Apples are my fruit. I was practically weaned on Macintosh, Golden Delicious, etc. and apple pie (especially the crumble-top variety) will always be my favourite form of the pastry. When we were kids, it was an October tradition for the family to head over to Chudleigh's Apple Farm just west of Toronto to go pick those apples. That crisp autumn morning over there provided some wonderful goodies in the form of the aroma of baking apple pie and apple strudel, and often enough, we would be plied with warm and sweet apple cider. It's one of the things that I miss doing nowadays.
On tonight's episode of NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, the theme was the autumn festival in Sendai, and the Tohoku area of Japan is well known for its own apple orchards. I got to hear an enka tune performed originally by Michiya Mihashi（三橋美智也）, sung tonight by Midori Oka（丘みどり）, that I'd never heard before titled "Ringo Mura kara" (From The Village of Apples).
This was a single released back in 1956 by Mihashi that has the sentimental ring of the old hometown, a trope in kayo kyoku that was quite popular back then for all those folks who made the journey to the big cities like Tokyo to find work. The lyrics by Ryo Yano（矢野亮）start right off the bat with "Do you remember?" which could have set a lot of eyes watering up at the memories.
The music was composed by Isao Hayashi（林伊佐緒）, and Mihashi's delivery is strong but perhaps also somewhat mournful as if reflecting the feelings of all those who made that big move to the city but will not be able to return for a long while. "Ringo Mura kara" is considered to be one of Mihashi's classics and it ended up selling around 2.7 million records which is apparently his 2nd-most successful hit among his kayo songs. According to J-Wiki, "Ringo Mura kara" is tied with "Hoshikuzu no Machi" (星屑の町), and both songs are behind his No. 1 kayo hit, "Kojou"（古城）.
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