I've been seeing vivacious enka singer Eiko Segawa（瀬川瑛子）from time to time on the kayo shows such as "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. It's been hard to believe that she's actually 79 now and that next year will be her 60th anniversary in show business.
The last time I saw the Tokyo native on stage, it was to sing one of her hits "Waraijiwa" (Laugh Lines) which was originally released as her 61st single in September 1995. It's been classified as a straight enka tune but its arrangement incorporates some of that Latin to such an extent that personally I can also treat it as a New Adult Music number....kinda along the same lines of a Matt Bianco song but without the synthesizers.
The songwriters for "Waraijiwa" were husband-and-wife composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）and lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）as they came up with a song for Segawa regarding a woman's lifetime filled with its share of roses and thorns. As quite a few KKP viewers would know by now, Uzaki and Aki were the main duo behind many of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）hit songs in the late 1970s including "Yokosuka Story"（横須賀ストーリー）. I couldn't find out how "Waraijiwa" did on Oricon but Segawa was invited onto the 1996 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen to sing it.
What about ガラス窓 by 三田寛子?
ReplyDeleteThis is rather an unusual enka song because its subject isn’t heartbreak, abandonment, or stoic devotion. It’s about getting older and deciding that the marks life leaves on your face might as well be marks of laughter! Aki takes something that is normally treated as evidence of aging and turns it into a kind of medal. “Waraijiwa” is usually categorized as enka, and Segawa certainly sings it with unmistakable enka technique — long vowels, vibrato, slides and that very recognizable slightly nasal, highly projected Segawa tone. But Ryūzaki's arrangement doesn't behave like stereotypical dark enka. There's a distinctly Latin-tinged rhythmic quality to it. The beat moves rather than trudges; the accompaniment has a buoyancy that keeps pulling the song forward. And the final emotional movement isn't “I endured.” It's closer to “I lived.” That's also why the Latin-ish bounce matters so much. 「笑いじわ」 is enka whose worldview has quietly shifted from 忍耐 (nintai, endurance) to 生命力 (seimeiryoku, vitality). So, in short this is neither mood-kayo nor mood-enka!
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. Yes, the lyrical theme is about looking back on one's life with a certain measure of satisfaction which I've seen in perhaps one Dick Mine song.
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