B-Side Guys

“yakitori” started as a hi-hat sound, not a word. Miya Zawa has said the sample sparked the phrase that became the hook first, and the title just followed from there, chosen for how it fit the sound, unconnected to grilled chicken skewers or food of any kind. That’s a strange way to name a song, and also exactly the logic the song is describing: something feels right in the moment, so you go with it, reasons optional.

Zawa has described the pattern directly: relationships she’s not fully invested in, red flags she notices and keeps around anyway, drama she may even be inviting a little on purpose. She’s floated the idea that she does it partly just to keep having something to write about. The title’s origin story runs on that same impulse, small, strange, and followed anyway because it produced something worth keeping.

The lyrics back that pattern up with specifics: five bad traits inherited straight from her father, a partner she compares herself to mid-lie, a string of exes who all apparently look alike. Midway through, the song drops into Japanese for a moment, でもちからがない (but I have no strength), なかない (I won’t cry), a small admission of exhaustion tucked between two languages before the hook drags everything back to “But I like it when it’s bad for me,” repeated over and over across the chorus, more emphatic each time without ever getting more explained.

That bilingual line does real work in the song. Zawa wrote this record’s surrounding material across Sydney, Tokyo, Canberra, and Wagga Wagga, shaped by a Japanese-Australian heritage that shows up in the language switch as naturally as the rest of the song shows up in English. “yakitori” arrived from a hi-hat and stuck around anyway. So did everything else it’s actually about.