Well, that was quite the emotional episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night, eh? And I feel like I was a little too fast off the mark some months ago when I noted the departure of enka prince Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）for a career hiatus. That was for his earlier single this year, "Gunjou no Ito", when I had stated that the enka singer was going to take a break of undetermined length as of last year. Apparently, seeing him come back a number of times this year clearly illustrated that I had been premature and wrong.
However, last night's appearance on "Uta Con" was confirmed to be his final one on the show and I'm guessing that he might make one more performance on the Kohaku Utagassen in about a couple of months before calling it a day for a while. There was a brief retrospective of Hikawa's career before the man began weeping in gratitude and then performing twice. The first one was a cover of Hibari Misora's （美空ひばり）"Uta wa Waga Inochi"（歌は我が命）which he had done for last year's Kohaku.
Then, his second and final performance on the show was for his 40th and final single before his hiatus "Koushuuji" (The Koshu Road). It was released in July this year and compared to the serious "Gunjou no Ito"（群青の弦）, "Koushuuji" is a boisterous yet lighthearted enka about going on that voyage to anywhere which might describe Hikawa's immediate future. The song was written by Tsubasa Kazu（かず翼）and composed by Hideo Mizumori（水森英夫）.
Once again, I wish him well.
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