Momoe Yamaguchi -- Manjuu Shaka （曼珠沙華）

The first time I heard the ballad "Manjuu Shaka" was on a compilation tape, and it was actually by wistful pop singer Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）. And for many years, I had thought it was an original song by her, and it was quite the mystical-sounding ballad. Plus seeing those 4 intimidating kanji that made up the title, I had also assumed that the song was about some sort of spiritual experience out somewhere on the Silk Road, not being able to understand what the title meant at the time.

"Manjuu Shaka" was actually first sung by 70s aidoru legend Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）as a creation by the husband-wife duo of Ryudo Uzaki and Yoko Aki（宇崎竜童・阿木燿子）, and as anyone who has read a lot of the Momoe articles on the blog knows, they were responsible for a lot of the hard-driving songs in the singer's second half of her career such as "Playback Part II". The song was the title track for Yamaguchi's 16th album from December 1978, although it was released as a B-side to her later 25th single, "Bi - Silent"（美・サイレント...Beauty/Silent）in March 1979.

The title, I was intrigued to find out, refers to the Red Spider Lily (Lycoris radiata) which was originally from China, Korea and Nepal before it was introduced to Japan and later even to America (thank you Wikipedia). To make a direct quote from that Wiki article: "People believe that since the Red Spider Lily is mostly associated with death that one should never give a bouquet of these flowers." (thanks to Gerald Klingaman from "Plant of the Week: Red Spiderlily") Plus, the bulbs of the flower are very poisonous.

Well, with that sort of reputation, I could only imagine what Aki's lyrics are all about. Love is mentioned a fair bit and the title is repeated regularly. And when you consider that it is the triumvirate of Aki, Uzaki and Yamaguchi, the song probably wasn't a happy-go-lucky ditty. In fact, in keeping with the spider theme, I kept thinking about the Black Widow spider. It looks like Momoe was once again in full tough...and perhaps vengeful...mode.

It was also interesting to compare the music between the Kurahashi and original Yamaguchi versions. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the former anywhere on the Net so you'll just have to go with my description that, as I mentioned earlier, it has that somewhat exotic travel feeling with the synthesizer (and around that time, there was an interest in kayo with a hint of foreign exoticism). Both versions have that wailing electric guitar slicing through the air along with the overall sense of drama, but the original version by Momoe also seems to have that feeling that the story is taking place a few centuries in the past in Japan as if an avenging geisha has just schemed to have a betraying paramour poisoned. I'm not sure whether Momoe had ever starred in a historical drama, but I could imagine her playing that role although considering her age back then, she probably would have been a maiko...just guessing, though.

The album "Manjuu Shaka" peaked at No. 7 while the single "Bi - Silent" with "Manjuu Shaka" as the B-side getting as high as No. 4 on the Oricon weeklies and ending up as the 34th-ranked song of 1979. As a final piece of trivia about the flower itself, it is also known as higanbana.