Yosui Inoue -- Kasa ga nai（傘がない）

 

I guess Kayo Grace Kyoku and Mr. Calico are waiting for that bus or train while it's raining cats and dogs (no offense to Mr. Calico). Wasn't aware that Kayo's pet and manager was willing to go au naturel but perhaps it's Wednesday. But yeah, yesterday was one for the ages, meteorologically speaking (although we've been getting warned now that the situation will be normalizing over the next few decades) as the Greater Toronto Area got walloped with a month's worth of rain within a few hours yesterday. Half of the city got its power knocked out and a lot of streets including our Don Valley Parkway were transformed into bodies of water. Even hip-hop singer Drake's palatial mansion in the northern part of Toronto suffered major flooding in the basement. 

Well, we're all drying ourselves off from the Storm of 2024 today, and as such, I've decided to start today's edition of KKP with something rain-themed. The blog has included many songs along that theme such as Iruka's（イルカ）"Ame no Monogatari"（雨の物語）and Chisato Moritaka's（森高千里）"Ame"（雨）.

Yosui Inoue（井上陽水）wrote and composed his 2nd single for release in July 1972, "Kasa ga nai" (I Have No Umbrella) with Katsu Hoshi（星勝）handling the arrangements. Incidentally, I first heard this song (without knowing anything about it) when Inoue himself appeared on an episode of the Fuji-TV comedy-variety show "Tunnels no Minna-san no Okage desu"（とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです）to goof about with The Tunnels. With the three of them decked out in exaggerated versions of Inoue's old 1970s big hair, it was a bit jarring to hear the singer himself blurt out something about suicide in that toothy grin of his, but then that was the only word I could really understand from the lyrics at that time so I had no context.

As it turns out though, "Kasa ga nai" wasn't about suicide despite the rather melancholy folksy melody. It was about a young man reading about the suicide rate growing in Japan but then throwing out all thoughts of society's ills and wringing his hands instead on the fact that he really wanted to see his girlfriend but didn't have an umbrella to get to her place despite the storm happening outside. From what I've read on the J-Wiki writeup regarding "Kasa ga nai", Inoue was taking a mildly sarcastic approach as he created one of his trademark tunes at a time when the student protest movements were still pushing through with folk songs being one of the musical weapons in the arsenal. However, by the time that the song finally got out onto record store shelves, folk music had started losing its political edge and became something more self-centered in the New Music sphere of things. So, it ironically went from being a satirical joust to a harbinger of the times, and Inoue admitted that had never been his intent with this song. Ahhh....oops?

"Kasa ga nai" peaked at No. 69 on Oricon but it also ended up as a track on Inoue's debut album "Danzetsu"（断絶...Severance） which was released in May 1972. The album was a Top 10 finisher by coming in at No. 8 on the weeklies but it eventually became the No. 7 album of 1974.