I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Takuya Jou -- Hone Made Aishite (骨まで愛して)
I don't see many songs with "Hone" (骨), the kanji character for bone, in its title... actually I don't think I've ever encountered any other song with this word in the title. Only "Hone Made Aishite". Upon seeing its name a number of months ago, I was indeed curious as to what the song was about since I understood the words "Bone" and "Love", but I couldn't seem to find any proper relation between the two. So my guess was that the fellow singing the song loves bones... which frankly is rather bizzare and disturbing, but I stuck with it anyway. As my understanding for the language improved a little and as I listened to "Hone Made Aishite" more often over the months, it suddenly occurred to me that this wasn't some love song dedicated to bones, but something far more normal and logical, something like "Love me to the bone" and NOT "I love bones".
Moving on, singing "Hone Made Aishite" was the late Takuya Jou (城卓也). This hit from 1966 that sold about 1.4 million copies was his 2nd debut single under this very name - he first debuted in the world of music as Masao Kikuchi (菊地正夫) in 1960 before this change 6 years later. The most interesting fact that I have read about Jou on the J-Wiki is that he was related to two well-regarded songwriters, who both had a hand in doing up the song. Composing the very 60's, easy-paced music for "Hone Made Aishite" was Jou's older brother, Jun Kitahara (北原じゅん), who had also composed a couple of songs for Jou in his Kikuchi days, as well as for other singers like the flamboyant Gosanke member, Teruhiko Saigo (西郷輝彦). And then writing the lyrics for the song was Jou's uncle, Kouhan Kawauchi (川内康範), a name I've often seen since he penned quite a handful of Mood Kayo hits like Hiroshi Uchiyamada and Cool Five's (内山田洋とクール・ファイブ) "Awazu ni Aishite" (逢わずに愛して) and Mina Aoe's (青江三奈) "Isezakicho Blues" (伊勢佐木町ブルース). The lyrics seems to be about our leading man here simply wanting his lady to love him deeply... to the bone (get it?)...
As I've mentioned earlier, "Hone Made Aishite" was very successful, and so it managed to give Jou his first ticket to the Kohaku on the very same year it was released in. There even was a movie based on the song itself in 1966, featuring acting stars from that era Tetsuya Watari (渡哲也), and of course, Ruriko Asaoka (浅丘ルリ子). Dang, she seemed to be in every other movie back in the 60's!
I'm 19 and don't even speak Japanese, or never went to that country. I recently watched Karaoke Terror: The Complete Showa Songbook (really weird but funny movie) and I loved the songs in it (maybe more than the movie itself), but don't know where to start looking for them. Thank you for making this blog, I'm starting to thoroughly appreciate this kind of music and I'm learning a lot!! (^-^)/
Oh wowie, looks like I've found someone who's around my age! That's cool. I'm gonna check out this movie you mentioned; anything that has showa era songs get my attention.
You can find many more songs like "Hone made Aishite" here on KKP and the learning process can continue. :) I too learnt of many songs from the showa era from here. J-Canuck's the one who made this blog, so we can both thank him for that.
I'm 19 and don't even speak Japanese, or never went to that country. I recently watched Karaoke Terror: The Complete Showa Songbook (really weird but funny movie) and I loved the songs in it (maybe more than the movie itself), but don't know where to start looking for them. Thank you for making this blog, I'm starting to thoroughly appreciate this kind of music and I'm learning a lot!! (^-^)/
ReplyDeleteHello there Osie R.
DeleteSorry for the (very) late reply.
Oh wowie, looks like I've found someone who's around my age! That's cool. I'm gonna check out this movie you mentioned; anything that has showa era songs get my attention.
You can find many more songs like "Hone made Aishite" here on KKP and the learning process can continue. :) I too learnt of many songs from the showa era from here. J-Canuck's the one who made this blog, so we can both thank him for that.
骨means "bone(s)"; まで means "until or up to"; 愛して is the imperative form of "to love". So, yeah, "love me to the bone".
ReplyDelete