We had our share of heavy rain last week, and the only thing that I fretted about was whether one of our rooms would be getting flooded once more. That is of course a huge pain.
But according to singer Hachiro Kasuga（春日八郎）, his memories of downpours are far more romantic ones...and apparently very local. The title of his 1957 enka, "An Tokya Doshaburi" (There Was a Downpour Back Then), and the lyrics by Ryo Yano（矢野亮）seem to be done up in a dialect but I can't really pinpoint which one. Is it Edokko (Tokyo) or something from his home prefecture of Fukushima?
Whichever is the case, "An Tokya Doshaburi" is a mellow and slightly woozy enka tune with Kasuga's protagonist remembering back to some love, perhaps first sighted during a very rainy day or night. Maybe the lens of that memory is the bottom of a glass of beer or some other strong libation but along with composer Toshio Saeki's（佐伯としを）addition of the rain, comes a trombone to add a slightly tipsy element to the old kayo arrangement.
Not sure how the song did back then, but Kasuga did appear on the 1976 Kohaku Utagassen on New Year's Eve, his 18th out of 21 appearances on the special, to perform it.
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