Kazuhiko Shima/Naomi Chiaki -- Etsuraku no Blues（悦楽のブルース）

 

Around this time in 2017, I wrote about "Ame no Yoru Anata wa Kaeru"（雨の夜あなたは帰る）by singer Kazuhiko Shima（島和彦）which ended up as a hit that earned him a place at the 1966 edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen and then it was later covered by smoky-voiced Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）some years later.

However, "Ame no Yoru Anata wa Kaeru" wasn't the first song by Shima. His debut single, "Etsuraku no Blues" (Pleasure Blues), was released in August 1965 but it hit a wave of controversy. Obviously the single was made and sold (and just to warn listeners, the above recording gets a little jumpy near the end), but it was banned from being broadcast on radio and, I'm also assuming, television. According to one Japanese blog, it was given the evil eye by the government for 1) being the theme song for a Nagisa Oshima（大島渚）movie titled "Etsuraku"（悦楽...Pleasure） which was considered an adult flick, and 2) it was considered to give off unwanted images of moral decay, nihilism and pessimism. 

The same songwriting duo behind "Ame no Yoru Anata wa Kaeru", lyricist Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and composer Toru Funamura（船村徹）, was also responsible for "Etsuraku no Blues". Listening to it now, it comes off as the prototypically languid Mood Kayo with the usual bluesy saxophone and a softly galloping beat. If I've understood Yoshioka's lyrics correctly, the story is of a woman, most likely a hostess, languishing in a bar as she waits for a client that she's fallen for but knows that he'll end up leaving her as her past paramours have.

The above is the trailer for Oshima's "Etsuraku", and the music used certainly seems to take it into psychological horror territory. I notice that one of the cast is a very young Mariko Kaga（加賀まりこ）who would become one of the hosts on Fuji-TV's long-running "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）music program. In any case, having his debut single shot down from the radio and television must have been quite a blow to Shima's prospects but obviously things got much better with his next few recordings.

If anything, Naomi Chiaki's cover of "Etsuraku no Blues" sounds even jauntier with an even deeper-sounding saxophone intro. The arrangement makes the song come across as an ironically cheerful Mood Kayo with its slightly faster tempo. Chiaki's delivery has her protagonist hostess feeling more wistfully resigned to her fate and standing in society as if she's saying "Well, tomorrow is another day". I don't know when her version originally came out but it is included in that 2007 album of hers giving tribute to the late composer Funamura that I mentioned in the article for "Ame no Yoru Anata wa Kaeru".