Katsuhiko Miki -- Hana wa Osokatta（花はおそかった）

 

Whether it be a Mood Kayo, enka or even City Pop song, it's always sad when one of those numbers depicts someone trying to move heaven and earth to express their feelings to the one they love, only for them to be just that one second too late...sometimes as they see the target of their affections drive or walk off with their rival. It's enough for protagonist and listener to head for the nearest bar to get a drink...or ten.

For those who have wondered about a typical kayo of that sort, I have the perfect romantically down-and-out ballad for you. This is Katsuhiko Miki's（美樹克彦）"Hana wa Osokatta" (The Flowers Were Late) which was a hit single for him when it was released in March 1967. Written by Tetsuro Hoshino（星野哲郎）and composed by Masao Yoneyama（米山正夫）, the setting is probably a bar of some sort where a guy is drowning his sorrows because he simply couldn't get those crocuses for Kaoru-chan in time and now she's gone. The seething frustration is clear to hear in Miki's vocals and the arrangement is dramatically sad.

I don't know how many records "Hana wa Osokatta" sold although I'm sure that it was a hit especially with the lovelorn because Miki did get his sole invitation to NHK's Kohaku Utagassen in 1967 to perform this very song. However, according to Miki's J-Wiki article, there was some quaint controversy accompanying him coming onto the New Year's Eve special since there was that final word of anguish: BAKAYARO（バカヤロー）! As Captain America has said: Language!

Back then, I guess that it was rather taboo to yell that sort of word on the national broadcaster, although perhaps Miki broke the mold. Afterwards, male aidoru have used bakayaro in their lyrics such as Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）in "Shiroi Kyokai"（白い教会...White Church） and Masahiko Kondo（近藤真彦）in "Blue Jeans Memory"（ブルー・ジーンズ・メモリー）. Mind you, when I wrote up the article for "Blue Jeans Memory" years ago, considering how strongly Matchy yelled that offending word, I did take it to mean the F word instead of what Jisho.org defines as "Damn it!" or "You moron!". Maybe listeners to "Hana wa Osokatta" also felt that it was that strong an epithet, but in the end, NHK still welcomed him to the Kohaku with his bakayaro intact.

One other surprise is that, as I already stated, Miki only had that one appearance on the Kohaku since many years later in the 1980s, he had that hit duet with enka singer Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子）, "Moshikashite Part 2" （もしかして・パート２）, which was frequently performed on television and sung in the karaoke bars and boxes. I would have expected that with such a hit that Miki and Kobayashi appeared together on the Kohaku. But as it turned out, only Kobayashi got to appear to sing the Miki-penned "Moshikashite" as a solo participant.