Tatsuo Kamon -- Totsugeki! Hamburger Shop（激突!ハンバーガーショップ）/Chisato Moritaka -- Teriyaki Burger（テリヤキ・バーガー）

 

I was watching the local news this morning when I found out that apparently today is National Burger Day here in the Great White North. Ah...wonderful...and I'm not going anywhere for lunch or dinner.😞 But those cheeseburgers did look rather sumptuous on television. Interestingly enough, I've heard that within the Japanese gastronomical world, the hamburger in all its different forms (sliders, smashed burgers, etc.) is getting its second wind. I was there for the first big blossoming of the burger there when all sorts of burger shops popped up throughout the Greater Tokyo Area.

After catching that TV segment, I was wondering about any burger kayo out there. The only one I knew was Kirinji's（キリンジ）bubbly "Pizza VS. Hamburger" from the band's "cherish" album of 2019. However, although I'd assumed that I would be lucky to find even one after several minutes, I was able to track down two within just a few minutes. So, for your listening (and perhaps future eating) pleasure, here are the double portions with cheese.

I have to really get better at distinguishing folksy singer Masato Shimon（子門真人）from Tatsuo Kamon（嘉門タツオ）. Shimon was the one behind the biggest-selling single in Japan, "Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun" (およげ！たいやきくん）, also a song about food but nothing to do with lots of protein. Kamon, on the other hand, is an entertainer who started out as the apprentice for a rakugo comedian in the late 1970s before becoming a singer-songwriter of comical novelty tunes from the 1980s.

His 34th single was released in December 1995. "Totsugeki! Hamburger Shop" (Bang! Hamburger Shop) comes across as a comedic country-western tune with Kamon acting in two roles: the grumpiest customer in a hamburger shop dealing with a super-polite employee and the grumpiest hamburger shop owner dealing with a nervous nellie of a customer. Basically, he brought in his old rakugo techniques into this one. Kamon composed the song while Tsuyoshi Sugimoto（杉本つよし）took care of the lyrics.

Meanwhile, Chisato Moritaka's（森高千里）"Teriyaki Burger" is one upbeat jukebox-friendly pop-rock track from her October 1990 album "Kokon Tozai"（古今東西...All Times and Places）. The title is the only thing that concerns any patty between two buns; Moritaka just lets loose on her ambitions to take over the world her own way without things such as formal education and borders getting in her way. In a way then, "Teriyaki Burger" could share something with the food-themed title "Sukiyaki" being slapped onto Kyu Sakamoto's（坂本九）classic "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう) by that British DJ decades ago. "Sukiyaki" has nothing to do with the meaning of the lyrics but it's easier to pronounce that particular title. In any case, Moritaka took care of the lyrics while Hideo Saito（斉藤英夫）was the composer.

Now, here's a special video. I don't think I've ever seen Princess Princess and Moritaka collaborate. Cherish it and that hamburger today.🍔