I can’t believe it’s already April! It feels like just the other day we were ringing in the new year, and a quarter of the year has already passed us by. April has always held a lot of meaning and memories for me.

In school, it was always characteristically the busiest month of the year for me, in terms of putting on International Street Fair and the fact that most of our APIA events for AASU took place during April.

This April marks seven years since Dan and I have been together.

And it was on that fateful day of April 16th three years ago that thousands of lives at our university were forever altered by the actions of a single gunman.

Especially due to this last incident, I can’t really say that I can look back on all of my memories of April with fondness, but it has certainly always been a very emotionally loaded month for me. Since moving to California, April has always been the month I feel the strongest pangs of homesickness. My favorite flower is the cherry blossom, and there’s nothing more gorgeous in April than the 3,800 cherry blossom trees that come into full bloom for a couple weeks every year around the Tidal Basin of the Potomac.

Cherry Trees in bloom in DC by adelmann
© adelmann from Flickr

This lovely scene in Washington, DC used to be only a 15-minute drive away from me when I lived in Northern Virginia, but I have not had the pleasure of seeing it in years, due to college and moving out to California, and I have really come to miss it.

The ephemeral nature of the cherry blossoms remind us of the transience of life — characterized by their amazing beauty when in bloom and their swifth death shortly afterwards, the blossoms have often been regarded as a symbol of mortality by the Japanese, and prominently appears in various forms of Japanese art, music and culture. Cherry blossoms, despite their fleeting lifetime every spring, still effloresce and flourish every year, and quickly but gracefully wilt away once they have reached their peak. It’s a reminder of the brevity and delicate aspect of our own human lives, and the importance of living each day to the fullest with no regrets, as if it were our last.

As cheesy as this may sound, I actually have a cherry blossom playlist on my iPod and I have it on repeat every spring when it’s cherry blossom season. There are countless songs about cherry blossoms in Japanese music, but these are my personal top five.

5. 「サクラ色」 by アンジェラ・アキ (Sakurairo by Angela Aki)

Angela Aki is a half Japanese, half Italian-American singer-songwriter and pianist who grew up in Japan but attended George Washington University — she even has ties to my hometown of Vienna, Virginia, where she recorded her first English album These Words at Jammin Java. She has said that the cherry blossoms she sings of in this song are those in DC, and how they reminded her of her home in Japan. Angela Aki has a really beautiful, powerful voice and this song is one of my favorites by her.

4. 「さくら」by ケツメイシ (Sakura by Ketsumeishi)

I love this song — it’s a sad song about lost love, but the lyrics are beautiful. I also like the upbeat tempo and the “rap” that comes in here and there. My good friend Richard from school used to sing this song every time we went karaoke, without fail — and was pretty good at it, too!

3. 「桜」by コブクロ (Sakura by Kobukuro)

Kobukuro’s Sakura is a true classic! I love all of Kobukuro’s ballads. This song also has a tinge of sadness, but the ultimate message is that of hope and having the strength to move forward with your life beyond loss and sorrow. It’s about becoming as strong as the single flower that endures through raging storms and strong winds to see the moment when the rain lets up.

2. 「さくら （独唱）」by 森山直太朗 (Sakura (Solo) by Naotaro Moriyama)

This hit song, released in 2003, was Moriyama’s big break and launched him into superstardom. It’s become one of the most popular songs of the last decade, a staple graduation anthem often sung at commencement ceremonies across Japan. The style he sings in seems more traditional than modern, and it really is a classic graduation song in that it sings about the blossoming of youth and the inevitability of parting ways with friends. There are various versions out there, but the one here is his solo, accompanied by piano. I love this other version as well, in which Moriyama is backed by a chorus.

1. 「桜坂」by 福山雅治 (Sakura zaka by Masaharu Fukuyama)

This is my personal favorite! I fell in love with it when first hearing it in 2000 when it was released, and still love it ten years later. It is one of the most romantic songs I’ve ever heard, although it’s very bittersweet in that it is (again) about a love that has been lost. The soft melody, Fukuyama’s serene vocals and the depth of the lyrics has made it a classic favorite for me. It was a huge hit in Japan as well, selling 750,000 copies in its first week and it remained at the top of the charts for three consecutive weeks; it has sold over 2,300,000 copies overall on the Oricon charts, making it one of Fukuyama’s most successful songs.

I have a friend who can sing the song particularly well and he sang it on guitar for us once, which caused tears to spring to my eyes. I literally melted….

Other memorable “sakura” songs: Sakura no Toki by aiko, Sakura Iro Mau Koro by Nakashima Mika, Sakura by Ikimonogakari, Sakura by Kawaguchi Kyogo… can anyone thing of others?