Hibari Misora -- Watashi no Boyfriend（私のボーイフレンド）

A couple of days back, I received a message from a lady in London who was interested in Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）famous "Kanashii Sake"（悲しい酒）, and so I decided that it was perhaps time to put up another Misora song onto the blog. I was a few lines into "Namida no Beni Bara"（涙の紅バラ）when I realized that I had already written about her 3rd single from March 1950 more than two years ago. I think I did mention about my aging memory last night.

However, I will not be deterred when it comes to the legendary Ms. Misora, so I went to the flip side of "Namida no Beni Bara", which was "Watashi no Boyfriend" (My Boyfriend), a very straight-ahead title. It's that playful mix of jazz and kayo with the nearly 13-year-old Misora singing happily away about her new beau.

What was interesting about Yutaka Kadota's（門田ゆたか）lyrics, though, was the amount of English in there. English has been used tons in Japanese pop music for some decades but I had never really expected it in a Hibari Misora kayo early in the postwar period, but here she is starting the verses off with a "One, two, three, four..." instead of "Ichi, ni, san, shi...". Plus, she refers to her beau as her knight while she herself is the queen; I guess the knight has a bit more of an exciting swagger than a dusty ol' king.

Rokuro Hara（原六朗）, who also composed a few other songs for Misora including the later "O-Matsuri Mambo"（お祭りマンボ）, came up with the swinging melody for her giddy performance. At first, I had assumed that "Watashi no Boyfriend" would be one of those tunes that hadn't been revisited by the singer since it just seemed so...well, kiddy, and it was a song that I had never heard before today, but it looks like even well into adulthood, she could still bring the fun and swing into her performance without sounding corny.

Even though the B-side to her 3rd single may not be a major contribution to her vast discography, "Watashi no Boyfriend" is a pleasant ol' kayo and makes me wonder about a lot of her other "hidden" B-sides and non-single album tracks, especially in the first couple of decades in her career.