John Philip Sousa -- The Liberty Bell (aka The theme from "Monty Python's Flying Circus")

 

And now for something completely different...

This is indeed true because the last couple of Reminiscings of Youth articles dealt with Canadian music, so I figured that it was time to take things back to the other side of the Atlantic in Great Britain. First off, I have memories of the old BBC "Monty Python's Flying Circus" series which was broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday nights at 6:30 after the news. Considering some of the raunchier material that got onto the show, I was surprised by the early time but I guess that the CBC may have excised those parts. 

The series had its run between 1969 and 1974, and being a not-so-little tyke at the time, I didn't really get a lot of the jokes and segments. However, my brother and I had our huge laughs at Terry Gilliam's brilliant animation including the above segment with the homicidal baby carriages.

But over time and reruns, I got to appreciate the wackadoodle humour by Gilliam, John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Carol Cleveland. For me, I will always cherish The Bishop, Nudge Nudge Wink Wink, The Upper Class Twit of the Year and the much beloved Lumberjack Song.

Getting back to Gilliam's animation, though, there were those famous opening credits which utilized it against the backdrop of a triumphant march. Of course, the music ended dramatically with that foot and raspberry.

I would like to then formally welcome John Philip Sousa, the American March King, to "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I should have known that it was him who was behind "The Liberty Bell" whose title will be less remembered than the fact that it will always be known as the "Monty Python" theme. "The Liberty Bell" will go down as the oldest song in the ROY category (and one of the oldest songs on the blog proper) since it was first brought to the masses in 1893 with the show using it in 1969. According to Wikipedia, Gilliam himself convinced the producers to use the song as the theme, and since then it's been pretty much immortalized as one of the most famous songs in world comedy although I'm sure that Sousa never thought that it would be used to herald sketches involving a dead parrot, obscene Hungarian-English phrasebooks and the world's deadliest joke.

Since I don't think that I will find any Japanese pop song hits from 1893, I'll go with the premiere year of "Monty Python". There were some award-winning tunes at the 11th Japan Record Awards back then.

Grand Prize: Naomi Sagara -- Ii Janai no Shiawase Naraba（いいじゃないの幸せならば）

Best Vocal Performance: Shinichi Mori -- Minato Machi Blues （港町ブルース）

Popularity Award: Kiyoko Suizenji -- Sanbyaku Rokujuu Go Ho no March (三百六十五歩のマーチ）

Antonin Dvořák -- Symphony No. 9, Largo/William Arms Fisher -- Goin' Home

 

Happy Monday! The shot above is one from the balcony of my old Ichikawa apartment in Chiba Prefecture over a decade ago since I did catch sight of a rainbow...as faint as it is. Those were quite rare but there was something that I always heard every day without fail.

Play this at 5 pm if you can. This is what I heard every day at that time if I were at home on a regular day off or if it was on a holiday. And it emanated from Ichikawa City Hall. Super homey and natsukashii!😯 Usually that was the signal for me to get the fixins ready for dinner.

Last week, when I was watching the popular NHK information variety program "Chiko-chan ni Shikarareru!"（チコちゃんに叱られる!...Don't Sleep Through Life）, one of the segments involved the local government disaster prevention radio alarm system. Basically every village, town and city in the nation have tested the system daily by playing a particular song on their loudspeakers promptly at 5 pm. The songs differed from municipality to municipality although groups of them shared the same song. Well, that got me to thinking...what was the song being played for Ichikawa?

And thus begins one of the more unusual KKP articles in its history since the music here doesn't have any origins or connection with Japan or Japanese songwriters. Yet, the recording of that organ sweetly playing it has had me getting all homesick for my old home-away-from-home of Fukuei 3-chome in Ichikawa some ten minutes away on foot from Minami-Gyotoku Station on the Tozai Line.

I found out pretty quickly thanks to the explanation underneath that YouTube video of the Ichikawa system that it was called "Ieji"（家路）in Japanese (not to be confused at all with Hiromi Iwasaki's early 80s pop hit). Then, one search on J-Wiki informed me that the title was the translation of the 1922 "Goin' Home" by American composer and music historian William Arms Fisher. But then, the story takes me back even further on discovering that Fisher had been a protégé of the one-and-only Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, and "Goin' Home" had been adapted from the latter's "Symphony No. 9", 2nd movement "Largo" as you can hear above and first presented in 1893, joining another entry on KKP from that year. "Goin' Home" can be heard below as performed movingly by the BYU Choir.

I would think that "Goin' Home" is the perfect title for that Ichikawa system considering that it's played at 5 pm, but no one actually goes home from work at 5 pm in Japan. Plus, I think even the kids have to head off to juku so they don't hit home until later. But if you know of any exceptions, please let me know.

"Symphony No. 9" is also known as the New World Symphony, and the fourth movement "Allegro con fuoco" is arguably even more famous for those dramatic horns. Recently, I got to see and hear its hilarious use in one scene of the anime "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）.

Now, if I'm ever back in my old city again at 5 pm, I'll have to always remember Mr. Dvořák and Mr. Fisher, and pay tribute through a dinner at Tonki, my beloved tonkatsu restaurant right underneath the tracks of the Tozai.

Sanemichi Ue -- Ichigatsu Tsuitachi （一月一日）

I probably should have given this profile about 3 weeks ago, but "Ichigatsu Tsuitachi"(January 1st) is probably the 2nd-most well-known song around the Japanese New Year, next to "Hotaru no Hikari", aka Auld Lang Syne (already profiled). It has the same ancient roots as the most famous New Year's song, but "Ichigatsu Tsuitachi" is definitely homegrown. Written by Takatomi Senge（千家尊福） and composed by Sanemichi Ue（上眞行） back in 1893, it was published by the Japanese Ministry of Education, and became a customary song to be sung in elementary school from the Meiji Era to just before the war.

The song for over the past half-century, though, has taken on a more pop cultural profile. Just as "Hotaru no Hikari" has become the song to end the Kohaku Utagassen on NHK on December 31, "Ichigatsu Tsuitachi" has been the theme song to launch the January 1 Fuji-TV New Year's special, "Shinshun Kakushigei Taikai"(新春かくし芸大会....The New Year's Hidden Talent Competition). Like the Kohaku, the show has two teams of celebrities (TV personalities and actors) who compete against each other over a few hours in an attempt to wow a panel of other celebs in showing amazing abilities in areas that are not in their usual line of work. Basically, it's an annual presentation of seeing the stars out of their comfort zone.

I would probably say that it's a show that people can watch or not watch while they're carousing or noshing around the huge table laden with osechi ryori, sake and various types of marine protein.