Columbia Rhythm Boys -- Tarinai Song (タリナイ・ソング)

Sa-sa, minna-san, kiite kudasai, Tarinai Song da!

You know it's gonna be a banger when the first piece of information you get from the song was that it was banned.

Imagine: Japan has been at war for three years (officially, at least). Resources are stretched thinner than before; whatever that could be scraped together was sent overseas for the soldiers stationed abroad. This is stacked on top of the worsening economic situation and poor harvests.

Tarinai tarinai okome ga tarinai (Ain’t enough, ain’t enough, ain’t enough rice!)

Poverty’s stranglehold has never been tighter, morale has never been lower, and the patience is wearing thin over the war that's been dragging out for way longer than it should. Yet, the government calls for greater austerity and condemning any smidgen of decadence, from painting your nails to "overly" sentimental songs.

Nante iu yatsu genki ga tarinai (Get a load of this guy! You just ain't got enough pluck!)

And then, you have "Tarinai Song" (The Not Enough Song) recorded by the Columbia Rhythm Boys and set for release. It was September 1940. Jazz and blues aficionado Ryoichi Hattori (服部良一) had come up with a catchy, rumba-inspired number to accompany the bold words by lead tenor Hideo Akiyama (秋山日出夫) and the rest of the quartet. As with all songs at the time, it was sent in to the record censors for vetting. 

Mattaku tarinai tarinai tarinai tarinai tarinai yo-- (Absolutely ain't enough! Ain't enough! x4)

Banned.

I don't remember where I heard/read it, maybe it was my usual "Osakabe-Takehei Showa no Utagoe" (刑部たけ平昭和の歌声), or maybe it was in R. Hatter's autobiography, but the idea was to create something that would lift public spirits with a comical tune like this. I appreciate the thought, bois, but y'all flew too close to the sun, as hilarious as the song is. Basically, "Tarinai Song" had the Rhythm Boys complaining about the lack of something, be it rice, money, the concern for the state of emergency, or the affection of the young lady working the cigarette stand. And for every concern, there'll be a retort like, "You ain't working enough! (That's why you got no money!)" The humour is on-brand and it may have even been considered a "Nonsense song." Yet, I don’t think I’ve ever come across a more accurate picture of pre-Pacific-War Japan. However, "Tarinai Song" is so on the nose in highlighting the lack the war is causing and kicking down the Imperial government's façade that all's fine on the resource front that I'm surprised they thought it'd survive inspection. 

As you may have noticed, the word “tarinai” (meaning a lack of/not enough) in the title is presented in katakana like so タリナイ, and was mostly written as such in the lyrics rather than in kanji where it may have looked like this 足りない. Since the advent of the 2nd Sino-Japanese War in late 1937 brought about a tighter grip on media censorship, I reckon that the Rhythm Boys and dear Hattori sensei were trying to skirt the system by making the word less obvious. Kinda like how YouTubers skirt the platform's auto-censorship by replacing letters with funky characters or numbers. But with the lyrics' meaning clear as day and with how our four jazzy bois were pretty much howling out their dissatisfaction at the state of things, “Tarinai Song” may as well had a “Ban me!” (禁止頂戴) sticker pasted over it in big, bold, red words. And so the censors gladly obliged. 

(Noelle from 25/1/24: I relooked at the original lyric card during a trip to the NDL today; record event organizer Tadaaki Kitakawa (北河忠昭) had also kindly shared the image on Twitter. Unlike the "Ketteiban..." album's liner notes that mostly used タリナイ, the original lyrics actually predominantly used 足りない,while タリナイ was used in reference to the song's name. So much for skirting the system. It's as if our bois just dumped a thimble of water on their heads and straight-up walked into the fire. I know record censorship was known to be comparatively sloppy, but I'm impressed "Tarinai Song" got as far as having its lyric card published in the official Columbia Records monthly entertainment magazines. Way to go, fellas.)

Despite the fate of "Tarinai Song," Hiroyuki Kondo (近藤博之), who'd written a full-on thesis on Tadaharu Nakano (中野忠晴) and contributed information and commentary to the liner notes of his centenary album "Ketteiban Nakano Tadaharu to Columbia Nakano Rhythm Boys" (決定版中野忠晴とコロムビア・ナカノ・リズム・ボーイズ), wrote in the latter that by a stroke of luck, the original recording was found after the war. This was how "Tarinai Song" managed to make a comeback, the former appearing in Mr. Nakano compilations in recent years like this centenary one. I'm so glad it did because it's fantastic. Likely within my Top 10 Hattori Melody - maybe I should make that list.

Speaking of Mr. Nakano, "Tarinai Song" was just recorded by the Rhythm Boys themselves without him, which may explain the lack of a "Nakano" in the quartet's name for this tune. The quartet did their own activities without the lead vocalist from time to time. Still, the group with or without Mr. Nakano didn’t seem like particular strangers to potentially controversial yet humourous songs chock full of social critique. Just a few years prior, they did a cover of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” titled “Fukeiki Nanka?” (不景気なんか？... Is there, like, a recession?), but the titular wolf was economic recession and the three little pigs were three wretched university graduates who couldn’t seem to find employment despite their qualifications… Good thing times have changed and songs like "Fukeiki Nanka?" and "Tarinai Song" aren't that relevant, right, guys? *Puts on clown wig and make-up* Right, guys?

*Information on the state of Japanese society before the Pacific War mainly came from my understanding of "Grassroots Fascism" (Yoshiaki Yoshimi), and the prewar-wartime record censorship came from "Tokyo Boogie-Woogie" (Hiromu Nagahara).

P.S. Sometime last week, I was at the National Diet Library doing my usual resource dredging, and while looking through the archives of prewar Columbia Records' monthly music almanacs, I came across the promotional pamphlet for "Tarinai Song." It had the cheeky faces of the Rhythm Boys next to the song lyrics. The guys speed-ran record bans and I'm impressed it managed to get that far before getting the axe... Why was I looking through Columbia Records' prewar archives when Hachi was from postwar King Records? Well, I'd been studying Hachi's and King's resources beforehand. And - I mean - Columbia was one of the modern Japanese music industry's old guard. *Sweats nervously* It's good to know more about kayo history, y'know. I certainly wasn't looking for snaps of a certain singer from that company from that period of time whose initials are N.T. ( ºωº; )

P.S.S. Speaking of Hattori, I've recently gone to another record appreciation event featuring the Father of J-Pop organized by the same fellas who brought Ichiro Fujiyama and Roppa Furukawa to life last year. It's split into 2 parts with the 2nd half in early February. I'll be sure to do a reflection piece after that. Apparently, Part II is gonna feature Hattori's hit ryukoka. I love me some Hattori Melody, so I'm looking forward to it.