Japanese Breakfast, ‘Nobody Sees Me Like You Do’

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Today, Japanese Breakfast dropped a Yoko Ono cover to be featured on Ocean Child: Songs of Yoko Ono, compiled by Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard. "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" was first released on Ono's highest-charting solo album to date, 1981's Season of Glass, and then re-worked by The Apples in Stereo for the 2007 remix album Yes, I'm A Witch.

Here, Michelle Zauner processes grief in a dreamlike vacuum. Relying on insistent, grand notes of the piano throughout, Japanese Breakfast opts for a stripped-down ballad, wholly unlike either preceding version. Gone are the wedding bells, the steady pulse of a drum, plaintive strings and show-stealing horns. Where Ono's voice quavered with fragility, Zauner is assured, almost confrontational – in its examination of commitment, there are echoes of "Till Death" from her own Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Her simple rendition highlights Ono's labyrinthine songwriting and grounds "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" in its mournful genesis.

◈ Stream "No One Sees Me Like You Do" by Japanese Breakfast

▶ Watch Japanese Breakfast's Tiny Desk concert

◈ Read an essay on Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band

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