During the extra long Golden Week holidays in Japan, one of my students was able to travel to Kyoto for a few days with his wife and had a very good time there though he said that it was quite warm. The ancient capital, as everyone there well knows, lies in a bonchi...or a basin...so things can get extremely hot and humid in the summer. Believe me, from experience I know. If you head over there in the next few months, make sure that you are well hydrated.
As such, for my final article tonight, I've decided to put up an enka connected with the region. This would be Hiroshi Itsuki's（五木ひろし）"Kyoto Koiuta" (Kyoto Love Song), and it was not only the 108th single of his long career but his first single in the 21st century, released in January 2000 (I'll just go with the opinion that the new century started in 2000).
Yet, despite the release date, before I looked into this song, I had assumed that "Kyoto Koiuta" was a much older enka ballad due to the arrangement. Itsuki's vocals have perpetually been evergreen enka but along with those shimmering strings, there is also that nostalgic accordion toodling around in the melody and the sighing chorus. Both of those elements have been characteristic of songs of the genre back in the 1970s and 1980s, I reckon.
With Kouko Takabayashi（高林こうこ）providing the lyrics and Masami Tao（田尾将実）behind the romantic music, there is something about the refrain that reminds me of my old juu-hachi-ban at karaoke, "Yukiguni"（雪国）by Ikuzo Yoshi（吉幾三）.
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