Kyu Sakamoto -- Letkiss (Jenkka) 「レットキス（ジェンカ）」

 

Last night's NHK "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode was something that I knew would be the final one for 2021 since the host mentioned that it would be the bonenkai（忘年会）show, and whenever that word is cited, then I know that we won't be seeing any more "Uta Con" until early January. Therefore it was the usual end-of-year party silliness among the hosts and guests which included veteran enka singer Takashi Hosokawa（細川たかし）and vivacious pop singer Kumi Koda（倖田來未）.

Some of that atmosphere was further relayed via a segment in which a number of folks on stage got together in what I had thought would be a conga line, but instead of a tropical dance number, the song was more of a circus-like polka with a lot of hopping and stepping. Although there isn't any footage of that part of "Uta Con" on YouTube, I did find a fine example of this dance above through The Function's YouTube channel. 

The title flashed up on the screen in katakana but I was able to find the original spelling which is "Jenkka", and it actually refers to a Finnish folk dance that apparently has two different forms, the line version as shown above and then the more whirling type for couples that you can see here. As for that former form, it is performed alongside a folk song from Finland known as a letkiss, if I'm not mistaken (and if I am, I hope the KKP fans from that nation will correct me).

That line version sounds like just the thing for the participants in a year-end party who are filled to the brim with alcohol and food. And so, the kayo powers-that-be back in the 1960s saw a good thing in Finland and had their own versions recorded. According to the J-Wiki article on the jenkka, singers Nana Kinomi（木の実ナナ）and Michi Aoyama（青山ミチ）released jenkka-based tunes around 1965. However, I believe that it was Kyu Sakamoto's（坂本九）September 1966 take on the dance that was used on "Uta Con" last night, so I will go with that.

The single has been labeled in Sakamoto's discography on J-Wiki as I have put it above in the title line, but as you can see in the thumbnail above, it looks like the word "Jenkka" won the day on the single's cover. Whichever Finnish term you prefer, Sakamoto puts his usual cheerfully encouraging spin through the Japanese lyrics provided by Rokusuke Ei（永六輔）, the same fellow who wrote the words for Kyu's most famous song "Ue wo Muite Arukou" (上を向いて歩こう). In a bit of lyrical cheekiness by Ei, the fellow made the opportunity of the similar pronunciation between letkiss and "Let's kiss!".

To finish off, even anime icon Crayon Shin-chan（クレヨンしんちゃん）and his buddies defused a crisis by utilizing the eternal power of jenkka.