Wakako Maruyama -- Kokoro no Niji（心の虹）

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At first, when I heard this July 1932 record, "Kokoro no Niji" (The Rainbow of My Heart) by singer Wakako Maruyama（丸山和歌子）, I thought it was the legendary Masao Koga（古賀政男）behind its composition. My impression came by because of that particular guitar plucking in the intro, but the music was actually created by Shigeru Tamura（田村しげる）with lyrics by Koichi Hamano（浜野耕一）.

Maruyama, who was born in the Kanda district of Tokyo in 1905, was known for her especially high soprano, and that's certainly made clear in "Kokoro no Niji", a song about a woman pining for that special someone one night under the moon glowing through her bedroom window. Also because of that Koga reference, I was also left wondering whether "Kokoro no Niji" could be seen as an enka tune although the traditional genre only began retroactively from the 1950s and 1960s, but I can gather that at the time, it was more than likely treated as a kayo kyoku.

The singer started her career on the stage in 1931, but then moved to the recording booth before moving back to the stage again in 1937. According to a music writer's accounts from Maruyama's family, she was killed during the Tokyo air bombings in 1945. However, some 74 years later in 2019, a CD collection of 23 of her songs was released titled "Naicha Ikenai Maruyama Wakako no Heya 1931-1936"（泣いちゃいけない 丸山和歌子の部屋 1931-1936...You Mustn't Cry ~ Wakako Maruyama's Room）.