Masashi Sada -- Sora ni Naru（空になる）

 

Japan is a mountainous country and as such, a lot of its citizens adore going mountain climbing. The reasons include exercise, a love of the outdoors and just the fact that they are there to paraphrase Sir Edmund Hillary. None of those reasons apply to me, though. I've always enjoyed the flat earth although I have to admit that at some point in my time in Gunma Prefecture, I did go up on a bit of a hike with some people up a small mountain close to Mt. Tanigawa. How I survived that, I'm not sure. Still I've known folks, including my old English circle of middle-aged ladies, who've been happy walking up and down mountains.

One NHK BS (which stands for Broadcast Satellite) show that has always been on TV Japan all these years is "Nippon Hyaku Meizan"（にっぽん百名山...Japan's 100 Famous Mountains）, a half-hour series that has been on since 2012 showcasing climbs up some of those titular peaks of fame throughout the Japanese archipelago. So I've been getting my mountain climbing done vicariously.

For such a program featuring the grand union of sky and land, NHK contacted longtime folk singer-songwriter Masashi Sada（さだまさし）to come up with the theme. And the result was "Sora ni Naru" (Become the Sky), a relaxing and atmospheric tune that well accompanies the climb and the triumphant if tiring accomplishment of reaching the top of the peak. There's no grand orchestral heft with "Sora ni Naru"; it's just some light instruments including Sada's voice under Takayuki Hattori's（服部隆之） arrangement to get the climbers close enough to touch the sky.