Figure in this songAmaterasu
The story behind this song
When the sun goddess hid in a cave, the world went dark, and nobody could order her out. They had to make her curious.
Her brother Susano'o, the storm god, tore through heaven: he wrecked her rice fields, threw a flayed horse through the roof of her weaving hall, and her handmaiden died in the chaos. Amaterasu sealed herself inside the Heavenly Rock Cave, and the world went cold. The eight million kami gathered outside. The goddess Uzume danced until the whole assembly roared with laughter, and when Amaterasu opened the stone to see what could possibly be funny, a bronze mirror was waiting for her. She saw her own face in the light, and the kami pulled her back into the sky. The story comes from the Kojiki, Japan's oldest chronicle, written down in 712.
This isn't a song about being rescued. It's about grief as a place you can live in, and the moment you remember you're needed somewhere else.
2010s post-classical: felt piano, string quartet and cello, with shakuhachi carrying the melody and koto underneath. It builds as slowly as she comes back.
Her brother's side of this story, "The Eight-Headed Snake," is in the works.
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