Hachiro Kasuga -- Jirocho Tabi Shigure (次郎長旅しぐれ)

From "Kasuga Hachiro Kayo Shi"

Happy New Year! I hope everyone is having a good start to 2025. 

One thing that I've started doing since the tail-end of 2024 was participate in the Kasuga Enka Densho Kai (春日艶歌伝承会).This is essentially the Hachiro Kasuga posthumous fan club's (Zenkoku Kasuga Hachiro Shinobu Kai… 全国春日八郎偲ぶ会) karaoke circle. The club is organised around the goal of ensuring Hachiro Kasuga's (春日八郎) songs will live on in the artist's absence and has been active since July 2000, its participants congregating every first and third Saturday of the month. Considering the frequency of the meetings and the regularity of which certain club members show up, I can only say that my love for Hachi is paltry compared to these veterans. To my knowledge, Kasuga Enka is exclusively sung at these gatherings. The neat thing about it is that ALL of Hachi's songs, from singles to albums to unreleased recordings, are available to sing thanks to the work of some of the members. 

Thus far, I've only participated in two meetings: the final one of 2024 and the first of 2025. Since this was organised by the Kasuga fan club, it was the perfect space for me to be as extra as possible with my oshikatsu shenanigans, i.e. bringing along a Hachi bromide and setting it on the table. I don't think the members expected the extent of my Hachi fangirling. On the other side of the coin, though, I didn’t expect the members to zero-in on my secondary fixation with Tadaharu Nakano (中野忠晴). If you've read some of my past Hachi articles, you'd know that Mr. Nakano was responsible for some of Hachi's moderate successes and minor works, a few of which I greatly enjoy. As such, the very first song I attempted was "Ruten no Yoru" (流転の夜) my current favourite entry among all the Nakano Melody. My explanation of choosing this tune partially for its composer and brandishing the Nakano photo card manufactured by one of my friends seemed to have bewildered the good folks. That incident seemed to have conditioned them to expect a Nakano composition when my turn comes around as one of them went, "Ah, of course it's a Nakano one!" when I picked "Jirocho Tabi Shigure" during my second attendance.    

Released in May 1953, "Jirocho Tabi Shigure" was Hachi's 4th single and the first song that Mr. Nakano composed for him. To my knowledge, this song has only been re-released as part of Hachi's 40th Anniversary super album "Kasuga Hachiro / Daizenshu Uta Koso Waga Inochi" (春日八郎/大全集歌こそ我が命) from 1991, though it is available on YouTube for easy access. Nevertheless, I would consider one of Hachi’s deeply buried gems considering how early in his career this was produced. This was also a Matatabi Kayo - while a perennially well-loved genre/sub-genre, it wasn’t Hachi’s specialty, so that may have accounted for the lack of attention to it, even after he became a national star. To be more critical, perhaps it’s also because it sounds too... orthodox. To Yuzaburo Wakasugi's (若杉雄三郎) lyrics featuring infamous yakuza ring-leader Shimizu no Jirocho (清水次郎長), Nakano provided a melody that sounds like one from your bog-standard Matatabi Kayo. This is pure speculation on my part, but it could be that the powers that be in King Records demanded that Nakano, then still a new King employee, make something that would sell, i.e. an easy to consume kayokyoku piece that fits the theme. And so, he did. Despite what my spiny critique suggests, though, it’s not a bad song at all, and I actually like it quite a lot… No, it's not just because Nakano made it… I think. 

Putting any biases aside, "Jirocho Tabi Shigure" is a jaunty song that is simply pleasant to listen to. The blaring horns and strings swelling grandiosely with a steady rhythm make for a heroic-sounding tune that I think conveys the masculinity and power of the titular gangster. I say it's orthodox because Matatabi Kayo, as with stories of chivalrous yet morally grey figures like Jirocho, generally portray their source material characters in such a light. Another running trope these characters express in this sort of narrative is the conflict between duty and compassion/humanity (giri-ninjo). While they may present themselves as stoic and duty-bound, these figures are still written to have a soft side hidden away from the public eye. I think Wakasugi’s portrayal of Jirocho conveys this aspect, which is wildly contrary to my impression of the gangster: fearsome and father figure to other infamous Shizuoka-based ruffians, namely Mori no Ishimatsu (森の石松). I suppose, in this respect, Mr. Nakano's melody represents Jirocho's giri tatemae (front), while Wakasugi's words disclose his ninjo honne (real feelings).