Sheena Ringo’s World Cup
Sheena Ringo did the theme song for Japan at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. I remember thinking it was exactly right. I’d been obsessed with her work for years—’Kofukuron,’ ’Honma,’ ’Tsumi to Batsu’—songs that feel carved out of something private and strange. She doesn’t smooth anything out for the listener. She just makes what she wants to make.
’Nippon’ carries that same refusal. It’s not designed to pump you up or make you feel patriotic in some expected way. She delivers the title like it’s a statement that doesn’t need justifying, and the song moves in underneath. The confidence in it is the whole thing. She’s not performing for the moment or serving something larger than herself—she’s just being herself, and the stadium happened to be there.
It’s strange to watch someone you actually care about make something that suddenly reaches that many people. You spend years following an artist in the quiet way, and then one day she’s everywhere.