Frank Nagai -- Fuyuko to Iu Onna（冬子という女）

April 26 2023: I was given the correction for the title earlier today from commenter Yurihan on the proper reading of the title. It is indeed "Fuyuko to Iu Onna" according to the romaji reading of the single cover as located on the Amazon site given to me in the comments below. However, I am leaving the text that I had originally typed in as is so that you can see why Yurihan made the comment without any confusion although the title on the byline has now been corrected.

 

Hmmm...usually it's been with the names of the singers or songwriters that I've sometimes run into reading problems. This time, though, it's the title although I think I may have a handle on it due to coming across similarly titled kayo over the years. 

By the way, I am talking about a 1964 single by the late Frank Nagai（フランク永井）, "Fuyuko to Iu Hito" (A Woman Named Fuyuko). I tried searching for the proper reading of that original title as you can see above as usual but I couldn't find anything and the lyrics by Takao Saeki（佐伯孝雄）don't have the title in there. The title if read directly would come out as "Fuyuko to Iu Onna" but I know that enka legend Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）has had his "Hito" (which actually means "person" in English) series of songs based on a woman and a certain geographical area in Japan. For example, there is "Hakodate no Hito"（函館の女...Woman of Hakodate） and "Onomichi no Hito"（尾道の女...Woman of Onomichi）.

Although I hadn't been too sure about why the furigana would say "hito" over the kanji of "onna" when I wrote about Sabu-chan's "Hakodate no Hito", perhaps now I can give a theory. Maybe to refer to "onna" instead of "onna no hito" in the title is a little too rude and abrupt, but the full expression may just be a bit too long for titular purposes. And so, a compromise was made, but again, that's just my theory.

In any case, Nagai's "Fuyuko to Iu Hito" was created by kayo veterans, lyricist Saeki and composer Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）, in the form of a stringent tango. The cover has Nagai looking rather pensive over this drink and that's because he is worried and he cares greatly for Fuyuko, a woman that he's probably seen in the drinking joints doing her duties all the while she's hiding great pain inside. He would love to help her but circumstances may indeed be preventing him from doing so. Isn't that a typical kayo for you?