In her review of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final performance before his death in 2023 from cancer, Sophie Monks Kaufman wrote that the celebrated Japanese composer “conjured emotions we don’t yet have names for.” That’s certainly the case whenever I listen to “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” arguably Sakamoto’s best-known composition, which he wrote for Nagisa Ōshima’s 1983 film of the same name.

Every time I listen to Sakamoto’s delicate song, I’m overcome with an acute sense of mono no aware, the Japanese term for the gentle sadness that one feels at the impermanence and fragility of all things. His piano notes drift about like snowflakes, forming graceful melodies that are eventually accompanied by stirring string arrangements. This song hits me somewhere deep inside like few songs do, as if I previously heard it in another world or lifetime and I’m just now remembering it.

Note: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” was originally released as a duet with singer/songwriter David Sylvian titled “Forbidden Colours,” which is also quite lovely in its own right.