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| Wikimedia Commons Basile Morin |
In all of my years listening to Japanese music, I hadn't heard of any song titled "Take" (Bamboo), and yet, I should have known that there would be such a tune. It would fit perfectly in the enka genre as a singer would note bamboo's fast growth, strength, durability, utility and downright Japanese-ness.
But wouldn't you know it? Of course, it would be the Great Man of Enka himself, Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）, who released "Take" as his June 1997 single. Composing it under his usual pen name of Joji Hara（原譲二）with Kozo Nomura（野村耕三）providing lyrics, Sabu-chan gives his admiration to the largest member of the grass family and hoping probably that it can apply to anyone making their way in the world. The bamboo is indeed the ideal subject for an enka song and Kitajima is the ideal singer to tackle it with his oaken vocal technique. Incidentally, I'm sure that a lot of singers of the genre have covered it including Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）below.
A Song about Bamboo makes a lot of sense for Japan so it is a bit interesting that there do not seem to be more song's with Bamboo in the titles. Hmm, I wonder if there are any songs about dried Seaweed?
ReplyDeleteA bit surprising, Brian, that there aren't a lot of songs regarding bamboo, considering how hardy and admirable the bamboo is in Japanese society. Not sure about "nori" in kayo kyoku.
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