Mr. Children -- Hana ~ Memento-Mori（花）

Man, I heard this song all the time back in the late 1990s, especially on the old NTV Saturday night program "Yoru mo Hippare"（夜もヒッパレ）, a televised version of celebrity karaoke...yes, years before James Corden's "Carpool Karaoke". If the tarento were getting into this one, then I can only imagine how popular it was in the karaoke boxes with the regular folks.

As I've said before, I never became a big Mr. Children fan; I only have 2 CD singles by Kazutoshi Sakurai（桜井和寿）and his band: "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "[es] ~ Theme of es". However, there is no doubt that back in the 90s that Mr. Children were up there with Dreams Come True and all of the singers associated with Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）as the premier music acts of that final decade of the 20th century.

Mr. Children's 11th single from April 1996, "Hana ~ Memento-Mori" (Flower) has had the benefits of a memorable title and a refrain that simply loves to invite everyone in for a massive singalong. I had always wondered about what the significance of the addition of the Latin memento mori was. Apparently, it means "Remember that you must die" according to Wikipedia. At first, I thought that I just encountered the most buzzkill Latin phrase but then I put it alongside another Latin phrase, carpe diem (Seize the day) and figured that it can also be thought of as being advice to live each day to its fullest because we all have temporally limited lives here on Earth.

Sakurai himself used the phrase for the title because he was impressed by a 1983 book of the same title written by the photographer and author Shinya Fujiwara（藤原新也）. According to the J-Wiki article for "Hana", Sakurai wrote the lyrics from a woman's point of view and from reading the English translation, it seems like the protagonist has come to the realization that after a portion of her life has been spent disappointed with friends getting married and raising families, she will take a new tack and live life as it comes without getting too worked up.

I felt that Sakurai's melody followed that same pattern with the opening verse sounding melancholy before the hopeful singalong refrain bursts forth. Intriguingly, although the statement hasn't been sourced (a common J-Wiki issue), the J-Wiki article points out that Sakurai generated the melody in his head while playing baseball under a hangover after a night of drinking. Maybe that Latin title came in handy for a second reason.

"Hana" became a million-seller as it hit the top spot on Oricon for two weeks straight and ended up as the No. 5 single of 1996. It also currently holds the 81st ranking in Oricon's All Time Single Rankings. The song also became a track on Mr. Children's 5th album "Shinkai"（深海...Deep Sea）which was released in June of that year. It was also a No. 1 hit and was No. 5 on the yearly album rankings. Not surprisingly, "Shinkai" also has a place in Oricon's All Time Album Rankings, coming in at No. 31.