Koji Tsuruta -- Uramachi Polka（裏町ポルカ）

 

The above is a shot of a menchi katsu（メンチカツ）shop on one of the back streets of Asakusa in Tokyo. One of my friends had recommended it to me as one of the best in town. Considering how big Japan's capital is, that's saying quite a lot, but getting a freshly deep-fried one in that paper sleeve and taking a bite, I could understand my friend's endorsement. Basically, think of a croquette without the mashed potato and just a loose conglomeration of ground beef. It makes for a nice snack before dinner.

Now, this song's appearance on the blog all came about from a request from commenter YMOfan04 who had asked me whether I knew some 70s or 80s kayo kyoku with an Eastern European flavour; perhaps something with a polka rhythm. I pointed her toward some of the Fashion Music and exotic kayo songs, but at the same time, I also plugged in a request into the Yahoo Japan search engine.

One of the songs that popped up was Koji Tsuruta's（鶴田浩二）"Uramachi Polka" (Backstreet Polka). Just from listening to it, I knew that this wouldn't fit into YMOfan04's parameters since it sounded quite old. And that was the problem there...I couldn't track down when this jaunty kayo was first released. My first attempt was met with failure since the song apparently didn't show up in Tsuruta's J-Wiki discography and the YJ search engine couldn't give me any answers either.

However, I wouldn't take NO for an answer and I gave it another go. This time, I could find out from the images shown in the search engine that "Uramachi Polka" had been the flip side to another Tsuruta song "Ame Shitatare Chanson"（雨滴れシャンソン...Raindrop Chanson） which had been released in July 1954. It isn't 100% proof but I'll take it. In any case, "Uramachi Polka" sounds like a 1950s kayo about the sweet magic of a polka to massage the spirit and soul of a person who's suffering from heartache. Written by Tetsuo Miyagawa（宮川哲夫）and composed by Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, it certainly has that jaunty rhythm of a polka but also has that familiar kayo melody.