Saturday, May 23, 2015

Ikuzo Yoshi -- Otoko Chumon wa (男っちゅうもんは)


Finally, a recent Ikuzo Yoshi (吉幾三) song that I can really enjoy! His past few releases after the reggae-themed "NDA!" (profiled) have mostly been misses for me since they're quite dreary and unamusing, so it was quite the pleasant surprise hearing Yoshi sing his at the time newest single "Otoko Chumon wa" as one of the two guests on my first viewing of "Nodojiman" late last year - what a way to kick things off. And that was where I had learnt of the odd standards of this amateur singing contest, and that the contestants singing familiar enka tunes are usually above the age of 50.


What drew me closer to "Otoko Chumon wa" was that the livelier music Yoshi composed that sounded more Western than enka gave me the impression that it has some semblance to an English song I had taken note of somewhere along the way. As for the lyrics (also done by him), I'm not sure what they are about, but it seems to be either talking about the life of a manly man, or what it is to be a manly man. Though I do recall not fully paying attention to Yoshi's explanation of the meaning behind "Otoko Chumon wa" to the audience and George Yamamoto (山本譲二) during a perfect "Nippon no Uta Special Stage" pairing... It was already about 75 minutes into the 90 minute show so my brain began to go on hibernation mode.

"Otoko Chumon wa" was released as Yoshi's 58th single on 2nd October 2013. It peaked at 49th place on the regular charts, which is average by enka standards, so it must have placed within the Top 10 on the enka charts for a while.

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1 comment:

  1. J-CanuckMay 26, 2015 at 9:58 PM

    Hi Noelle.

    Yup, this is one of the manly-man enka tunes here...I think even without hearing the lyrics, the wailing guitar and the robust strings pretty much gave the story away. The arrangement almost has a Marlboro Man type of feeling to it...if this had taken place in the the US, I would've imagined a cowboy looking out over the Grand Canyon at sunset after a whole day of corralling cattle. It's Miller Time!

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