Lyric

"Birds are free, right?"

They can fly.
They can leave.
They can go places we cannot.

So we call them free.

But would you trade your arms and hands for wings?

If not, what exactly do we mean by freedom?

Fukurou na Yoru, the second single from W.A.S.H.I, began with that slightly twisted question.

The first single, Washi, WASHI., was about the artist himself.

Who is W.A.S.H.I?
What does he do?
What kind of person is he?

It was an introduction with the volume turned up.

For the second single, the point of view shifts.

First to a bird.

Then, quietly, back to the person watching it.

Fukurou na Yoru is an upbeat Japanese pop-rock song built around a question that is anything but simple.

Its Japanese lyrics move through wordplay, small jokes, and ordinary thoughts that become heavier the longer you sit with them.

At the center of the song is one idea:

What if birds are not flying because they want to fly?

What if they are simply trying to get away?

Flying and escaping can look exactly the same from the ground.

But are they?

There are nights when nothing has really happened.

The world has not ended.

It is just dark.

And somehow, that is enough to make everything feel wrong.

You do not necessarily want to disappear.

You just want to be somewhere else.

Is that escape?

Or is that what wanting to fly feels like?

Takanashi Washi loves birds.

A lot.

So yes, birds appear throughout his work because he loves them.

But that is only half the story.

The longer he watches birds, the harder it becomes to talk only about birds.

A bird crossing the sky becomes a question about freedom.

An owl appearing in the dark becomes a reason to look at whatever was already moving around inside your own head.

For Takanashi Washi, birds are also a lens for looking at people.

W.A.S.H.I is his musical identity.

As a Japanese writer and multidisciplinary creator, Takanashi Washi works across writing, storytelling, visual art, and music.

Before that, he worked as a social worker in a correctional facility, where he came face to face with human vulnerability, contradiction, isolation, and friction with society.

Perhaps that is one reason "freedom" refuses to remain a simple word.

Is freedom the ability to leave?

The ability to choose?

The ability to go anywhere?

The absence of a cage?

The longer you think about it, the less certain the answer becomes.

There is no answer inside Fukurou na Yoru.

Putting one there would probably be a lie.

This is not a song that tells you what freedom means.

It is a song that may make you hesitate for a second the next time you use the word.

If Washi, WASHI. was W.A.S.H.I saying,

"This is who I am."

then Fukurou na Yoru turns the question around.

This is me.

What about you?

Do you want to fly?

Or do you just want to get away?

For the nights when you cannot quite tell the difference.

W.A.S.H.I 2nd Single
Fukurou na Yoru

Are you free?