Shigeko Orii -- Kuroyuri no Uta（黒百合の花）

by Takeshiro Matsuura at the
Hakodate City Central Library

I don't know much about botany but that Kamchatka lily (or black lily)...she is scary!

At least, that's the impression which I got from Shigeko Orii's（織井茂子）"Kuroyuri no Uta" (Song of the Black Lily). I've mentioned Orii once before when I wrote about her very successful "Kimi no Na wa"（君の名は）, the theme song for the cinematic adaptation of the story of the same title in 1953. Her melancholy rendition reflected the plot progression which had viewers weeping into their hankies. 

1953 was also the year that Orii released a second theme song for the sequel movie for "Kimi no Na wa", "Kuroyuri no Uta", penned by the same songwriters behind "Kimi no Na wa": legendary composer Yuuji Koseki（古関裕而）and lyricist Kazuo Kikuta（菊田一夫）. Compared to "Kimi no Na wa", though, "Kuroyuri no Uta" has a much more haunting and otherworldly quality, similar to the songwriting duo's earlier classic, "Iyomante no Yoru"（イヨマンテの夜）. As Kikuta's lyrics span the three verses of the song, listeners get an increasingly more sinister image of the black lily (which is native to Far East Russia, northern Japan and the northwestern regions of North America), spanning from a flower of love to a flower of magic to finally a flower of poison. 

Kikuta expressed some of his knowledge of the indigenous Ainu people into "Iyomante no Yoru" and he also did the same in "Kuroyuri no Uta" with one line mentioning that the black lily is a deadly and therefore forbidden flower according to the Ainu god or gods. And the way that Orii delivers the song, I can't help imagine that there was something downright witch-like in her vocals. "Kuroyuri no Uta" was another massive hit for the singer as it sold over 1 million records and earned her another appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1955, a couple of years following her debut on the NHK special to sing "Kimi no Na wa".