Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Michiyo Azusa -- Konnichiwa Aka-chan (こんにちは赤ちゃん)


One of those songs that just wanna make you go "Goo...goo...goo." Appropriately, "Konnichiwa Aka-chan"(Hello, Baby) is one of those songs that I've heard since I was an aka-chan myself. Created by the same tandem that brought the famed "Sukiyaki" song to life a couple of years earlier in 1961, lyricist Rokusuke Ei(永六輔)wrote the words and gave them to composer Hachidai Nakamura(中村八大)as a present; Nakamura was on the verge of becoming a father for the first time. The lyrics speak of a parent's greeting to a child:

Hello, baby....your face
Hello, baby....your cries
Those hands, those cute round eyes
How do you do. I'm your mother.
Hello, baby....your life
Hello, baby....for your future
This happiness is your father's wish
How do you do. I'm your mother.              (Thanks to j-lyric.net)

Awwwwwwwww. "Konnichiwa Aka-chan" was first introduced on an NHK program, "Yume de Aimashou"夢で逢いましょう.....Let's Meet In Our Dreams) back in July 1963. It may have been a man who came up with the words, but there's always been a mother's heart buried deep in them. Sung cheerfully by the high-voiced Michiyo Azusa(梓みちよ), the song sold over a million records and earned the Grand Prize on that year's Japan Record Awards, plus an appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen for Azusa.

Even today, probably any new mother has internalized the song for obligatory use.


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