Sachiko Nishida -- Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki（アカシアの雨がやむとき）

 

I heard this one last night on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）for the first time, and it was originally sung by Sachiko Nishida（西田佐知子）. "Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki" (When the Acacia Rains Stop) was Nishida's 13th single from April 1960 with Kaoru Mizuki（水木かおる）as lyricist and Hideyuki Fujiwara（藤原秀行）as composer. Delivered in a sad and resigned tone by Nishida, it recounts the story of a lady whose paramour has suddenly left her bereft of love and hope. The horns led by a crisp trumpet sound forlorn and melancholy.

Strangely enough, through a 2003 magazine article via J-Wiki, the story goes that "Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki" was the song that a lot of young folks protesting the 1960 US-Japan Security Treaty ran to like a buddy giving solace when things didn't go their way. Perhaps they were crying in their beer as this song was playing in the bars and izakaya. Another tidbit from J-Wiki is that Nishida had been struggling with singing the song until lyricist Mizuki helped out by saying that it had been based on famed author Kojiro Serizawa's（芹沢光治良）1947 novel "Paris ni Shisu"（巴里に死す...A Death in Paris）. Nishida would then record it while thinking of images from the City of Lights.

Eventually, "Acacia no Ame ga Yamu Toki" would hit the million-record mark in sales by 1968. Nishida would also sing the song at her second appearance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen in 1962, a year after she'd performed her more famous rendition of "Coffee Rumba"（コーヒー・ルンバ）on the same stage. She also sang "Acacia" on the 1969 edition of the Kohaku. In 1963, a cinematic adaptation of the song was produced which had Nishida in a supporting role.