The Beatles -- Strawberry Fields Forever

 

I distinctly remember where I was forty years ago when I learned about the assassination of John Lennon on December 8th 1980. Of course, there was no SNS or Internet back then, so I actually didn't learn about the tragic death for several hours after he'd been shot in New York City at around 5 pm on the 8th and then later died in hospital at around 11 pm that night. 

As I said, I remember quite well where I was and that was just ambling into the living room in my pajamas after getting out of bed on the morning of December 9th and my mother told me as I was approaching the table for breakfast, "John Lennon is dead". With a combination of sunrise stupor and truly not realizing the import of the statement since I wasn't a humongous Beatles fan, I kinda went "Wut?" She repeated the sentence again and at the time, though I knew about the Fab Four and some of their songs (one of my earliest memories was watching "Yellow Submarine" on CBS years previously), I hadn't been totally cognizant of who the members were, although the name John Lennon did register somewhat in my head. But then, I realized that the Toronto radio station CKEY, which was our go-to station at the time, was playing a lot of Beatles songs that day from our pink SONY.

I don't remember the television news coverage but I do have a memory of one newspaper front page with a photo of a devastated Yoko Ono, almost looking like she was about to collapse. And there were the vigils near The Dakota apartments where Lennon and Ono had resided.

Did I become a diehard Beatles fan or even a Lennon fan because of what had happened? No, not really. At most, I can say that I am a casual fan of the Beatles and I like some of what Lennon had created. "Imagine" is actually not my favourite song by him. If I were to pick one, it would be either "Starting Over" or "Nobody Told Me". However, after he died, I became much more aware of what the Beatles meant to people all around the planet and I even decided to listen to part of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" during my lunch break at junior high school one day. Eventually, I started appreciating songs back in their early days and even during their later, more psychedelic years as the 1980s progressed .

I've been hearing the news that Ringo Starr has been asking radio stations to play "Strawberry Fields Forever" at least once today in commemoration of Lennon's passing. I'm obviously not a radio station but I've known about the song for years and to be perfectly honest, it's the first time that I've heard the February 1967 song by Lennon in its entirety for the first time in a very long time. Basically, the opening verses of "Strawberry Fields Forever" have stuck in my head, but listening to the whole thing and watching the video as shown at the top of the article, this must have been a real mind-bender for folks who first heard this in the late 1960s. For me, of course, instead of this being a Reminiscings of Youth article, it's much more of a Barely Reminiscing of Toddlerhood article, but even hearing just "Strawberry Fields Together" with all of the very unconventional progressions of the song in general, the usage of the horns and strings, the feelings of innocence and darkness within its four-minutes-and-change, and that way-out outro, I can believe it when fans and music critics alike state that McCartney, Lennon, Harrison and Starr really impacted the way pop music was created and presented.

So, when "Strawberry Fields Forever" made its debut in February 1967, what was also coming out in Japan? I could only find two songs that have already been covered in KKP.

1. Hiroshi Mizuhara -- Kimi Koso Waga Inochi (君こそわが命)

2. Ken Takakura -- Kiri no Hatoba（霧の波止場）

And here is John Lennon's "Nobody Told Me".

Ken Takakura -- Kiri no Hatoba/Nakaseruze（霧の波止場／泣かせるぜ）

In the late Ken Takakura's（高倉健）roles, he could be seen as the dependable fellow who can protect you when the going gets tough or the guy you don't want to ever meet in an open plaza let alone in a dark alley.

Back in late 2014, I wrote about his song "Abashiri Bangaichi" （網走番外地）from 1965. Takakura never had a particularly long discography with his most prolific period being in the 1960s, but by my estimation, he wasn't too bad a singer. His growling delivery when singing was just as good at relating a hard-knock life as was his acting.

I came across this video of a single that he released in February 1967, and it contains both the A-side and B-side. The A-side is "Kiri no Hatoba" (Foggy Wharf) which provides the setting of many an enka/Mood Kayo scene of romance and breakup gets its fame. Written by Ryo Yano（矢野亮）and composed by Toshio Shiraishi（白石十四男）, Takakura seems to give a resigned story of life in a way that flows out like an enka tune despite the arrangement that sounds like it was meant to be performed in a swanky nightclub...i.e. Mood Kayo. The rhythm itself kinda lends to a feeling of a wayward vagabond and if it weren't for the arrangement, I would have thought it more fitting for a masterless samurai wandering through Edo Era Japan.

Both Yano and Shiraishi were also responsible for the definitely Mood Kayo B-side, "Nakaseruze" (Make You Cry). The relentless piano and saxophone set the tone for Takakura as he sounds like a veteran gangster sullenly doing his job with little enjoyment but with plenty of duty. "Nakaseruze" is perhaps a cautionary tale to a young punk or a fellow barfly about what getting into the dark side of life may entail. Both songs help define the term shibui to anyone asking about the old-time music.

Ken Takakura -- Abashiri Bangaichi （網走番外地）

On biweekly Monday nights, my anime buddy gives me a call and we spend about an hour catching up on stuff which naturally includes the latest anime episodes downloaded into his computer. That was also the case last night but as I was heading toward the telephone to answer the call, I caught sight of the NHK News on the telly. And it reported that veteran actor Ken Takakura（高倉健）passed away from lymphoma at the age of 83 on November 10th.

He lived a good long life but it's hard to imagine someone of the stature of Takakura leaving this mortal coil. NHK's "News Watch 9" delivered a lengthy tribute to him earlier this morning, and in one of the interview segments, the actor himself admitted that a lot of his roles were of the underworld gangster type. However, my image of the man was quite a bit more heroic than anti-heroic. With his craggy face and stoic bearing, he reminded me of Gary Cooper from the Golden Age of Hollywood....especially when it came to Coop's seminal oater, "High Noon". Takakura also seemed to have that attitude of "Look, I don't want to hurt you but if you push me, I will do what I have to do."

Speaking of oaters, one of the movies that was featured during the tribute to Takakura was his 1965 "Abashiri Bangaichi" (A Man From Abashiri Prison), the first in a series of films. It starred the actor as an ideal prisoner in a penitentiary up in Hokkaido just a few months away from getting out when he's forced into an escape by some of the other hardened residents. I mention "oaters" here since the theme song with the same title has an arrangement which reminds me of music that I would hear from a number of the old Hollywood westerns. Written by Takao Kanbe（タカオ・カンベ）and composed by Eiichi Yamada（山田栄一）, Takakura himself sung this ballad about getting out of the titular prison as a humbled human being. From the feeling of the song, there doesn't seem to be anything celebratory; he just sounds grateful to get out while he's still alive.

Takakura released a number of songs over his career ranging from 1958 to 1996.

I got to see Takakura in a couple of his Hollywood outings, "Black Rain" and "Mr. Baseball", but there was also one other more notable flick that I was able to catch years and years ago, "Shiawase no Kiiroi Hankachi"（幸福の黄色いハンカチ...The Yellow Handkerchief） from 1977. Once again, Takakura played a taciturn fellow out of Abashiri Prison (this time, legally) who ended up going on a road trip of sorts with actors Tetsuya Takeda（武田鉄矢）and Kaori Momoi（桃井かおり）. Director Yoji Yamada（山田洋次）from the "Tora-san" series helmed this award-winning film and he brought over a few other elements from that franchise...namely Chieko Baisho（倍賞千恵子）as the love interest and even a cameo by Kiyoshi (Torajiro) Atsumi（渥美清）himself. But to be honest, I really only remember Takakura from the movie, and that's saying something about his charisma, considering that neither Momoi nor Takeda were shrinking violets either.

Ken Takakura was born in Fukuoka as Goichi Oda（小田 剛一）in 1931 and made his debut in movies in 1956. He had been married to the late Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ）from 1959 to 1971.