Sumako Matsui -- Katyusha no Uta（カチューシャの唄）

 

Writing the blog for over a decade will bring its fair share of rhetorical questions regarding music to ponder. One such question is "What was the first kayo kyoku?". It would be nice to know the answer considering the title of this blog is "Kayo Kyoku Plus". And just to remind folks, kayo kyoku means "popular song".

According to both J-Wiki and Wikipedia, the first kayo kyoku, or at least what has been considered to be the great ancestor to the modern Japanese pop song, is "Katyusha no Uta" (Katyusha's Song) which was sung by singer-actress Sumako Matsui（松井須磨子）in 1914 for a play performed in Tokyo which was based on Leo Tolstoy's 1899 novel "Resurrection". With lyrics by Hougetsu Shimamura and Gyoufuu Souma（島村抱月・相馬御風）and melody by Shinpei Nakayama（中山晋平）, "Katyusha no Uta" is about the sad parting of lovers although the story of Tolstoy's "Resurrection" is more about the horrific treatment and abandonment of the young girl Katyusha.

Not being a musicologist, something that I've mentioned throughout the blog for years, I still kept seeing the term in Japanese and English, major pentatonic scale, whenever "Katyusha no Uta" popped up anywhere, so my assumption that as with the kayo kyoku that was to follow, this particular song, seen as the predecessor of all kayo kyoku, may have both Japanese and Western musical elements. But being released in the Taisho Era, the term ryūkōka（流行歌...popular song） was used, years before kayo kyoku was used to mean "popular song" in the following Showa Era under Emperor Hirohito. 

"Katyusha no Uta" became a national hit, selling around 27,000 records and was even performed by street artists all throughout Japan and perhaps beyond. It's also been covered by many singers in the decades since its first appearance including the Queen of Kayo Kyoku herself, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, and folk singer Tokiko Kato（加藤登紀子）.