Your literary playlist: A guide to the music of Haruki Murakami

The author's 16 published novels contain a rich palate of pointed musical references

Murakami music
(Image credit: (Illustration by Lauren Hansen))

This story — originally published on August 26, 2014 — has been updated to include songs referenced in Murakami's first two novels, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973, which were recently published in the United States for the first time in a dual volume titled Wind/Pinball. Both the excerpts and the playlist have been updated accordingly.

In 2014, Haruki Murakami's latest novel, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, was published in the United States. Its title is a reference to Franz Liszt's "Years of Pilgrimage" suite, which plays a central role in the novel's narrative. The pointed reference isn't exactly a major detour from Murakami. His favorite tropes are so omnipresent that a fan recently put together a Bingo card collecting them: "Speaking to Cats," "Parallel Worlds," "Weird Sex," and — of course — "Old Jazz Record."

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Scott Meslow

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.