Yujiro Ishihara/Naomi Chiaki -- Yogiri yo Konya mo Arigatou (夜霧よ今夜も有難う)

 

It's the Thanksgiving long weekend in Canada, and it's a pity that with the second wave of COVID-19 striking us like a bowling ball on pins, the big turkey dinner gatherings will have to be cancelled this year. However, we can still be thankful and hopeful for healthy families and trying to keep things in check. One nice thing for today is that the daily infection rates in my province of Ontario have dipped quite a bit from the peak near 1000 cases a few days ago. I'm not optimistic about any double-digit miracles right now but I'm at least wishing that the rates stabilize somewhat and even slowly decrease over the remainder of October now that we've backtracked to Stage 2.

I was looking for another kayo kyoku that had a thankful theme or at the very least had the word "arigatou" in the title, and I did find one in the song "Yogiri yo Konya mo Arigatou" (Thanks for the Night Fog Tonight) by Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）. Actually, our enka/Mood Kayo enthusiast Noelle Tham first wrote about this classic by The Tough Guy a little over 6 years ago so my take is a follow-up.

As I mentioned in my comment to Noelle's article, "Yogiri yo Konya mo Arigatou" is an Ishihara number that I've heard before since I was a kid (it was released back in 1967) and it's got plenty of that Mood Kayo spice all balled up in Kuranosuke Hamaguchi's（浜口庫之助）words and music. It's the type of song that you just need to have those two fingers of Old Parr in the tumbler with slowly melting ice cubes, preferably served in an Akasaka bar. One can get plenty contemplative about one's life choices while listening to the song in that environment...that and how much the tab will be there.

The thing is, though, that as Noelle had also stated, "Yogiri yo Konya mo Arigatou" was the theme song for the 1967 movie starring Ishihara and Ruriko Asaoka（浅丘ルリ子）. What I hadn't been aware of is that the film was (perhaps loosely) adapted from the "Casablanca" starring Humphrey Bogart according to the J-Wiki writeup but reading about the plot on the Wikipedia version of the movie, Cary Grant's "An Affair to Remember" actually coalesced in my brain. Also, the above video has the opening and ending scenes from the movie so if you are thinking about watching it, you may want to stop halfway due to obvious spoilers.

So I gather that "Yogiri yo Konya mo Arigatou" could be the "As Time Goes By" for Ishihara's flick, and perhaps as one of Ishihara's most memorable tunes, maybe it's been better remembered than the actual movie itself. 

Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）did a really striking cover of "Yogiri yo Konya mo Arigatou" for a 2008 album titled "Chiaki Naomi Mood Kayo wo Utau"（ちあきなおみ ムード歌謡を唄う...Naomi Chiaki Sings Mood Kayo）. The song has been given this really contemporary bluesy jazz sheen and naturally Chiaki has the vocal chops to really give this cover some heft.