Keisuke Yamauchi -- Furukizu（古傷）

 

The above is merely a trailer and not the whole song representing enka singer Keisuke Yamauchi's（山内惠介） 22nd and latest single "Furukizu" (An Old Scar). When Yamauchi started the video off with "I was so young back then...", I kinda went "Like, really? Is 37 (Yamauchi's age as of this writing) old? And he still looks a decade younger!". Don't mind me...just a middle-aged guy grumbling through.😉

In any case, I saw Yamauchi performing "Furukizu" on an episode of NHK's "Hayauta"（はやウタ...Early Songs） that seems to have replaced "Gogo Uta"（ごごウタ...Afternoon Songs） as the daytime kayo program on the national broadcaster. When I saw the new title and the logo of a rising morning sun, I wondered whether this new show was actually being broadcast in the pre-noon hours. I thought it was rather early in the day to show off enka. But I was slightly flabbergasted on discovering on its website that it actually goes on at 4:30 am on Sunday mornings, though this isn't a fixed schedule. I can only guess that there must be some early risers for the good ol' kayo.

"Furukizu" was written by Kiyo Suzuki（鈴木紀代）and composed by Hideo Mizumori（水森英夫）as this remembrance of a past love that still throbs like the titular old scar from time to time. The arrangement by Norio Ido（伊戸のりお）seems like the old-fashioned enka with the languid rhythm, the Spanish-sounding guitar and the soft and silky strings. It rather sounds like a salve over the pain of lost romance. Yamauchi's latest reached No. 7 on Oricon.