Yuzu -- Hey Wa（Hey和）

Almost a couple of weeks ago, there was a special concert program in honour of Hiroshima broadcast through NHK. It was all J-Pop so I think some of the alphabet aidoru groups were represented.

There was also a female vocal group called Little Glee Monster who I first heard about when they were selected for last year's Kohaku Utagassen for the first time. And they did a rousing number with the rest of the other singing guests called "Hey Wa" which was originally performed by the pop duo Yuzu（ゆず）.

Written and composed by one-half of Yuzu, Yuujin Kitagawa（北川悠仁）, it was released as their 33rd single in January 2011. I've never thought that Japan was particularly all that religious, and perhaps it may be the only really secular nation among the G-7 nations but "Hey Wa" is quite spiritual in words and music. The title can be a pun on the term heiwa/平和 which means "peace" but perhaps it can also be translated as "Hey Japan" or "Hey Harmony".

Right from the start, Kitagawa sings about having God in everyone's hearts and so no one is truly alone on Earth. Not being religious myself, I still found myself quite entranced by the Yuzu original and the cover by Little Glee Monster. It reached No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies and Yuzu even performed it at the 2011 Kohaku Utagassen. "Hey Wa" was also used as the campaign song for the Japan Red Cross.

Well, it looks like that Little Glee Monster performance at that Hiroshima concert is up on YouTube. I will have to write up about one of their singles very soon.