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Night and Day

In 1982 Joe Jackson released the album Night and Day. Arguably the most mature, and generally engaging, of his early records—and certainly the most popular, reaching the top 5 in both UK and US album charts of that year—it is, as its title suggests, a 1980s-style tribute to the flair and urbanity of Cole Porter, and indirectly, to the sophistication of Manhattan. It includes several of Jackson's best songs of the period: Breaking Us in Two, Stepping Out, and A Slow Song; really, there isn't a bad tune in the collection.

Click to play (Youtube)

The principal reason for mentioning it now though is because of how Jackson interpreted the title. Back in the day when records played on both sides—astonishing to consider how often one got up in the course of an evening to 'change the record'—the A and B sides of albums could be alternately themed and textured, an option that was lost in the switch to CDs, and can scarcely be imagined in an era of mp3 single downloads. On Night and Day, Jackson created a Day Side and a Night Side. Nothing to that, you might suppose, except that the Day Side contained the slow, relaxed, contemplative songs, while the Night Side was brassy, up-tempo and energetic. This is how cities are, Jackson was saying, and if you are (or were) a regular night owl, tholing the doldrums of a tedious day in the office for the stimulant of nights spent in downtown pubs and clubs, you will understand him. But I was never that kind of person, even as a student, or—if I was perhaps—after ten years of suburban domesticity, of bath-times and early nights, of the school run, of 'movie nights' in the living room, and bottles of wine round the dinner-table with friends, I had entirely forgotten that buzz, the energy of the city at night.
Until two days ago, when I spent most of the day up the hill, enjoying the gorgeous post-blizzard thaw, and talking to virtually no-one but myself—for the excellent reason that there was no-one to talk to, and that wild crows make poor conversation partners. This was the Day Side: tranquil, easy-going, literally devoid of any traffic (automotive or otherwise):
'Day Side': lunchtime traffic at our intersection

Later however, I took the cable-car down the hill, picked up Julian from the nursery, and headed into the centre of Kobe (Sannomiya) to meet up with Ayumi, Sean and Justin, who had gone into town ahead to collect new passports, and go to football practice. Remarkably, Sean's football training ground is two-minutes' walk from Sannomiya station, occupying a ludicrously expensive plot of real estate in one of the most densely built-up inner cities in Japan. Coming down from the hill to the blinding lights of the football field and the noise and bustle of thousands of homeward bound city workers at evening rush-hour, and still carrying my snowboots—of course, there's been no snow lying down here for months—I couldn't help hearing the words "country bumpkin" in my mind, and remembering the scene in A Bug's Life, when our banished hero comes into the city for the first time. It was all so busy, so bright, so...tremendously, effusively alien. And I also understood why this was the Night Side (only 45 minutes, but another world, away from home).

Night Side: Sannomiya 6pm

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