Masashi Sada -- Doukeshi no Sonnet（道化師のソネット）

Thanks the heavens for YouTube especially when one doesn't have a whole lot to do except for strategic shopping, keeping updated on COVID-19 and blogging. It looks like one fine soul has put up a series of that old late-night Fuji-TV nostalgic music show "19XX" which focused on a certain year's historical events and pop music. I actually wrote about that one in an article, but at one point, the powers-that-be took them down. However, for now, they're back up and hopefully they will for a while or so.

Watching the episode for 1980, the first two songs are very well known to me as they are for City Pop fans all over: Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）soaring "Ride on Time" and Junko Yagami's（八神純子）funkalicious "Purpletown"（パープルタウン）. But then, the third entry at 6:23 above was this ballad by longtime singer-songwriter and tarento Masashi Sada（さだまさひ）, "Doukeshi no Sonnet" (A Clown's Sonnet). Sada has often been known as a master of the poignant and tear-inducing, but this was the first time I had ever heard of this particular song.

Sada's 17th single as a solo singer and as a member of his old group Grape, "Doukeshi no Sonnet" was released back in February 1980 and was also used as the theme song for the movie "Tobe Ikaros no Tsubasa"（翔べイカロスの翼...Icarus, Let's Beat Wings*）. The movie was based on a non-fiction work by poet and writer Toshihiko Hirabayashi（平林敏彦）under his pen name of Hiroshi Kusaka（草鹿宏）, and it deals with a young man named Toru Kuriyama（栗山徹）, an aspiring photographer, who, while taking photos at a circus becomes enthralled by the life there and ends up as a popular clown. Tragically, during one stunt, Kuriyama is killed while only in his twenties.

The story was adapted into a 1980 movie starring Sada as Kuriyama himself, and although it didn't become a hit in its initial run, there were later requests from various parts of the country to see it, so in recent years, it's been shown at theatres once again. In October 2012, it was even put out on DVD. I've never seen the film but I can imagine watching the ending credits while listening to "Doukeshi no Sonnet" would be tantamount to lots of tears flowing forth.

The song reached No. 2 on Oricon and it became the 28th-ranked single for 1980. Beginning from the 2000s, "Doukeshi no Sonnet" got its due from other singers with folks like Aya Matsuura（松浦亜弥）and Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）covering it. Matsuura's version can be found in a special album, "Sada Masashi Tribute: Sada no Uta"（さだまさしトリビュート～さだのうた...A Tribute to Masashi Sada: Sada's Songs）which was released in October 2008 (peaking at No. 20). Suzuki's cover was the coupling tune for his 37th single "Juu-san Ya"（十三夜...13th Night）, released in October 2012. The A-side, so to speak, was also written and composed by Sada.

According to the J-Wiki article for the movie, even before Sada's film came out, there had been a previous TV adaptation for "Tobe Ikaros no Tsubasa" in 1979 on TBS. The star for that project was none other than Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）, although I couldn't find any footage of that TV show.

*I don't think I've ever criticized an official title translation but "Icarus, Let's Beat Wings" doesn't particularly impress me. Personally, "Fly, Wings of Icarus" has a better ring.