According to my calendar, it’s Ocean Day today in Japan. This was the first time I had ever heard of it. From what I can gather, it’s basically a thanks to the wealth of the ocean that makes their existence as an island nation possible. The first song that seemed to fit was Kind and Generous by Natalie Merchant. The music video is kind of weird. I don’t really have any good explanation beyond their being a song called Carnival on her solo debut album Tigerlily. Perhaps it’s meant to be a follow-up in the same way that Volcano Girls is to Seether for Veruca Salt. Otherwise, I don’t know what it has to do with the song other than that it too is as harmless as the song is itself. At least you’d think that. Would you believe there’s some controversy around this song?

If you go to her actual YouTube channel, then you’ll find the comments disabled on it, and most of her other videos that I clicked on whether they were solo, or with 10,000 Maniacs. I poked around a bit, and the best I could find was that people are upset by the use of nonsense words throughout the song. Sadly, I have seen similar stuff when people talk about Hotel Yorba by The White Stripes. I could go on here, but it’s not my style to get involved with this kind of thing. Instead, I’ll just include a classic song filled with nonsense words as well because I don’t care.