13. For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women) by Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast's fourth album writes a soundtrack to our nuanced and melancholic experiences of life

Mar 31, 2025

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), a title many have poked fun at for being millennial style cringe, immediately spoke to me. Perhaps, earlier this year when I published my first attempt at a playlist embodying wistful sentiments, I was in some sense personifying a sentiment that seeps through the Japanese Breakfast psyche. An icon in “sad girl music,” a title probably hit home further by the catapulting to stardom by a hit memoir with central themes of grief, Japanese Breakfast front woman Michelle Zauner has always played an interesting role in this. Whether it was through my obsession with the band’s third album Jubilee, for which I got to attend three different types of concerts, or Zauner’s book promotion tour that really cut into my own discussions in therapy over losing a parent in their 20s, one could say that Zauner’s representation publicly has helped me embrace the personal ethos of melancholy.

In an interview with W Magazine, Zauner stated the following about melancholy:

Getting older, making sacrifices and compromises—“there’s a melancholy in that feeling that feels very apt for what I’m experiencing at this age,” she says. As for the tonal return to an album about sadness (sonically, the rich production value is higher and crisper than past works, and heavily guitar-focused), for Zauner, it was a no-brainer. “Melancholy feels like the artist’s condition, like my natural state,” she notes. “Jubilee was a permission to feel joy after many years of grieving. But Melancholy is about giving yourself permission to feel sad about things that aren’t just your grief.”

For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women) is a deep dive into various figures and perspectives on the many ways humans yearn, seek balance, explore relationships, and grapple with the overarching themes of time, sadness, and (you guessed it) melancholy. Zauner’s ability to create and write perspective through different lenses has always drawn me to her music and artistry, and is in my opinion one of the few active songwriters that can really draw you in with a weighty story.

I was lucky enough to attend a small recital performance the band put on the day after the album release at New York City’s Museo del Barrio. It was such a fun experience to hear the songs stripped down, accompanied by staging and costumes similar to a school play.

What struck me the most about this experience was the commitment to artistry and craft that was so subtle and almost childlike, yet musically refined and contained. It captured the lens of melancholy that the album sought to present, yet gracefully incorporated Zauner’s sense of humor and zeal for life. I think that is one of the joys of the Japanese Breakfast experience - despite the “sad girl” tag, there is always an underlying current of joy and persistence.

The album opens with “Here Is Someone,” something that feels like medieval troubadours coming together, with sumptuous instrumentals interlocking to create a dreamlike and whimsical mood, with a soft acoustic guitar melody just under Zauner’s soft vocals, carrying the song. Zauner sings “quietly dreaming of slower days” painting a wistful image that feels like akin to a movie intro, letting you into her world. Maybe it is the gothic and medieval imagery selected to accompany the album (i.e. the marketing, really), but the music and colors of all the album artwork do come together seamlessly.

Through a stroke of luck with ticketing gods, I actually saw Zauner perform “Orlando in Love” with a string trio in October 2022 at her appearance at the New Yorker Festival, prior to any note of a new album. I remember thinking that it was odd to hear her speak about burn out and wanting to take a break from music while also previewing a track for her next album. But it also made sense. “Orlando in Love” is sonically tangential to the slower tracks on Jubilee. The repetitive strings, circling in a warm swell towards the end of the song really captures the romantically sad underpinnings of a whimsical character Zauner imagined as the archetype of the album.1

Yet, lyrically, it has nothing to do with the themes of the previous album. Serving as the first music video and single release for this album cycle, “Orlando in Love” aptly sets up the new storyline and imagery for the course of this record.

“Honey Water” is sonically a bridge between her first two albums and her current iteration of Japanese Breakfast. The shoegaze elements and soft whisper vocals really sent me back to 2017 album Soft Sounds from Another Planet, yet still felt like this current version of the band with the incorporation of strings and a softer guitar.

I knew deep down, cursorily listening to the lyrics of this “Little Girl,” this one would cut like a knife. As she rose to celebrity status with her New York Times bestseller Crying in H Mart, much had been publicly shared and scrutinized about her tumultuous relationship with her father. Through the perspective of an alcoholic father alone in a hotel room, contemplating his regret of failed relationships2, it was almost as if I was listening to a song about my own life and the experiences of estrangement with my own alcoholic parent. Zauner follows up the track with her own point of view through the Greek mythological metaphor in “Leda,” outlining the sad perspective of reconciliation that may not always provide a happy consequence,3 a journey of relation that I could not even have with my own estranged parent. However, the songs paired together ultimately outline the melancholy that just exists in human life.

Interestingly, the songs are separated on the vinyl version of the album. Sure, there are 10 tracks on the album, and divided directly in half puts them on separate sides. But it is striking in some sense, the way the separation of the tracks personifies the two sides of the album. Side A ending with “Little Girl,” with a lyrical reference as well to previous track “Mega Circuit,” and themes related to others. Side B starting with “Leda,” which leads into tracks that all presumably reference Zauner directly, and her various relationships in her day to day.

Third single “Picture Window” was my immediate favorite track off the record. At the recital performance, Zauner introduced the song as being about someone with anxiety (Zauner) married to someone who was just really chill (her husband, Japanese Breakfast guitarist Peter Bradley). Lyrically, the song touches on the exchange between partners about anxiety and its imposition on a relationship, a push and pull toward dark and light as an everyday existence.

Presented in what feels to be the most pop forward track on the record, I was immediately drawn to the guitar line intro-ing and leading into the chorus. It is such a warm breeze style track that lulls you into its beat and melody before you realize what the lyrics truly touch upon. This is, yet again, a craft that Zauner excels at and really brings to life in so many ways.

“Are you not afraid of every waking moment that your life could pass you by”

In interviews, Zauner spoke about melancholy being a sentiment that embodies the intertwining of sadness and time, in a sense being an “anticipatory passage of time.”4 To say that I have never thought of this conceptually would be a disservice to my own feats of introspection and would be placing too much emphasis on the words of a celebrity. But I do have to say that reading this phrasing about the interpretation of the word and concepts seems to have succinctly put into proper words what that feeling gives deep in the chest.

This album is a testament to the somber feelings that accompany aging, and coming to terms with the multifaceted nuances of human existence. Sonically approachable with lyrical depth, storytelling beyond the surface of what you hear — these are the quintessential parts of a Japanese Breakfast album we have come to expect. Yet the shift to something more adult, something less frenetic, something melodic and beautiful past the grain — these are the aspects that make this album different and fresh. Despite being written and recorded nearly 2 years ago, nothing about this work feels dated or a fragment of a past memory.

A slow burn record where every song melds itself in a new way after every listen, I find myself coming back to its tracks in parts and in totality, relishing the various nuances and crevices its melodies etch themselves into in my mind. While the album has only been out for a week (though I received my vinyl early, and promptly listened to it), I cannot wait to see how it defines and shapes my year and time to come.

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