Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band -- Shimendouka（四面道歌）

 

Yesterday, I wrote an article on Ryuichi Sakamoto's（坂本龍一）October 1978 "Thousand Knives"（千のナイフ）album and mentioned that the year was a fairly busy one for the members who would become the legendary Yellow Magic Orchestra: Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）. Along with Sakamoto's debut solo album, Takahashi had his "Saravah!" and Hosono had a couple of albums earlier that year: April's "Paraiso" and then "Cochin Moon" in September.

Referring back to yesterday's article, I noted that the liner notes in "Thousand Knives" also mentioned that some of the tracks there hinted at what Sakamoto was going to do as part of YMO with the technopop flourishes and all that. I then saw a similar thing written about Hosono's "Paraiso"（はらいそ）on its Wikipedia article in that he also brought in some of those electronic sounds that would characterize that band's own material.

Maybe then, that is what I'm hearing from one track on "Paraiso" (which is officially under the name of Harry Hosono and the Yellow Magic Band), "Shimendouka" which I tried to translate as "Four-Sided Ethical Poetry". The Wikipedia entry on the album stated that although it continued to show off Hosono's tropical New Music style from the 1970s, there were those bloops and bleeps as well. I gather then that "Shimendouka" is fairly representative with the tropics coming in via those steel drums followed by some of that technopop through some tinkly synths.

It's definitely very cheerful and laid-back, and it was written and composed by Hosono. As for that title, a douka（道歌）, according to Jisho.org, is an ethical form of tanka poetry with a lesson at the end, so I gather that it's the Japanese equivalent of a fable. Harry's lyrics happen to hint that a fellow is walking off to a much happier land, perhaps the paradise mentioned in the album title, and that he's more than willing to shove any devils out of the way. In each verse, he mentions that he will be going through a door in the west, an ocean in the south, a sky in the east and finally an island in the north, so that would explain the four-sided part.

You can also take a gander at "Tokyo Rush"（東京ラッシュ）which begins the album.