MONO NO AWARE -- Kamukamo-Shikamo-Nidomokamo!（かむかもしかもにどもかも!）

From YouTube

 

Raw wheat, raw rice, raw eggs!

Doesn't do much for you? Something a really proud farmer would say?

Well, try the Japanese version and say it three times fast: nama mugi, nama gome, nama tamago! （生麦生米生卵）

If you were able to do that without dislocating your tongue, congratulations! You've entered the world of hayakuchi kotoba（早口言葉）. Basically, these are the Japanese equivalent of tongue twisters.

Indeed, Japan has its version of "Peter Piper picked a peck of peppers!". My mother once showed me a picture book filled with hayakuchi kotoba...fairly stumbled around those so I gave up quickly. However, I saw the pros handle it like pros when I watched the comedy group The Drifters（ドリフターズ）and a few guests do them all to a funky beat on "Hachi-ji da yo! Zen'in Shuugo"（八時だよ！全員集合）back in the 1970s.

Commenter Rob recently informed me of a couple of bands who had opted to dive into hayakuchi kotoba through song as well. There is the guitar pop-rock band MONO NO AWARE whose raison d'etre is playing around with the sounds and meanings of words, and so this particular song of theirs must have been right up their alley. In fact, their "Kamukamo-Shikamo-Nidomokamo!"(It Might Bite, It Might Bite!) was something that I'd heard on the NHK kids' music segment "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた） some months ago. And yep, pretty much all of the lyrics consist of hayakuchi kotoba so great learning for students of the language. The song was a track on their third original album "Kakegae no nai Mono"（かけがえのないもの...Irreplaceable Things） from October 2019.

MONO NO AWARE is a four-piece band with vocalist and guitarist Shuukei Tamaoki（玉置周啓）, guitarist Seijun Kato（加藤成順）, bassist Ayako Takeda（竹田綾子）and drummer Yutaka Yanagisawa（柳澤豊）. They've been around since 2013 and their band name comes from the Japanese idiom talking of the impermanence of things.

According to Rob, the Osakan pop-rock band Haku（ハク。）also gave their cover version of  "Kamukamo-Shikamo-Nidomokamo!" in the last month or so, and may I say that vocalist Ai could have topped Tamaoki at the rapid fire rattling of those twisters. Maybe there could be a battle of the bands involving those two in the same ol' Drifters' way. Many thanks to Rob.