Chicken rice is a fairly popular yoshoku (Japanese-style Western dishes) dish that's basically fried rice with a goodly amount of ketchup thrown in. Plus, it can be one of the main components for omurice.
And yet, this special little song came out in November 2004. According to the J-Wiki article for "Chicken Rice", the origins came from Mackey's guest appearance on Downtown's hit music show "HEY!HEY!HEY!MUSIC CHAMP" one night in which Hamada asked if the singer could whip up a song for him for which he was happy to do. However, the lyricist would be Hamada's partner-in-comedy Hitoshi Matsumoto（松本人志）.
"Chicken Rice" has to do with Matsumoto's childhood during Xmas when due to his family's lower-class upbringing, the special meal they could afford was usually the titular dish. After all these years, Matsumoto would probably prefer chicken rice over the larger and meatier turkey. His story is wrapped in a Makihara melody that feels like soft swaddling cloth and might even make Norman Rockwell smile. It is quite the surprisingly tenderhearted Xmas tune. And seeing Makihara and Hamada in their plain plaid clothes kinda sends the message home for me since when I was a kid, my father would wear something similar after coming home from work.
The song hit No. 2 on Oricon. As you can see, I liked "Chicken Rice" enough that I bought the single myself. Even though, the song has Hamada and Makihara in the title, it's really just Hamada singing everything with Mackey helping out in the chorus so I didn't bother with the Duet categorization.
The Downtown guys are great! Never heard of this song before. Probably would have been a lot more fun if Matsumoto sang it instead. But of course it wouldn't have had a chance at making the Oricon chart if he did.
ReplyDeleteHello, Wolf.
DeleteDowntown definitely had their time in the sun for all of the 90s and perhaps much of the 2000s. Couldn't really imagine Matsumoto trying it out with that speaking voice of his but then again, I was surprised by the late Jim Nabors as a kid.:)
Oh, Chikin Raisu! I love this song. Made me cry when I heard it the first time.
ReplyDeleteThey're funny guys, but you can feel Matsumoto's sincerity through his lyrics. Matsumoto's singing voice is not half bad, really. You should listen to their Ashita Ga Aru sa, and another recent song, I forget the title.
Hi, Yuie-chan!
DeleteFrom what I've heard about the guys growing up in Osaka, they went through a pretty rough-and-tumble time and that probably included rising up in the business.
Actually I wrote about "Ashita ga Aru sa" pretty early in the blog's life and yep, it's a fun and cheerful song:
http://kayokyokuplus.blogspot.ca/2012/03/kyu-sakamotorejapanulfuls-ashita-ga-aru.html