Yukiko Ninomiya -- Matsu no Ki Kouta（まつのき小唄）

Just to summarize our state of affairs under the current COVID-19 crisis in Toronto, schools, tourist attractions and sports teams are out of commission for all of March, at least. Plus, I'm sure that the panic buying will continue for the remainder of the weekend at least, but I'm hoping that even those folks will be largely sated for a little while on Monday. As with many other places, toilet paper and sanitizer have been going like hotcakes. So far, my family and I are fine, and we're hoping that it stays that way.

To move onto more positive things, I somehow encountered this comical little enka called "Matsu no Ki Kouta" (Traditional Ballad of the Pine Trees) which, from reading the lyrics by Masato Fujita（藤田まさと）and Koji Yume（夢虹二）, seems to have plenty of puns in there but the gist of the song looks like it's a playful if cynical statement on love. As for the melody, it's unclear who composed that.

"Matsu no Ki Kouta" is performed by Tokyo-born singer Yukiko Ninomiya（二宮ゆき子）who had been singing children's songs since she herself was a child, according to her J-Wiki file. She debuted in 1964 with "Watashi wa Nakanai"（私は泣かない...I Won't Cry）, and in the same year, she recorded "Matsu no Ki Kouta" and it most likely became her biggest hit since the record ended up selling 1.5 million copies.

Apparently, Ninomiya had a number of hits afterwards as well, but she retired from the industry in 1972 and has been running a small bar of her own in Yotsuya, Tokyo since 1996.