Jerry Goldsmith -- The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

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Well, I guess I'm making my way around the spy-fi theme tunes. There's the cool theme for "Mission: Impossible" by Lalo Schifrin and then Monty Norman & John Barry's iconic theme for James Bond. Both franchises I have known since I was a kid and one other similar example of spy drama and adventure that I got to know early in life was "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (1964-1968) with Robert Vaughan and David McCallum.

The main scene that I've always remembered is the opening when some assassin in shadow bounces out with his gun and tries to shoot down another silhouetted figure but only manages to hit a shield before the agency's best agent, Napoleon Solo, comes out of his own shadow and threateningly shows what he can do with a weapon. All this was done to a dangerous snappy snare drum and timpani combo.

Then comes the theme by Jerry Goldsmith. I knew this guy was prolific but I had no idea that he was responsible for this one and many others, along with the theme for "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" years later. But to be honest, I really didn't get a bead on the "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." theme unlike the themes for 007 and "Mission: Impossible" until years later. Now that I have though, I prefer the original from the first season with the continuation of the percussion and the horn section reflecting the heroic and global organization.

Unfortunately, I don't remember much of the episodes throughout the four-season run of the series (there was one scene where Ilya fell into a vat of goop) but I read that the tone varied wildly from season to season which didn't do much for its fortunes. The first season has apparently been seen as the best one due to its straight and serious nature with succeeding seasons getting campier, and I gather that the variations on the theme also reflected this. The second season theme got jazzier in a beatnik way although the timpani returned on occasion.

The third season (and I'm assuming the final season afterwards) had a theme that just went full go-go boots and so I'm not a huge fan of that arrangement. 

Some years ago, some enterprising person came up with their own fantasy opening credit sequence for an UNCLE movie starring George Clooney and Orlando Bloom which was quite well done (regrettably, it seems to have been pulled off of YouTube) and the version of the theme song was actually quite good. 

Just from good luck, I managed to track it down as the first song of a medley on a compilation called "The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith" with Goldsmith as the conductor leading the London Symphony Orchestra. Yep, as some commenters have intimated, Goldsmith was probably a better composer than a conductor here, the cues aren't too sharp, the medley at least sounds as if it had been recorded in Carlsbad Caverns, and frankly the cover of the album looks perfect as something to be found in a Wal-Mart bargain basement basket. However, I think this version is just a few rehearsals and tweaks away from being a really nice take on the UNCLE theme song thanks to the thrilling strings and percussion for a contemporary motion picture reboot.

Ah, speaking of which...the 2015 film of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." was entertaining enough with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, but I do wish that the original theme had been brought in.

So, when the original show premiered in September 1964, what were some singles coming out in Japan at around that time?

Yoko Kishi -- Yoake no Uta （夜明けのうた）

Kiyoko Suizenji -- Namida wo Daita Wataridori （涙を抱いた渡り鳥）

The Peanuts -- Una Sera di Tokyo （ウナ・セラ・ディ東京）

Well, speaking of "Star Trek", who do we have here?😀

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）

The Soundtrack from "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"

 

Earlier this month, I wrote up an article on the catchy opening theme from the currently-running anime "Paripi Koumei"（パリピ孔明...Ya Boy Kongming!）, "Chiki Chiki Ban Ban"（チキチキバンバン）whose onomatopoeic title translates into "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Well, for a guy my age, that translation has had me reminiscing back to an old fantasy movie.

For this week's edition of Reminiscings of Youth, I am brought back to the December 1968 cinematic adaptation of Ian Fleming's "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car" from 1964. Yup, for those people who recognize the author, it is indeed the same former British intelligence agent who came up with the character of James Bond, Agent 007. Before I read the book, it had always been about catching the movie on TV either on a Saturday night on CBS or a Sunday afternoon on one of the Buffalo affiliate stations (I gather that I was still too young to see it at the theatre).

It took me several viewings of "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" to realize how much of that Bond influence entered the movie. Albert R. Broccoli, the producer for the 007 movies, took care of this one, the actor who had played the original Q, Desmond Llewelyn, had a small role as a townsperson, and Gert Frobe, the portly and evil Auric Goldfinger from the third Bond movie, played another portly and not-that-evil Baron Bomburst. As well, raunchy comedian Benny Hill was in there, too, although his role as the Toymaker had him act far more quietly. Plus of course, there was the titular magical car which could have been the ancestor of 007's amazing Aston-Martin DB5. 

Although Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang wouldn't come into full glory until the latter half of the movie, I think a lot of the charm for the entire flick is the human star, Dick Van Dyke. I'd known him since I was a toddler because of his successful comedy series but this movie and "Mary Poppins" showed me how much of a song-and-dance man he was. Moreover, "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" is a musical after all so its soundtrack has had plenty of truly scrumptious tunes. Unfortunately, I can't get all of them up but I will include the songs that I've really loved.

Being a fan of some rousing heroic overtures such as the ones for "Star Wars" and "Superman", I've loved the opening overture playing during the first five minutes of the movie. I would almost be inspired enough to find a flying car and soar upwards on hearing that march created by Irwin Costal. To be honest, I actually prefer the instrumental to the sung version by Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and the kids. The Sherman Brothers were responsible for the theme and other songs on the soundtrack.

Van Dyke mentioned that his performance for "Me Ol' Bamboo" was one of the most difficult dances that he had ever undertaken. And yet, he makes his Potts stumbling around to get the hang of the act with his sudden new dancemates incredible and effortless. The dance sequence and the song have become so iconic that they were incorporated into a "Family Guy" sequence years later.

The one ballad is "Hushabye Mountain" which is used by Potts to get his children to sleep. It didn't get me to sleep but it did get my eyes rather misty.

One more song that I'll show here is "The Roses of Success" which I love for its harmony among the wizened group of geniuses and also for its theme of encouragement and not giving up. Now that we have almost all of the Toronto sports teams fully engaged in their own missions, it may not be a bad song to have playing around.

Ah, yeah, they certainly don't make movies like these anymore. By the way, Dick Van Dyke is another reason that I've put up this article, and it isn't going to be his final time on the blog. So, when "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was released at the end of 1968, what Japanese kayo was seeing the light of day for the first time then?

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

The Blue Impulse -- Taiyo no Tsurugi（太陽の剣）

Mitsuo Sagawa -- Ima wa Shiawase kai （今は幸せかい）

Kiyoko Suizenji -- O-shoubu（大勝負）

Being just a wee lad at the time, whenever I did see some old footage of Kiyoko "Chiita" Suizenji（水前寺清子）singing her heart out on stage, I did wonder whether I was witnessing a woman or a man. Despite the cute face, Suizenji's short haircut and that forceful gravelly delivery of hers had me somewhat confused for a good long while. Of course, at the time, I also had little knowledge of Japanese nomenclature.

I listened to all four songs from the maxi-single at the top and the one that caught my ear the most was "O-shoubu" (Do-or-Die) which was Chiita's 36th single from November 1970. Starting off with a fanfare of traditional instruments and low horns that seem to portend a monumental storm or a major battle in feudal Japan, the singer proudly throws out with much brio a story of how men could win back in those days.

Listening to "O-shoubu", it is indeed a truly shibui enka ballad composed by Sanechika Ando（安藤実親）that I remember hearing as a kid, especially with the way those strings just bend and wail before Suizenji starts singing. Shinichi Sekizawa's（関沢新一）lyrics have her giving the rules for being a winner: 1) Men must win 2) Men must not fall in love and 3) Men must not cry. I can hear those katana or lightsabers being unsheathed right now.

Considering how much George Lucas dipped into Japanese historical culture for "Star Wars", I'm now kinda wondering whether he had discovered this Suizenji song and used the verse to concoct those Jedi rules. I also scrolled down the list of her singles and found out that she had been releasing six to seven singles a year at one point, including 1970, with "O-shoubu" being her 6th single for that year. She must have already achieved the level of Jedi Master with that sort of energy and stamina.

Kiyoko Suizenji -- Arigato no Uta（ありがとうの歌）

Considering that January 30th is the anniversary for the blog, I think this song is pretty appropriate, and it just happened to fall into my lap.

On last week's edition of NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, one of the guests performed this happy tune titled "Arigato no Uta" (The Thank You Song), and I found out that it had been originally performed by none other than Kiyoko "Cheetah" Suizenji（水前寺清子）. Listening to the original single (her 33rd) from May 1970, the song fits Suizenji's onscreen and onstage personality: brassy, cheerful and larger-than-life. Hiroko Ohya（大矢弘子）wrote the lyrics while Gendai Kanou（叶弦大）provided the music.

If you're wondering about Suizenji performing "Arigato no Uta" in a nurse's uniform, that was because the song was the theme song for her own TV series, "Arigato" which lasted 4 seasons on TBS from 1970 to 1975 (although there was a 14-month gap between the end of the first season and the start of the second season). Cheetah appeared in the first three seasons with each season having her play a different character in a different setting. So, Season 1 had her being a rookie police officer, while in Season 2, she was a nurse and then finally in Season 3, she took over her family's fish shop.

Kiyoko Suizenji -- Shinjitsu Ichiro no March （真実一路のマーチ）

As I've mentioned before, anyone who knows veteran singer Kiyoko "Cheetah" Suizenji（水前寺清子）but isn't a huge fan of hers will know that one trademark song she first sang in the 1960s "Sanbyaku Rokujuu Go Ho no March"（三百六十五歩のマーチ）. With that crowd pleasing kayo and her short haircut, the singer became kayo kyoku's proud majorette.

What I didn't know was that almost a year after that hit was first released, Cheetah came up with another happy march. This time, it was "Shinjitsu Ichiro no March" (The Straight Road of Truth March) which came out as her 29th single in October 1969. Written and composed by the same duo for "Sanbyaku Rokujuu Go Ho no March", Masao Yoneyama（米山正夫）and Tetsuro Hoshino（星野哲郎）, Suizenji was no longer just exhorting the working class; it was now everyone. As Hoshino's lyrics put it, it's not so much about the length of that road of life but how you walk upon it.

And according to Suizenji, that road should be trodden on proudly and assertively with no regrets. Plus, having a tambourine to tap wouldn't hurt. I thought she would have made a fine pastor by this point.

I couldn't find out how "Shinjitsu Ichiro no March" did on the charts but it did win Suizenji a Japan Record Award and her 5th appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen in 1969. Ironically, she wouldn't actually sing her more famous march on the annual NHK special event for the first time until 1980.

Kiyoko Suizenji -- Namida wo Daita Wataridori （涙を抱いた渡り鳥）

I was going through my Dad's 45" collection when I came across that familiar face of Kiyoko Suizenji （水前寺清子）beaming on the cover. The song she was representing there was her debut, "Namida wo Daita Wataridori" (Migrating Birds Holding The Tears) from October 1964 (although the version that I have is a 1972 re-issue). When I played it on the TEAC, "Namida wo Daita Wataridori" once again jogged my long-term memory as Cheetah's piercing voice came through the headphones. It was yet another oldie from my childhood.

Written by Tetsuro Hoshino (星野哲郎...under the pseudonym of Megumu Arita), who later wrote the theme song to "Tora-san" and Suizenji's own crowd-rousing "San-Byaku Roku-Juu-Go Ho no March"（三百六十五歩マーチ）, and composed by Shosuke Ichikawa (市川昭介...under his own alias of Yutaka Izumi), the lyrics made me wonder if this would also have been a fitting song for the aforementioned wandering salesman Tora-san, as Suizenji sings about traveling from place to place like the birds in the title but never quite finding that significant other.

Oricon didn't exist back in the mid-60s but Suizenji's debut single made an impact since she was later invited to the 1965 Kohaku Utagassen for the very first time in what would be a long series of appearances on the NHK special. She certainly made an impression on the stage that night as she brought that swagger and brio in her performance.

Now, as for the Cheetah nickname....I had always thought that it was given to her as a tribute to her power as a singer in comparison with the famed animal from Africa. Well, count me wrong on that score. According to J-Wiki, her birth name was Tamiko Hayashida（林田民子）, and songwriter Hoshino, before Suizenji's debut, derived the nickname as an abbreviation of his declaration "Chiisai Tami-chan no kimochi wo wasurenai you ni"（ちいさいたみちゃんの気持ちを忘れないように...So that you don't forget little Tami's feelings）.

Takashi Hosokawa/Kyoko Suizenji/Tomoe Kimura -- Naniwa Bushi da yo, Jinsei wa （浪花節だよ人生は）

Y'know....I've heard this enka classic for years on the Kohaku Utagassen (including the one last week), on "Sounds of Japan" via the actual song and as a commercial jingle, and even at the karaoke boxes and perhaps even Kuri. And all those years, I had thought it was a typically Kansai (Western Japan) song because of the brashly cheerful way it was performed. Little did I know that "Naniwa Bushi da yo, Jinsei wa" (Life Is But A Sob Story) is actually one of those examples of enka in which the raucously happy melody is joined by lyrics that resignedly tell a story of a woman being cheated over and over again.

In fact, according to J-Wiki, the enka song has been released by 16 singers of the genre via 13 record companies over the years, and performed by just about everyone in the genre numerous, numerous times. But "Naniwa Bushi da yo", which was created by Masato Fujita（藤田まさと） and Akito Yomo（四万章人）, was sung for the first time by enka singer Yukiko Ono（小野由紀子） in 1976. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video with her performance but I could track down the performances which brought the song to prominence starting from 1984. However, just as an aside, I'd like to mention that the term "naniwa bushi" is another expression for "rokyoku"（浪曲） or Japanese narrative singing dating from the early part of the Meiji Era in the latter half of the 19th century; it often covers rather sad tales which explains the English translation. The late singer, Haruo Minami（三波春夫）, was a performer of this genre. Continuing on this tangent, in 1981, the second woman to carry the rokyoku name of Tomoe Kimura（木村友衛） gave her version of "Naniwa Bushi da yo" (video above) which started some grassroots popularity.

In August 1984, two of those 16 singers, Takashi Hosokawa（細川たかし） and Kiyoko Suizenji（水前寺清子）, released their own covers of "Naniwa Bushi da yo" and even appeared opposite of each other at the Kohaku Utagassen held that year performing that same song. It was Hosokawa's 10th time on the show, and perhaps it was his most mortifying appearance since he apparently blanked out on the lyrics mid-performance (although he did fine in the video above).

Of course, Hosokawa survived the error very well since he would sing that song 5 more times on the Kohaku including the 2013 edition right after the NMB 48 performance. As usual, he is supported by an army of shamisen, the instrument to back up rokyoku. Hosokawa's cover managed to become the 65th-ranked song of 1984. And surprisingly, Tomoe Kimura's version ranked even higher than the Hosokawa cover, reaching No. 40.

I couldn't find a copy of Kiyoko Suizenji's performance on that Kohaku so I'm not sure how she reacted to Hosokawa's slip-up (and being a professional, she probably didn't react publicly), but I managed to track down a brief excerpt that I've put up above. Her release of "Naniwa Bushi da yo" happened to be her 90th single. Unfortunately, apparently it didn't get into the 1984 Top 100 on Oricon but I think with the double-barreled push of her and Hosokawa, the song has become one of the most well-known kayo kyoku and the one to perk everyone up on any enka programme.

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

In my infancy, I remember the old RCA Victor stereo and with it, the LP rack filled with Japanese enka record albums. One of them had a picture of someone that I couldn't distinguish between a boy or a girl. There went my fragile little mind. Anyways, the one who ruined me was Kiyoko Suizenji（水前寺清子）, a singer who hails from Kumamoto Prefecture on the island of Kyushu.

Even today, she still has that very short haircut, and unless you are a very hardcore fan of hers,  you know her for one song and for one song only. "Sanbyaku Rokujuu Go Ho no March" (The 365-Step March), Suizenji's 13th single since her debut in 1964, is one song that everyone of all ages can identify from the opening brassy notes and the timpani stomps, and whenever she appears on a music show, it's pretty much a given that she will perform that song.

The song is a rallying cry for all those workers getting through the days, weeks and years of hard toil, as Suizenji encourages everyone to get off their duffs in her half-gravelly, half-helium voice. And if one is going to be known for just one song, why not a song that can get the population working and productive?

Soon after its release in November 1968, it peaked at No. 12 and became the 36th-ranking song for 1969. Not surprisingly, it has been used as theme songs at events such as baseball tournaments.