Midori Satsuki -- Isshukan ni Touka Koi （一週間に十日来い）

While we're just getting set up here for the family to get together for Christmas today, Japan is already into the 26th so their Yuletide is done for another year. This will mean all that the Xmas gloss and glitter will be taken down lickety-split from the various department stores and all of the New Year's decorations will be going up just as quickly. I can pretty much guarantee that the place in the above photo, Kaminari-mon, the gate for Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa, will be totally crazy in the hours going from December 31st way into January 1st. When my anime buddy was in the Asakusa area once during New Year's, he had naively assumed that it wouldn't be too busy on the 1st since everyone got in their prayers around midnight. Uh...nope. Think about rush hour multiplied by a factor of 10. Anyone going there on that day, you have been duly warned.

Not that I'm saying that this song is a New Year's tune by any means but it's got that traditional Japanese brio which would make things quite festive, and as quiet as it is outside for the first few days of the New Year there (outside of shrines and temples, that is), inside is a whole lot of talking, eating, drinking and all-round carousing with family and friends.

This would be "Isshukan ni Touka Koi" (Come For 10 Days A Week) by singer/actress/tarento Midori Satsuki（五月みどり）. The title is a bit odd but since the lyrics by Koshu Kojima（小島胡秋）talk about a woman lusting for some guy at a bar, I gather that it is showing the depth of her desire that he show up as much as possible. And as for that lyricist's name, I had never heard of him before I first saw the song performed on an episode of "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, so I'm not quite sure how that given name is pronounced considering that he doesn't have his own J-Wiki page and the kanji doesn't seem to compute on jisho.org. But feel free to correct me if you know the proper way to pronounce it.

Minoru Endo（遠藤実）is a far more familiar name to me as the composer behind the jaunty enka arrangement. Kojima's lyrics may talk about potential romance in a bar as would be the case in any bluesy Mood Kayo piece, but Endo has woven a melody that is much more suited for an old-fashioned town festival. And I think for a certain generation, this would be the sort of song that could be sung together after a goodly amount of beer/sake.

As for Midori Satsuki, she was born as Fusako Omodaka（面高フサ子）in 1939 in Tokyo, and made her debut in 1958 with "O-zashiki Rock"（お座敷ロック...Tatami Room Rock）. However, it seems like her breakthrough hit was in the early 1960s with "Chirimen Vibrato" (ちりめんビブラート...Silk Crepe Vibrato) which led to her first invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen in 1962. "Isshukan ni Touka Koi" was her next song to be performed on NHK's New Year's Eve special the following year, and according to the Tokyo-based Video Research Ltd., her performance set a record in terms of viewership ratings at apparently 85.3%! Nowadays, any producer of the Kohaku would kill simply for half of those ratings.