MoJo -- Dr. Yellow（Dr.イエロー）

 

Well, for the Japanese train enthusiasts, the news today was one of sadness, poignancy and gratitude. The popular Shinkansen-class Dr. Yellow diagnostic trains are going to be gradually put out to pasture by 2027. So, there's still a while to go before not being able to see these banana-coloured Bullet Trains rushing by, but still the news probably had their fans sighing wistfully. 

One thing I found out today was that the schedule for Dr. Yellow trains has never been made public so catching sight of one of them racing by is treated as a very rare and precious achievement. In fact, many have deemed a sighting as a sign of good luck. People have announced that they have won lotteries or got treated to some great dishes at restaurants because of it. 

As such, I went to see if there had ever been a song in tribute to Dr. Yellow, and sure enough, there was one called "Dr. Yellow" by singer-songwriter MoJo. According to his Wikipedia entry, MoJo was born Ichiro Tomita（富田伊知郎）in Chiba Prefecture and he specializes in folk songs, anison and tokusatsu soundtracks. Written by Hiroo Takada（高田ひろお）and composed by MoJo under his real name, it's been described as having an 80s rock n' roll beat with plenty of twang. One wonders whether they'll play this on the good Doctor's last day of service.

I'm not 100% sure of when "Dr. Yellow" had been recorded but I did find a lot of entries via the Yahoo Japan search engine that it had been placed into a 2004 DVD titled "Uta no Kagakukan Series: Norimono no Uta ~ Densha to Kikansha Hen"（歌の科学館シリーズ: のりものの歌 ～でんしゃ･きかんしゃ編～...Music Science Museum Series: Vehicle Songs ~ Train and Locomotive Edition）. In any event, now that its retirement has been announced, it's all very likely that folks will be straining to catch any sight of Dr. Yellow to squeeze out that drop of luck.