Carol -- Namida no Teddy Boy（涙のテディボーイ）

 

One of the things that representatives in the media and commercial industries in Japan love to do is announce special days based on the perceived pronunciation of certain numbers in a date. So, basically every 29th day in a month would be considered to be Meat Day or niku no hi（肉の日）because the "ni" and "ku" can correspond to the pronunciation of "2" and "9" respectively. A day in a specific month can also be manipulated similarly; for example, today is June 9th（6月9日） or the sixth month's ninth day, and with "6" being "roku" abbreviated into "ro", and once again "9" being "ku", a special day can be made from the merger into "rokku"...namely rokku no hi（ロックの日）or Rock Day. 

(Yup, it didn't last.)

Well, today on Rock Day in Japan, NHK interviewed the one-and-only Eikichi Yazawa（矢沢永吉）, charismatic rock singer-songwriter and former leader of the 1970s rock band Carol（キャロル）. I'm not sure how long the above video will last on YouTube, but this is the very interview that I saw this morning with Yazawa who is apparently such a force of nature that the network typed his name in all caps. Although he definitely doesn't look like a spring chicken, he hardly looks anything like his 72 years either...maybe 15 years younger. The rockin' has been a fountain of youth for him. In addition, my inability to gauge people's height is still fully engaged. I'd assumed that he was a fairly short fellow but actually he towers over me since he's 180 cm tall. In fact, the interviewer, news anchor Minoru Aoi（青井実）who's likely the tallest on-air personality for the network at 185 cm, didn't have to hunch over and look down at his subject this time around.

In any case during the interview, it was made plenty clear that Yazawa (or YAZAWA) is more than rarin' to go and hit the concert circuit once again after a few years of the pandemic. I can only hope that I have that much energy (the height is out of the question, of course) when I hit the big Seven Two.

After reading up some of the long file on Carol on J-Wiki, I thought it was a tad ironic that NHK and Yazawa had such a cordial conversation at the Tokyo stadium since decades ago in the 1970s, the national network and the three big newspapers in Japan representing mass media had taken a very harsh stance against rock music in general. Carol basically boycotted NHK and apparently that action brought it a lot of popularity from young people. But I'm gathering that the hatchet between them was buried a long time ago.

In any case, allow me to bring "Namida no Teddy Boy" (Tears for Teddy Boy), Carol's 8th of 10 singles that were released before the band broke up. Released in February 1974 several months after their biggest hit, "Funky Monkey Baby" (ファンキー・モンキー・ベイビー), it's an appropriately winter-set rock n' roll song about paying tribute to the title character who may have gone far away or died, and even the coming of the spring hasn't dried those tears yet. The upbeat melody is still plenty jaunty as Yazawa sings this. The singer provided the music while his bandmate Johnny Okura（ジョニー大倉）came up with the bittersweet lyrics.