Well, this is quite the revelation. A week ago, I introduced this blog's tribute to Japanese Christmas songs with what I had thought was the first domestically produced Xmas tune, Yuming's "Lodge de Matsu Christmas". To be honest, there was a small part of me....under layers of unnecessary fat...that wondered if there couldn't have been an earlier musical tribute to the Yuletide. After all, Christmas was being celebrated to a certain extent even in the postwar years in Japan.
Just on a whim, after writing my entry on Naomi Sagara, I just threw in the name Hibari Misora（美空ひばり） and Christmas into the YouTube engine, and immediately I got this song called "Hitori Bocchi no Christmas" (A Lonely Christmas). At first, I thought perhaps this was one of the Queen of Kayo Kyoku's later songs that hadn't been released as a single in the 70s or 80s. Then, I listened to it. It was definitely something from much earlier. Although "Jingle Bells" bursts in the middle of this short song, the overall feel is somewhat sad as the title suggests.
I decided to dig a bit deeper about this song. And I quickly found a blog that had an entry on it. From that entry, I found out that Misora was all of 15 years of age when she sang it...incredible, considering how she sounds in this video...in 1952. The song was written and composed by Masao Yoneyama(米山正夫）. Recording Xmas songs in Japan was not a common occurrence at the time and the actual thought of picking up a barrel of Kentucky Fried Chicken for December 25 was non-existent when the people there were still picking up the pieces from the Second World War. Misora was singing this song for all of the boys and girls growing up at that time, according to the blog entry, to warm up their hearts and give them hope for the Christmases yet to come.
The blog can be found here: http://88123516.at.webry.info/200612/article_7.html
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| courtesy of macmagocha70 from Flickr |
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