Split EnzIt’s amazing where music can take us.
In 1980, a young Japanese girl named Masako Sakamoto ventured to her local record store, clutching the cash her father had given her for Christmas.
It was the album cover that caught her eye. She was struck by the geometric design. Masako had never heard of the band, but something inside her head was saying, “I have to buy this album.”
She took the record home and played it “over and over and over again”.
“The music was so different compared to anything else I normally listened to at that time. I had been a big fan of the British punk rock boom, and I was very slowly getting out of my rebellious phase and growing up.
“This music took me away to somewhere totally different. Not to an ‘anger land’ but to somewhere more comforting and understanding.”
When she bought the album, Masako’s home was not a happy place. “My dad, like so many pressured Japanese corporate salary men, was drinking heavily, and mum was crying a lot. Me, being youngest in a traditional Japanese family, meant being told to ‘go to your room’ when the screaming started.”
Masako’s new favourite album, Split Enz’s True Colours, was her escape.
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I Got You was the window to a new world. “I was fascinated by the simple words expressing the difficulty of communication. This one song helped me understand frustrations – nothing was straightforward, and there could be anxiety. I could totally relate.”
The next track, What’s The Matter With You, hit even harder.
“The wording clicked for me,” Masako would later reflect, “how I wanted to live a brighter life.”
Then there was another Neil Finn song, Missing Person. “Neil’s songs perfectly expressed my feelings,” Masako realised. “Yes, I wanted to be a missing person, to escape from everything.”
In a pre-Internet world, Masako had no idea who Split Enz were. She sourced some international music magazines at her local second-hand bookstore, where she learned they were a New Zealand band based in Melbourne.
She then became a regular visitor to the Australian and New Zealand embassies in Tokyo, where she would photocopy any Split Enz article that she found in Juke and RAM.
And Masako started the Split Enz fan club in Japan, liaising with the band’s official archivist Peter Green, who started the famous Frenz of the Enz in Australia.
Masako received hundreds of letters from Japanese fans, curious to find out more about the band. She replied to each and every one.
When Masako heard Take A Walk on Split Enz’s Time and Tide album, she decided she didn’t want to live a “normal Japanese life”. Her mum sighed and said, “What is wrong with living a normal life?”
When Masako heard The Devil You Know on Split Enz’s Conflicting Emotions, she had made up her mind: she was moving to Australia. She worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, at her local department store to save the money for the flight.
Neil’s words were ringing in Masako’s head as she boarded the plane. “I long to see the other side of things/ Hung on the cliff, in search of something big … Live for the day we throw caution to the wind, all we need is the courage to begin.”
It was Masako’s blind date with destiny.
Tim Finn’s line in Six Months In A Leaky Boat was apt for Masako’s adventure: “The lust of a pioneer will acknowledge no frontier.”
Then there’s Neil Finn’s History Never Repeats. “Better to jump than hesitate, I need a change, and I can’t wait.”
Masako told her life-changing tale in the 2017 book We Got You!, “a tribute to Neil Finn, as written by his friends, fans and Frenz”.
In her new home, Masako moved to East St Kilda, where she fell in love with and married one of her flatmates.
At St Kilda Beach, she bumped into Neil Finn and politely requested his autograph. He asked where she was from and how long she planned to stay in Australia. “A few years,” she replied.
Neil signed the piece of paper:
To Masako,
Have a good stay and a good life.
Masako never returned to live in Japan. Melbourne, the spiritual home of Split Enz, became her home as well.
When I met Masako, we bonded over music, swapping Neil Finn albums and Crowded House radio specials.
I know that she would have been thrilled when Split Enz announced their 2026 reunion. In fact, she would have been the first person in the queue for tickets.
But sadly, Masako died in October 2023 after battling a rare bowel cancer.
Her husband Philip will be representing her when Split Enz kick off their Australian tour at Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday.
He knows that Split Enz changed Masako’s life. The band changed his life, too.
It was a love story that started with I Got You. One that never Enz.
Philip hopes that the band can sign Masako’s No. 1 Japan Fan Club card.
Masako’s cancer specialist paid tribute to her at her funeral, saying: “Masako was a gentle, warm soul.”
She cherished her Neil Finn autograph as well as her signed Split Enz photo and her History Never Repeats lyrics – handwritten by Neil.
Neil Finn's handwritten lyrics to ‘History Never Repeats’ for Masako. Photo Credit: Philip Withers
Reading those words reminds me of a young woman’s courageous journey to a foreign land – all because of her favourite band.
And at the show, when Neil sings the line, “There’s a light shining in the dark”, I will think of Masako. And the power of music to provide “a brighter life”.
