Reflecting on Hidekazu Yoshida’s death,
this piece contrasts music criticism with lived sound.
Not criticism, but The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the bands that followed
formed the music that truly shaped a life.

2016-10-14.
The following dates from 2012/5/29.
Yesterday, Hidekazu Yoshida died, but….
Yes.
You had been reading his music criticism for quite a long time, hadn’t you.
Yes. Back in my high school days, there was a time when I listened to NHK-FM all day long and escaped into the world of classical music, and after that, I began reading his regularly serialized critiques in the Asahi Shimbun.
Did you gain anything from them?
Yes. If you say I gained something, I did, and if you say I didn’t, then I didn’t.
Why?
Because I never came to know or feel music through his criticism.
What truly seized my heart—what resonated within me and was always beside my life—was The Beatles, and Bob Dylan, and the sound of the bands that followed after them.
Even this past Saturday, from across the trellis of the rose garden here, whether it was practice or audio playback, an extremely good, punk-rock–like sound was flowing, and it caught my attention deeply.