Saburo Kitajima -- Yokohama no Hito（横浜の女）

 

Well, considering how many songs that enka legend Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）has had in his geographical "Hito" series alone (I've covered Hakodate, Satsuma and Onomichi thus far), and how popular the port city of Yokohama has been as a source for enka and Mood Kayo, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he would come up with "Yokohama no Hito" (Woman of Yokohama).

(karaoke version)

Released in April 1979, some years after the release of the above songs in the "Hito" series, it's definitely got a similar jaunty vibe to the first and arguably the most famous in the series, "Hakodate no Hito"（函館の女）from 1965, although the opening caught me off guard with its rather unusual descending synthpop schtick. And just like "Hakodate no Hito" and the others that I've mentioned, Tetsuro Hoshino and Nobuo Shimazu（星野哲郎・島津伸男）created "Yokohama no Hito". Lyrically, the protagonist here has come to Japan's 2nd-most populous city to find the woman of his dreams since apparently his ailing mother may have surreptitiously intended for the two to come together in love. Yokohama is a nice metropolis to be sure, but it can also be pretty pricey as well.

If I'm not mistaken, I cottoned onto Kitajima's "Yokohama no Hito" after hearing it on an NHK documentary series about taxis around the world. It must have been a 2020 episode since the producers were forced to focus on the domestic industry due to COVID-19 instead of flying out to other nations. The only question that I have about the "Hito" series is why each of the songs has that precise wording in the title since the kanji is actually the one for "woman" or onna.