Densho Digital Archive - Toru Saito Interview (denshovh-storu-01-0015)

<Begin Segment 15>

MN: Tell me about music. You are really well known at Tule Lake for being the opening act and singing. You love music. I always see you with a guitar. When did your love of music start?

TS: That's a good question. Thinkin' about that, when I was gettin' my head beat in, I used to walk to that pole at the end of Fall Avenue and San Pablo Avenue, I was all by myself. When, when you're all alone and there's, even my mother wasn't very sympathetic or supportive or validating of me -- well, maybe she did, but other times not -- to me, a song sometimes is your best friend. You can sing a song that's beautiful. You can sing a song that's sad. And music period can be therapeutic. It's a way of expressing your sorrow. I don't like the blues. A lot of people like the blues. I don't like the blues. It's too depressing to me. "My wife left me, my girlfriend ran out with some other guy." Shit, I don't need to sing that kind of crap. I like those beautiful songs from the '40s and the '30s when people really crafted the songs. They, they knew the language and they wrote beautiful songs. I like people like Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, all those great... well, I don't know if you know of names like, you've heard of Burt Bacharach, but Hal David, his, the guy who wrote the lyrics, he wrote beautiful lyrics. Hal David wrote many, many beautiful songs. And when I sing those songs sometimes I get all choked up because it brings back memories. It brings back sad times. It brings back good times. It brings back time of healing, it brings back time of you're your own self. Therapy, you know? So music, they say music is the lubricant of life and I believe it. It sure has been a salvation to me. Sometimes when you're all alone, all you have is a song sometimes. And one of my songs that I like is "With a Song in My Heart." And, and I was never without a song in my heart, to be honest with you. And so I guess music's -- lyrics, songs -- were one friend that never betrayed me. And to these days, to this day, I, I value those songs. They were part of my, what kept me together maybe.