Japanese Band With Day Jobs Drops Song About Paying Someone to Quit
A Japanese band whose members still hold regular jobs has turned a very modern workplace service into a song. First Love is Never Returned has released “退職代行 Taisyoku Daikou,” a track about paying a stranger to quit your job for you.
The five-piece group placed the song at the front of “W.O.R.K.S.,” its debut full album. The band calls the 12-track release its real major debut and its first record distributed nationwide in physical CD stores.
First Love is Never Returned Song About Quitting: What to Know
In Japan, resignation services let workers pay someone else to handle the exit, sometimes with just a text message. Vocalist Kazuki Ishida wrote the track, and he treats the idea with a cynical eye.
The song changes character between its first and second chorus. The band’s three vocalists play out the tension between employee and boss, while the funk-driven production tightens and speeds up to mirror the anxiety.
A companion music video, directed by Honoka Saito, is a scripted short film built around the same theme. It features the comedy duo Tosa Brothers, Lucifer Yoshioka and YouTuber Tamura Kae.
“W.O.R.K.S.” Album and Tour: Five Songwriters, One Debut
Every member of the band wrote a song for “W.O.R.K.S.” Ishida penned the majority, while Keita Kotakemori, Arata Yamamoto, Mizuki Tsunemoto and Yuji Sato each served as main songwriter on one track.
Highlights include “TPTTC,” the band’s first fully English-language song, which has been performed live since 2019. Kotakemori’s “期末評価会議 Kimatsu Hyouka Kaigi” was written to echo the lead track from the other side of the conversation.
The CD+Blu-ray edition adds the band’s first headline show at Shibuya Club Quattro, a sold-out night where the album was first announced. It also includes a Sapporo documentary and member interviews, totaling close to three hours of material.
The band hits the road with a six-date, five-city tour running November through January. It includes the group’s first headline shows in Nagoya and Fukuoka, plus its biggest-capacity attempts yet at Tokyo’s Zepp Shinjuku and Osaka’s BIGCAT.
Two hometown Sapporo dates bookend the run, opening at VyPass., the band’s home venue, and closing at Penny Lane 24. The group once insisted it wasn’t chasing a major debut, but this album marks what it calls its real one.
