Taro's Blog

Fun Fact: “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” was on the “Rubber Soul” album by the Beatles, released in 1965. “Norwegian Wood,” the novel by Haruki Murakami (村上春樹), was published in 1987.

Hiroyuki Takahashi (高嶋 弘之), who was the Project Manager at Toshiba EMI for the Beatles at the time, officially admitted that he purposely mistranslated “Norwegian Wood” to “ノルウェイの森” because it sounded better.
「Norwegian Wood」は、直訳するとノルウェー木材や、その家具とかそういう意味らしいんですが、「ノルウェーの森」というタイトルをつけました。意味は違っているのですが、ただこちらの方が曲の雰囲気に合っていると言われることもあります。

The Beatles 日本公演50周年記念特集：読売新聞 > マイ・セットリスト (2016)

Kudos to him! I agree that “ノルウェイ産の木材” wouldn’t cut it. He was aware that the original meaning was “a piece of wood,” perhaps “from Norwegian furniture”. Aha, that was probably an odd piece of wood that came out of the Ikea flat-pack furniture.

The protagonist of the song was an English working-class young white male in the early 1960s, and probably did not care whether it was Swedish or Norwegian. Interestingly, Ikea opened its first stores outside of Sweden in Norway in 1963. 

In the same article, I also liked the comment on the song by Tim Hitchens, who was the British Ambassador to Japan (2012-2016).
“Norwegian Wood” managed, when I was a teenager, to summon up the infinite possibilities of adult life; confident women, overnighting with others. And I liked the bad pun at the end “I lit a fire, isn’t it good, Norwegian wood”. I have always enjoyed (and still use) bad puns.

So, I listened to the song carefully for the first time. Wow, I saw the world that I overlooked (or overheard) while listening to the song a million times in the past. The lady, an “awoken” white professional who was into Yoga and Indian philosophy. She got rid of all of her furniture, made her room empty, and sat on the floor. It could be possible in the late 1960s, but in the early 1960s, it was highly unlikely.

OK, she was moving out from her old place. All the furniture was gone and leaving her room empty. That night was the final day of her rental agreement. Perhaps her friends already helped her disassemble and pack Ikea furniture pieces back into their “flat-pack” boxes. The protagonist happened to find a piece of Norwegian wood on the floor.

The next morning, the protagonist found that she was not coming back. He did not know her new address, nor did not have her phone number. She abandoned him. “I lit a fire” meant a fresh start. This bird (she) has flown to an unknown place, and the protagonist had to move on.

Alternatively, she was of an ethnic background, such as Indian descent or Pakistani, if the use of the Sitar, a musical instrument from the Indian subcontinent, suggested. If so, “Norwegian Wood” referred to a room with cheap pine wood paneling, popular in London in the 1960s, as Sir Paul McCartney commented.

Sitting on the floor with no furniture blew John Lennon’s mind at the time. He could not adjust to the different culture at the time, so he left her. If so, this bird was the protagonist himself. He made a fresh start of his own will. But the experience left him with a deep impact and realization that there were women in diverse cultures. No wonder he divorced his caucasian wife and married Yoko Ono in the late 1960s