Before the Dawn Illuminated by Guitar -- Nobuyasu Okabayashi, "What We Want" and the Original Landscape of 1970

Before the Dawn Illuminated by Guitar -- Nobuyasu Okabayashi, "What We Want" and the Original Landscape of 1970

In 1970, Japan was in the midst of its rapid economic growth, but young people were shaken by distrust of and impatience with the system. The extension of the Security Treaty, the issue of university autonomy, and protests against war and capitalism. In these turbulent times, a young man stood with a guitar in his hand. Nobuyasu Okabayashi - a name that would eventually lead him to be known as the "God of Folk.

His signature song, "What We Want" was not a political slogan, but a voice questioning the meaning of life.

What we want is
A world worth living in

This opening verse is quieter than the spree of a demonstration, and therefore deeply piercing. The sound and words of a single guitar, rather than guns and stone throwing, seeped into the cracks of the times.

A world without war.
A people without hunger.
We want it.

The lyrics that followed were not mere idealism. It was also a prayer for their friends who were bleeding, screaming, and crying before their eyes. The appeal remained the same even as the group moved from the Zenkyoto base to an outdoor stage in a grassy field.

Okabayashi's voice was closer to sorrow than anger, and filled with calmness rather than intensity. That is why it reached deeply into the souls of those who listened. With only a guitar and his voice, he sang more powerfully than anyone else about "what freedom means" and "what it means to live like a human being.

What We Want" is not only a testimony of the times, but also a question that has not faded away. Listening to the song more than half a century later, it still feels as if a pre-dawn breeze is blowing somewhere in the distance. The ray of light that the guitar has shed has not faded away.