I don't even know yet I want to do. It's why I go around painting and taping and drawing and writing and all, you never know which it could be. The most ghastly fate for me, would be to spend my life sitting in a big house, planning holidays, having to be around braying snobs who only mix with other braying snobs. This was the most a woman could aspire to before the war? What a crime! The fact is, if I wanted to, I could live in any house I wanted, any place I wanted, but it just wouldn't be like Kyman."
She smiles one of her ingratiating smiles. "This city fits me just like a velvet glove."
It's Tsukasa's turn to drag her sister back indoors, an action she performs with great relish. Haruka merely looks pleased, giggling softly as she lets herself be dragged by her sister's hand.
~*~
II. Tsukasa: Day and Night, Sun and MoonTsukasa Morishima's face often wears an expression of sweet, playful innocence. The expression is an engaging one, but offers not quite as good a clue to her character as the instances when she arches her eyebrows downwards and curls the edges of her lips upwards into a savouring grin. Those who like to think of Tsukasa's role in writing "Why You?", that song of inescapable romantic charm, or "Together", would do well to remember she much prefers the opportunity to strut her way through "Life of the Party" or "Me み". "Haru-chan calls me the Cheshire Cat sometimes", she joked, "because I have such a winning smile!" She proceeds to show it off, naturally.
She is an interesting and complicated young girl, still 23, giving off the impression that she was born to play the role of the jesting little sister, always chuckling and holding her arms behind her back, enjoying one's inability to guess what surprise she has in store. She is tall (though shorter than Haruka), agile, neatly dressed in the band's fetching outfit, with straightened shoulder-length hair, lacking in her sister's curlicues. She is a terrible tease in the best way possible, and an excellent mimic, possessed of wicked charm, shrivelling wit and an intelligence that finely complements Haruka's.
A family's a familyTsukasa's story is fundamentally intertwined with Haruka's; they've grown up together and live together. They sometimes can't stand each other but can't live apart. They are both all bark and no bite, and know each other inside out; none of them can truly get angry at each other and both know myriad ways to make each other smile. Yet when Haruka impresses as the conscientious and dignified daughter of the family, Tsukasa is ever ready to be the rightfully unruly and fancy-free brood. When Tsukasa looks like she's about to fall off the ledge, Haruka will always grab her hand and pull her back to safety.
"A pleasant headache", is what Haruka calls living with Tsukasa, not without laughter from both. "I know it doesn't make sense, but Tsu-chan is a headache I enjoy having in my life. My life would be so much poorer without it."
Tsukasa makes a big show of kissing Haruka on the cheek and saying, "I love you too, nēsama." She then says a phrase in Miranian that makes them both laugh, which Haruka later informs me translates to, "My life would be so much poorer without an empress to irritate."
Both never need much convincing to speak candidly about their relationship. "I love Haruka.", Tsukasa said. "But of course I do, she's my only sister! We'd crack each other up all the time when we were kids. There's not much I remember from my childhood that doesn't somehow involve her." Her eyes sparkle wistfully. "Ah, I don't know why, but now I'm remembering a time at seven, when it was bedtime; and it took a while to fall asleep, so we were just looking at each other. A staring contest. I thought, wait a minute, why does Haru-chan have blue eyes but I don't? And that was my first encounter with genetics."
For the good of the bandWhen they both ended up becoming Sunday Girls, it enriched their relationship with some characterful imperfections. "I had to learn how to compete with Haruka properly for the good of the band. I had to learn to hear her new song and not just sit there in awe but kick myself to match the standard, and do even better. I had to learn how to see Haruka not just as my sister, but my competitor. That's very important for a band, especially one with family involved; it would've been too easy for us to get into shouting matches and destroy everything by being too driven and getting into conflict. We write together, we write apart, we're a team, but we also learned how to have a healthy sisterly rivalry. There's no animosity between us at all, which is the trick - too many people hear 'rivalry' and think 'enemies'. We're best friends. We both stand up for each other. And we have a standard to uphold when it comes to music."
Having absconded with me to her room, Tsukasa slips into her familiar conspiratorial giggle. "Trust me, Haruka says she loves bossing me around, but that's only 'cause she knows I fight back." She holds her palms up in imitation of a cat, showing off her short manicured nails in the process. "I scratch real good!", she said, laughing. "Haruka knows how to get under my skin, and I know how to get under hers. So we're equal like that."
True to form, her room is slightly less neat than Haruka's, and more of a purposeful mess. She claims to clean it regularly but professes a horror at the thought of putting everything in order. "I know where everything is.", she explains. "If somebody else rearranged it, I wouldn't know where anything would be anymore! Nothing would be in its right place."
She lives in Kyman too, not content with letting Haruka claim it all. She goes to the pictures, reads
The Kyman Herald and
The Daily Standard devotedly, loves
The Prism, goes shopping, keeps appointments, gets herself around with her bike or bus, finds out what she wants to know. "I'm only recognised when I wear the clothes.", she said, pulling on her jacket to show off just a little. "A parent once sat next to me on the bus with their child, and then eventually they said to me, 'You're Tsukasa Morishima, aren't you?' Who, me? Haaaai, mochiron da yo! Their little one loved us very much, they was saying how I was the greatest for writing 'Cathy'. Well, I didn't write it alone, you know! They wanted to kiss me, so I gave them my cheek. I think I didn't notice when I left the bus I was doing ballet jumps." She slaps her knee as she giggles. "The children love me because I'm a natural with them!" She narrows her eyes cheekily and slips into a seductive tone, adding, "After all, we do have a few we look after in the band..."
What's the point... She tolerates a minimum of fuss: the bike is the only luxury she allows herself. She hates cars, especially cars with chauffeurs and black windows. "What's the point of having a car if you don't even drive it?", she said tartly. "Either drive it or don't. Getting a limousine to show off is just stupid."
She enjoys moving without detection, and occasionally revealing her identity to bask in the glow of it. "Depends how I feel. Most of the time I can slip in and out with none the wiser, which is great. I get that people find us interesting, but really, our lives aren't that different from everyone else's. But now and then I like a little being indulged. I'm not going to pretend we're absolutely normal, because that'd be ridiculous, not to mention that... how do you even decide what's normal among so many people, different yet similar? But we
are The Sunday Girls." She strikes a movie star-like pose. "So, definitely, spotlight us sometime, we're ready for our close-ups. Ameraku knows I love the centre stage; I can treat those spotlights to some good lovin', definitely! Just as long as I can leave whenever I want!"
Tsukasa is nurturing an interest in politics. If asked, however, she will quickly button up her jacket, sit on a chair with one leg crossed over the other, grab the nearest pen to hold in her mouth, and jokingly monologue an imitation of a dry newscaster. "Well, you see, there are two things at stake here, and of course the matter, such that it must be addressed, is of paramount importance..."
Her party political program is more houses, more buses, and more supplementary income payments.
She voted for the Democratic Communists three years ago, and assures me her vote in the next general election is already secured. "Just have to wait four more years.", she said, smiling. Her most terrifying nightmare is that the National Bloc might somehow get anywhere close to power. "Luckily, that will never happen. They're old reactionaries, they're history and they know it." She considers the Revolutionary Rally a joke. "They should just change their name to the Acrea Association, because that's what they are. There's already an Acrea. We don't need another one, certainly fucking not us to be pushed into the role!"
"I thought I might need one""Oh, did I tell you?"
She rushes to the closet and opens it, standing beside triumphantly to show a gorilla suit. "I thought I might need one.", she said. "I pop it on sometimes and ride around. If you don't go with the head, it makes an amazing fur coat, except without animal slaughter. At least, I don't think so."
The danger of seriousness successfully warded off, Tsukasa moves to the topic of life. She sees no limit to her possibilities; and ideally speaking, would like to know everything. "As it is, I'm trying to catch some things I've missed.", she said. "People are saying things and painting things and writings things and composing things that are great, and I like to know what they're doing."
She is taking a music lesson a week from an old composer. "The other day", she said admiringly, "I was sitting there saying, 'I wish I knew how to read music.' So I started to." Aforementioned composer insists on being described as an "old gentleman" and prefers to refer to her as "Miss Tsukasa". "It was 'Miss Morishima' at first", she said, "but it sounds weird. Haru-chan and me visited the family back in Kirisaki a while ago, and I kept having to remind myself that if somebody was calling me 'Morishima-san' it wasn't because they were angry. I kept trying to bargain them down to 'Tsukasa', but they wouldn't drop the 'Miss' part. It's not so bad. We chat over tea too."
She is fascinated by composers like Luciano Berio and John Cage; she is anxious to write electronic music herself, lacks only the machines. She would like to paint, she would like to write. Who knows what she is creating in her mind at this very moment. "That way, we won't have to always pester Meja's brother for the visual things.", she joked.
Culture: not just for the few"I'll tell you what I feel strongly about, that's people's attitude to things like music and painting, culture. It's an absolute joke that we used to have an elite that decided what culture is; if a navvy or a workie was seen coming out of an art gallery it was always a joke to them. Culture with a capital C, that's a fancy term for braying snobs hanging out with braying snobs. It still eats my gourd when I hear upper-crusters or would-be snobs talking like the rest of us little people want to be like them. But now we have Eoni, they's on our side, definitely smashing up that nonsense to shreds. Theatre, ballet, opera, I don't mind 'em, but they were used as weapons in a class war before - y'see,
those are
culture, us punters only get
entertainment. Now, we have a right to not want to be like 'em, because we
are already as good as them. That's liberation!"
Tsukasa then honestly admits that she probably doesn't have as good of a ground to talk on the subject of class war as Meja. Misaki and Hiroshi were merchants and lenders before the war; by any standard the sisters had a well-off upbringing. Neither of them avoids or denies the fact that they were able to buy rock 'n roll records because of that. "None of us are trying to play working class hero," Tsukasa said sheepishly, "just to make it clear we and our families weren't on the wrong side."
She can remember when she was twelve, and asking herself what she would be when she grew up. "No answer came back," she said, disappointed. She took perfunctory lessons in mathematics to start working at her parents' business, but it became clear her heart wasn't in it. "I had a horror of doing something ordinary."
She ended up a Sunday Girl. "We knew something'd happen sooner or later. Can you imagine if we were Schottians? Argh, it'd be either this or a lifetime of working in the mines, or factories."
A matter of disciplineAs songwriters, she and her bandmates are now rich, but they are all disciplined with money. "Something grand is really only a novelty," she said, "an affectation. Sæna-chan found the other day she liked Avrillon chocolates. Well, she bought a collection of them; it was on every bloody table in the place and she got pretty sick of it in a week. I learned to do things in clumps."
"I mean, if you can have everything, there’s no point in having everything, is there? I don’t want more money. I already have enough, why would I need more?”
Unsurprisingly, she is in favour of subsidies for the arts and the GNBS. In her opinion, every nation needs a public broadcaster. "Whether you want to listen to it or not", she said, "it's there."
She thinks Eracura is a grim and repulsive place. "I mean, come on, Acrea, Nordkrusen, and Alemarr? Talk about awful; they almost deserve being close to each other so that way it's easier to make a
cordon sanitaire around them. I guess the only thing missing is Azurlavai having a direct border so they could be lumped in too."
She doesn't really know what she will do next, but is confident it will be exciting.
~*~
III. Sæna: Stepping Out, Getting Around More Sæna is 23, the second-youngest Sunday Girl; she would've been the youngest if Meja hadn't pipped her to the post by four months. She is one of the two who aren't siblings (although spend any time in their company and you will grow very skeptical of that), and isn't Meja. Some people like her because she's the soft-spoken, quiet and sympathetic one. "Good old Sæna," is how she used to see herself, and still does to an extent, "good old sweet Sæna."
Of all the Sunday Girls, Sæna is probably the one that has been most defined by her reputation as a timid shrinking violet, the one who needs steady reassurance from her protective bandmates. That sensitive aspect is part of her appeal, but she is far from a fragile flower who will melt into tears at the slightest provocation. The years since the band's success have been exceedingly kind to her, as she has grown more mature and self-confident without losing her cutie-pie charm.
"I didn't specifically want to be famous", she said. "I wanted to be successful, but I got more famous than I wanted to be... I never intended to be a big cheese or anything. I just wanted to not have to worry about the future."
She lives in the Rumorro neighbourhood with her parents, in a sunny bungalow home surrounded by a wall of hedges. "I think this used to belong to one of the converts", she said thoughtfully, "before the war. There's not a lot to say about it - we got it at a knock-down price." She bends down to brush her hands delicately over some flowers. "Mum loves gardening."
Everybody's sweetheartShe has her own music room in the house, full of tape recorders, a vinyl player and her collection of albums and singles, and her instruments so far: two basses (one electric and one acoustic), an acoustic guitar and a small toy piano. Another room in the house has a shelf of 48 so far unread leather-bound volumes on natural history in French. "I don't know how we got those.", she said with a giggle. Her smile is still as heart-warming as ever and makes comfortably frequent appearances; her voice is especially delightful when she is enthusiastic about something or having a laugh.
In this setting she was a curiously innocent figure draped in a loose-fitting sundress, with apple-flushed cheeks and the ever-present twin ponytails. She is interested in Indian music just like her bandmates, watches television sometimes, and thinks cars look dreadful. She shares one revolutionary idea she's recently gotten a hold of. "I've been thinking we could try exercise. Swimming, really; I'm not one for going to clubs."
Of course, there is only one way such a plan would succeed. "If Haruka decreed it, that'd work.", she said, covering her mouth and laughing softly, as if whispering a secret.
She is hospitable, charming and good company. Even though her demeanour remains gentle and her normal speaking voice is whisper-soft, it is her enthusiasm that is so engaging - you can see why they all like Sæna. She reminisces briefly about her own beginnings over a cup of tea. "You probably don't need me to mention that I used to be a bit of a scaredy cat.", she said. "I don't want to sound like I've suddenly become a life of the party - that's Haruka and Tsukasa's job. But I feel like I don't get embarassed over everything as much. I still do, that's just something I have to live with, but I've been at this whole 'playing shows and getting fan mail' gig for five years already. Something of it would sink in at some point."
Not the easiest childhoodIt would be no surprise she considers it such; Sæna frequently either avoids the topic of her life before The Sunday Girls or speaks about it briefly, with pregnant pauses that suggest something perhaps deeper is lurking underneath the calm surface.
She was actually born in Zavsæ, now on the border between Slahar and Tandar. The reason she arrived in Kyman in the first place was that her parents, Ravan and Dezag, were volunteers in the People's Army; Dezag as a medic and Ravan as a soldier. Ravan is a genial host and the sort of parent who believes that it is important to be strong for the sake of their child, to be as a rock of certainty amidst a difficult world. He uses a wheelchair as he was left paralyzed from the legs down from being shot and injured at the battle of Dáuzas. Dezag herself walks with a noticeable limp; "I got shot in my leg.", she said stoically, lighting a cigarette.
Between the suffocatingly small residence, lack of plumbing, and Dezag's need to take precarious work, Sæna's childhood was difficult. "If she'd been born earlier, that would've been all there is for her.", Ravan said, while Sæna talked with her mother in another room. "I can't forget how her face lit up when she got a guitar... it was like the world suddenly opened up."
Good with the music Any other attachments aside, it is clear that the main romantic passion in Sæna's life is music, a subject on which she can speak humbly and movingly. She wishes she could write songs as fine as Haruka and Tsukasa's, but still requires practice; words cause her the most difficulty. "I'm good with the music...", she said, heistantly. "But I'd like to not have to rely on Haruka and Tsukasa for beautiful words." Her own voice came over on the tape with a new composition: "I want to tell you; I feel hung up but I don't know why." While she concedes that it's not "Please Don't Push Me", she feels it's hardly in better spirits. "I mean... I don't know why I come up with these words.", she said. "I want to write something that's just lovely; maybe something you can listen to while in the garden and the sun's shining."
She has a thesaurus and an English dictionary to help. "I thought I had a verse, it had 'thick' in it.", she said. (By thick she means stupid.) "But in English, it didn't rhyme anymore. I looked at the list of synonyms..."
She plays the bass and the guitar for hours, taking it up like a piece of knitting. Out comes R&B, musical theatre, anything. "Was that Blumyna Kintakie?", she asked suspiciously, her memory stirred. It had been.
She is excited about the new Motown releases, and feels a duty to consume more R&B for the good of the band. "You have a good groove, that's what me and Meja have to carry. We've been getting groovier lately; I like a dance band as much as anyone else." She confidently predicts that she will be able to write on the same level as Haruka and Tsukasa in the future, and eagerly anticipates hearing how they would improve her songs the same way they trust her to improve theirs with her parts. "It's actually a band policy, Haruka said it herself: 'No one, absolutely no one else but Sæna is allowed to play bass.' I thought about it in bed the other night, waiting to fall asleep... it's just beautiful, isn't it? I'm that important to them..."
"You don't mind if I light up, do you?"She retrieves a small piece of paper and rolls it with marijuana leaves, casually lighting up and smoking while carrying on the conversation. Perhaps counterintuitively, Sæna was actually the first member of the band to discover marijuana. "Everybody expects it to be Meja.", she joked. "Though some particularly humorous fellows assume it would've been Haruka or Tsukasa. Them? First? I'm telling you, never. Absolutely impossible."
Perhaps taking up this type of smoking is one clue towards her development in recent years, the infectious giggling with an unfortunate side-effect of glazed eyes. (Not one for the smell of it, Dezag, far more the earthy type, sticks to tobacco.) A further unfortunate side-effect comes on the musical front; she readily admits that being high has produced one too many tapes of lengthy one-note drones and monotone chants. "I can't quite do any James Jamerson things while I'm smoking.", she said, gesticulating slowly to make her point. "I feel relaxed, but I can't move my hands about as much... obviously. If I smoke too much I even have trouble pressing down on the frets because my fingers melt on the inside. At least when that happened I learned what my limit was."
She plays down any further talk of drug consumption. "It's not particularly interesting, no?", she said, baffled. "It's the same thing anybody else can do. There's nothing particularly new about it. It's the same everybody else smokes." She fears the notion of being seen as an advert for marijuana. "The moment you take that money to talk up something... it's just over. Your life has ceased. You're not a person no more, you're an ad. A piece of paper to be crumpled up and thrown away."
No such qualms affect her ability to discuss the effect it's had on her musicianship. "We only stick with pot and acid, really... they feel funny. The first song Haruka wrote after getting turned onto pot, I think she came in with a lyric sheet that looked like a therapist's, but in rhyme. I think. Acid's just real life in technicolour, cinemascope, and stereophonic. You'd have experienced it anyway but with tripping, it's just on a new level."
She casts a thoughtful gaze over her tape recorder. "Trouble is tripping's just such a personal thing; you don't see the same as somebody else'd see. I can't put it in words, maybe I can sing about it? I'd like to see our next album, have us try to paint, but with a studio."
Buying civilisationBut there is a practical side to Sæna too, a side that does not believe in the existence of mysteries in life. She can often be disarmingly practical and utilitarian when it comes to running errands, looking after supplies, or keeping her house in order. She is firm when she believes herself to be right - epsecially on big questions.
"One of the other days, somebody'd asked me why I wasn't moving out of Gylias.", she said. "Huh? They went on and I found out they were trying to say I'd pay less taxes elsewhere, and I just broke their fucking nose, real good. Makes me sick. That kind of ungrateful bastards, selfish. My dad didn't get his legs ruined so you could get to use public services and not support them."
Her views are simple: she thinks that her taxes are going directly to pay for hospitals, schools, houses, roads. She sees Aliska Géza with a respect tempered only by a reluctance to be seen as cozying up to authority. "She's doing a good job.", she said. "As a country, we're better off now than we were just five years ago. It can only go up from here."
She believes that as musicians, they have a duty to keep a firm distance between themselves and the trappings of power, regardless of personal beliefs. "We didn't need or ask for the government's permission to play rock 'n roll, nor our parents', church, or whatever. That day's done. We won't be taken over by no one, or bow down to a censor. I like the government, but you just can't be seen to be too cosy with them, y'know? We're outside the tent, and that's the only way to be; if you're inside the tent, you're a goner."
"Yes, we met with a few people in that tent, but meeting isn't the same as being taken over. None of us have more access to the government than any other one in Gylias does; if somebody else wants to talk with Rin they can just call their number. We're no different."
Think about the futureAs she excuses herself to fetch a drink, Dezag meanders in, sighing. "I see Sæna more happy now than she would be before, and as a mother that makes my heart leap for joy.", she said earnestly. "But she's still not that good with people. She's only got three friends, and they're in that band of hers. What if they break up?"
It was a distressing thought, but it had dissipated by the time Sæna returned to the room. "I tell you what I think", she said, "the main thing's to have a good time and do the best you can."
"OK - we're the famous Sunday Girls, me included. And? That's not the alpha and omega of it. Life's not that small. I could have been somebody else, after all. But I'm me, and I'm very pleased with that."
~*~
IV. Meja: Every Band Needs Its Lifeblood To be invited for a home visit with Meja is so akin to being invited to a realm of delight and excitement that it almost seems disappointing to actually be received in a small two-room flat in the middle of a block of flats, sprouting out of the ground of the Neyndak neighbourhood,
towering slightly solitary over smaller buildings, looming close to where a section of the elevated rail is being built.
This does not stop her from enthusiastically crowing, "Ah! So glad you could come!" and go dashing into the kitchen to prepare an offering. (What kind of barbary would it be to receive a guest empty-handed?)
Hiroshi and Misaki Morishima reliably informed me that Meja actually is the most popular member of the Sunday Girls, at least going by volume
of fan mail. It's a situation the other members do their best to encourage; one of the few perks they ask for when scheduling concerts is any kind of platform available to ensure she's always visible, and she eagerly laps up roles in their New Year recordings, forming an inspired duo with Haruka's love of nonsense literature.
Chirpy chutzpahSomething about the goofy, good-natured drummer seems to capture listeners' hearts. Perhaps it's the tomboyish energy, the eyes (brown and innocent), the attractively short mop of hair crowning her head, the fox-like grin, or her warmly broad working-class Scandinavian accent, the
way she langorously stretches her vowels and softens her consonants while sounding as earthy as the family hearth. Or it could be her infectious enthusiasm and ability to approach life as a joyride.
"I'd give you a tour of the grounds, but it's not really the grounds now, is it?", she asked. "It's more like the airs; who wants a tour of the airs?"
A brief discourse on the unpleasantness of airs and their emergence from class stratification accompanies the promised tour regardless. The
flat's walls are painted in muted colours and the floors are plain wood with some carpets here and there; the only real innovation is that the
doors are sliding, wooden, and of a particular design. "I heard Haru and Tsu's parents talking sometimes about old houses.", she explained. "I thought the doors sounded like a neat idea! Took a bit of work with the builders to reconcile them with the concrete the flat came with."
Her bedroom is simply a mattress on the floor with a large pillow and a soft blanket. The living room has a sofa, a television set, stereo equipment and a small drum kit in the lower left corner; the upper corner of the room is a kitchenette with a small fridge, an oven, cupboards, and a sink. She is very diplomatic about her practicing. "I know my neighbours.", she said. "They understand I have to play, and I understand
they have to have peace and quiet. We know each others' schedules; I usually play when everybody or most everybody else is away, or at work.
Or, sometimes a neighbour drops by, 'Mei, I'm having a date tonight. Bang away to your hearts' content, I'll be back around eleven.' 'Roger that, Rog, I'll bang in your honour!'." The laugh makes its first appearance, a charming sound that defies attempts to represent with onomatopoeia.
"If they need me to stop, they just knock; 'Aye, don't worry Kyoko, I'll be quiet as a mouse.'" Her eyebrows lower puckishly. "Of course, if they
ask all rude... I make no guarantees, of course. You understand."
Everyone's favouriteMeja is now 23 years and four moths old, the youngest of the Sunday Girls. Though the smallest, the cutest and the favourite of tiny children,
she seems just as mature as the others beneath her jovial demeanour. Though subject to occasional flights of fancy, some more occasional than others, you will see that she is basically a sound person. Indeed she gives the impression of being utterly contented.
This makes her a charming host and restful company. Her only ambition - to end up sort of unforgettable - was rather vague and it was achieved in a roundabout way. Things turn out right for Meja.
Her flat is spacious and comfortable, and she has it all to herself when the other Sunday Girls or guests aren't around. "Rén lives elsewhere.",
she mentioned. "I actually can't remember if he moved out from our old place, but I know he'd been thinking of it. He probably feels a bit threatened, syrra moved out first! Though if he moves out, I'll make fun of him for moving out to try to escape me making fun of him!" She is very adamant about the importance of the sisterly duty of mercilessly teasing siblings.
There is a bookcase, of course: science fiction, leather-bound old volumes, the children's books she was raised with by her parents - Edith Unnerstad, Hans Peterson, Gösta Knutsson, Lennart Hellsing, Astrid Lindgren. One of her fondest memories is a period when she repeatedly making Rén read her Allra käraste Syster before bedtime. "I did not let him stop until he could tell it all from memory.", she assures us. She would like to have a pub in her flat. "My mum works for the Control Board, it's close enough.", she said.
Meja Ståblom is the youngest child of two, and her mother still thinks the light shines out of her eyes. She used to live with her family in a house on Eryb Street. "Bog in the yard, no bathroom.", she said. "We had great times there. It was rough but I never felt bad about it once. Mum and dad were lucky, they made sure to spoil us nice and sweet. I wouldn't want anyone else to have my childhood, but the importance of learning to enjoy what you have and understand you won't always get what you want, and you can't buy happiness, I was able to grasp those very early."
She learned most of what she knows from her family, and would occasionally go to PA classes but freely admits a lot of it sailed over her head. "I stuck with what I was interested in", she said, "and ignored the rest. Doesn't mean I'm thick. I can't spell but I can read, some of English sounds wrong, but I ain't stupid." One of her most unpleasant memories from abroad was having a hotel room next to a school and suddenly realising that the ebb and flow of a day in Kyman's public schools was absent. "It was like opening and closing a light on the hour - fifteen to the hour, kids in the yard being kids, then marched back in like it was a bloody regiment. What kind of child abuse is that?"
Following her calling The prodding from her parents about being responsible and making a living was dashed the second she became a Sunday Girl. "They didn't get it for a long time.", she said. "It's part of why I moved out - I didn't just join a band but I pulled bror behind me too. Dad was saying, drums aren't gonna make you a living Mei, but now Rén saw that he didn't have to go hammer crap in a factory for a salary when he could do photography he cared about."
She shakes her head. "I'm not trying to make them sound bad, they're wonderful parents. They're just... older-fashioned. Mum used to go, 'I don't like the look of those girls you're hanging out with, Mei.' And I'd say, 'They're fine!' On and on for a bit, even though she
met Haru, Tsu and Sæ and there was nothing wrong! That stopped about the time we started wearing our special clothes. At least then we looked clean, so she couldn't complain about that."
She identifies strongly with her parents' background and manifests pride in her class consciousness. "One thing I'll never do", she insisted, "is drop my accent, change wardrobe, fuck off to Velouria and forget my past." One of her treasured documents is actually a press clipping from one of the city's
Daily Workers, aeons ago when the Sunday Girls' dominion only covered Kyman, precisely because it described her as a "working-class girl done good".
"Our appeal's that we're ordinary lassies"It is obvious the identification is close to Meja's heart. "If I care to analyse it, our appeal's that we're ordinary lassies.", she said. "Just the four of us, eating out of the same bowl. I'm as stumped as anyone else where the whole, Sundaymania thing came from. But if it wasn't us, it would've been someone else. It knocked me out to see and hear the kids waving for me. Dad had tears in his eyes when he saw us on Gynbris the first time, he'd never have dreamed it." She laughs at the hand-wringing from close-minded censors who crow about what would her parents think. "If they'd actually
talked to 'em they'd know most of their effort goes to finding new ways to be proud of me!"
She feels strongly about a number of things. She will brandish her claws at the slightest provocation or condescension to her class background; a fact already known to listeners of the last album's "Lark Worker". Her only comment is, "We had a song with no lyrics, and I had my tits twisted by some stupid git acting like they'd worked hard and had a hard life and all that shit." She would like to meet Rin Tōsaka again. She thinks the upper classes were inbred pigs and that abolishing them was the right course of action. She is irritated by Gylians badmouthing Gylias, and being propositioned directly. "Come on, good that you're honest, but what do you expect when you just ask, 'Hey, do you want to have sex?'. Why would I want to? You've given me no reason to. I think it's better when they flatter me first, then ask. Put some creativity into it, gudskul! I like some savvy with the speech, and when people make an effort."
She used to have a four-minute plan for being Prime Minister but the only fragment she can remember was joining everybody's flats to friends' flats with underground tubes. If she had a yard, she would've started working on her own.
When it was midnight she decided to go to a nightclub, getting ready with not just her Sunday Girls costume but a new bracelet she had just bought. "I feel like prancing around a bit.", she announced with an easy smile and a wink. "After all, what's the point of being a Sunday Girl if you won't flaunt it a bit?"