Sachiko Kobayashi -- Ibara no Ki（茨の木）

 

It was at the end of last month that I put up the article on my three favourite Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子）songs in tribute to her 60th anniversary in show business. And that was through her appearance on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新・BS日本のうた...Songs of Japanese Spirit） where she also performed what I had assumed was a new song by her.

But in actual fact though, "Ibara no Ki" (Tree of Thorns) was her 88th single released in October 2012. Written and performed by veteran folksy singer-songwriter Masashi Sada（さだまさし）, the song about going through all of the rough stuff to attain some level of happiness as analogized through nature has been categorized as an enka tune, which is indeed Kobayashi's genre. However, considering that this is Sada who is involved here and just listening to the arrangement, I can't even say that this is some form of neo-enka ballad. This actually strikes me as being more of the hybrid genre of New Adult Music with the enka liquor being mixed with a Fashion Music tonic, so perhaps not so much of a traditional Japanese song but something that has a fair bit of European elegance infused here. On the Oricon regular chart, it scored a No. 38 but on the more specific enka and even indies charts, "Ibara no Ki" managed to peak at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively.