Hiromi Iwasaki -- Hiren Hakusho（悲恋白書）

 

One of the themes that I've been seeing among kayo kyoku ever since I started this blog 10 years ago is the one where depressing lyrics have been underpinned by some of the most cheerful melodies. I've come across yet another example.

If I hadn't gained any knowledge of Japanese but still fell in love with kayo kyoku, I would have thought that judging from the happy-go-lucky melody, Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）April 1977 9th single, "Hiren Hakusho" (Heartbreak Story), was a song involving a lass merrily picking daisies and tra-la-la-ing down the garden path. But as the translation of that title shows, Yu Aku's（阿久悠）lyrics talk of a young lady who has just been dumped by her now erstwhile boyfriend for another woman. She's not too subtle about her woe-is-me situation either.

The cheerful music was provided by Katsuo Ono（大野克夫）, the famed composer who has been known more for his cool-and-tough stuff such as the theme songs for the "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）cop show in the 1970s and the long-running "Meitantei Conan"（名探偵コナン...Detective Conan） anime series. Ono also worked on a number of Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）tunes such as his hit "Katte ni Shiyagare"（勝手にしやがれ）which came out about a month following Iwasaki's "Hiren Hakusho". The songwriting is also notable in that it was the first time in Iwasaki's young career that composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）hadn't been involved at all.

"Hiren Hakusho" was another Top 10 hit for the singer, placing in at No. 8, and it ended the year as the 80th-ranked single. Iwasaki also got invited onto the Kohaku Utagassen for the third time at the end of 1977 for this song. According to J-Wiki (although there is no source listed for this information) she had actually been supposed to sing her even more acclaimed hit "Shishuuki"（思秋期）but the complexity in adapting it for her time on the New Year's Eve program made the powers-that-be ask her to sing "Hiren Hakusho" instead. By the way, the song was also included on her 4th original album "With Best Friends"（ウィズ・ベスト・フレンズ）which came out in May 1977 with a No. 7 ranking on the Oricon weeklies.

Watching the above footage of her perform deceptively cheerful "Hiren Hakusho" on the Kohaku, I realized that all of my viewings of Iwasaki on the special when I was but a (not-so-) wee lad were not just her 80s appearances but also ones where she was singing some of those moodier and more mature songs. She did sing those happy-go-lucky ones, after all. 

One other observation is the whole thing about "hakusho"（白書）. I've seen the term used for other pop songs and as parts of titles for television dramas. On Jisho.org, the translation for "hakusho" is "white paper" as in a government report. However, I could hardly imagine the young woman in "Hiren Hakusho" sadly typing up her heartbreak in legalese and in triplicate with her signature and that of a witness. Therefore, I gather that "hakusho" is probably more of a story to be told to friends or even a diary entry.