Go-Touchi Songs（ご当地ソング）: Hokkaido and the Tohoku region

 

When we were watching the venerable historical TV drama "Mito Komon"（水戸黄門）as kids, I noticed that each episode followed a set pattern. It would start out with the disguised former vice-shogun Tokugawa and his heroic party entering a certain area in which by coincidence, someone was being victimized by evil officials. Then, there would be the gradual infiltration and investigation of the crimes being committed before the final sword-flashing mayhem takes place. Then, Tokugawa's samurai retainer would whip out the inro case near the end showing the villains and victims alike that justice has arrived and will be served.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find that particular scene on YouTube, but I'd like to go back to one of those tropes of "Mito Komon". I'm not sure if this had been the case with every episode, but whenever Tokugawa and his band entered a region, one of them, the ever-famished Hachibei, would always remark (or swoon) that the area was famous for some sort of food. And this was where I got my first hint that the prefectures and territories of Japan prided themselves on some aspect that set themselves apart. Yup, food was and is one example.

But of course, this is a music blog and not a foodie-based one. Watching the most recent episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the theme was go-touchi kayo or songs that made the case for a certain city, region or prefecture, often with the name of such place as part of the song's title. I've been hearing the term for years now, but last week's episode finally sparked within me the idea of putting up some of those geographically based tunes up here. By the way, the above video by YouTuber Roman Hiko gives a full rundown on the go-touchi songs for the entire country so that ought to give you folks a good grounding of what we're talking about here.

Let's consider this particular article the first of a short weekly series of go-touchi songs representing areas of Japan, and for this week, I'm going to cover the northern area including Hokkaido（北海道）and the Tohoku（東北）region (Aomori, Akita, Miyagi, Iwate, Yamagata and Fukushima Prefectures). Obviously, my humble list is way too small, but I just wanted to display some of the songs. As well, you can check out the J-Wiki link to see the whole kit and kaboodle of go-touchi tunes.

1. Hibari Misora -- Ringo Oiwake （リンゴ追分）for Aomori (1952)

2. Saburo Kitajima -- Hakodate no Hito （函館の女）for Hakodate in Hokkaido (1965)

3. Masayoshi Tsuruoka & Tokyo Romantica -- Otaru no Hito yo （小樽のひとよ）for Otaru in Hokkaido (1967)

4. Masao Sen -- Kitaguni no Haru (北国の春）for the Tohoku region in general (1977)

5. Sayuri Ishikawa -- Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki （津軽海峡・冬景色）for Aomori (1977)

6. Muneyuki Sato -- Aoba-jo Koi Uta （青葉城恋唄）for Sendai in Miyagi (1978)

7. Yuji Mori and Southern Cross -- Suki desu Sapporo（好きですサッポロ）for Sapporo in Hokkaido (1981)

I'll go into the Kanto area next week. By the way, I know that I said above that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" isn't a foodie blog, but I will simply leave this article with a couple of dishes from Hokkaido and the Tohoku region: jingisukan（ジンギスカン）and kiritanpo（きりたんぽ...Akita, to be specific） respectively.