Nobue Matsubara -- Hotaru（蛍）

By Tyler Savitski via Wikimedia Commons

 

Kinda keeping on the summer festival theme that I started from the previous article, I gather that another sign of the summer is fireflies or hotaru as we say in Japanese. In fact, where I taught in the former town of Tsukiyono, Gunma Prefecture, there was a firefly festival each year. The usual food stands and other temporary establishments associated with a matsuri were all set up while next door in the woods, adults and kids alike could see the dozens or perhaps hundreds of glowing fireflies flitting about, providing the evening with its own organic illumination. 

This particular May 1990 single by enka singer Nobue Matsubara（松原のぶえ）, "Hotaru" (Fireflies), popped up on one of the NHK music shows recently. Up to now, I only really knew one other firefly-related kayo kyoku and that was "Hotaru no Hikari"（蛍の光）, otherwise known as the Japanese cover of "Auld Lang Syne", also used to signal the end of the old year and the beginning of the new one (and simply to signal closing time at some commercial complex).

Well, "Hotaru" is a much less grandiose song and much more of a grounded and calm enka about finding love among the flying fireflies. And certainly, I did see a few yukata-garbed young couples walking about at the Firefly Festival, so I guess that the hotaru season can also be another symbol for romance. Written by Takashi Taka（たかたかし）and composed by Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）, I'd say that it is indeed a woodsy traditional ballad of love.