Yasushi Suzuki & Mitsuharu Minamichi/Midori Satsuki -- Korokke no Uta（コロッケの唄）

 

One of my favourite dishes has been potato croquettes. They were easy to get in Japan because they are very popular there and my mother used to make them but they are rather labour-intensive and time-intensive to make so it's no longer that practical to get them from scratch anymore, although I wouldn't mind taking a crack at making them myself.

The croquette is another dish that was warmly welcomed into Japanese cuisine back in the late 19th century in the Meiji era, and another variety of the dish that has been another popular item in restaurants is the cream croquette. This one took a little more time for me to warm up to since the filling isn't potato but béchamel sauce with other ingredients including corn and crab meat. But once I did, they also became another popular item in my stomach.

Well, I've come up with another food-based kayo kyoku and it's known as "Korokke no Uta" (The Croquette Song). According to one Japanese-language blog, the song was first recorded in 1917 during the Taisho era with Taro Masuda（益田太郎）behind the lyrics while the composer remains unknown. Basically, it describes one man's loving but rueful admission that his wife gets nothing but croquettes for dinner. Yeah, I can understand...I do like my croquettes but variety is the spice of life, after all.

The above version is probably one that was recorded much later with singers Yasushi Suzuki and Mitsuharu Minamichi（鈴木やすし・南地みつ春）although I couldn't specify the year. Also, I'm not 100% sure of the proper pronunciation of the second person's family name and for that matter, for a person with a male first name, he sure sounds like a woman. Maybe someone better in the know than me can explain, although maybe the above version was performed by a different pair.

In October 1962, enka singer Midori Satsuki（五月みどり）released a single with the same title but it is actually a different song under the words and music by Kuranosuke Hamaguchi（浜口庫之助）. The arrangement is similarly whimsical but it goes a little more into an enka direction. The lyrics, though different, still talk about a couple and their oft-chosen meal of croquettes. However, the couple is definitely stated to be a newlywed pair so the new husband is more than accepting of his beloved's obsession with the dish.

Midori Satsuki -- Ohima nara Kite ne（おひまなら来てね）

I don't think that it's everyday when a budding singer suddenly has a breakthrough hit with their debut single, and that was certainly the case with enka singer Midori Satsuki（五月みどり）. The Tokyo-born singer and tarento debuted at the end of 1958 with "Ozashiki Rock"（お座敷ロック...Tatami Room Rock） but it didn't spark all that much interest.

A few more singles and a few more years passed without any spike of success in her career. But in 1961, famed composer/arranger Minoru Endo（遠藤実）approached Satsuki and told her that he's made a song that was just perfect for her, according to a 2019 article in the weekly magazine "Shuukan Gendai"（週刊現代）via J-Wiki. Endo sang some part of the song for her which got a rise from the singer who then begged to be allowed to sing it. 

The single was released in May of that year and it's titled "Ohima nara Kite ne" (Come If You Have Time). This song was actually sharing 45" single space with another singer's work...specifically, Ichiro Kanbe's（神戸一郎）"Seto no Koiuta"（瀬戸の恋唄...Seto Love Song）. While Endo composed this enka ballad, it was Jinichiro Kareno（枯野迅一郎）behind the lyrics involving a woman entreating a lover to come and visit her in person with the hint that perhaps he hasn't been over in quite a while. Perhaps the lady is a hostess at a nightclub although the arrangement and Satsuki's very historically traditional appearance could mean that the setting is perhaps centuries earlier.

Well, Endo delivered on what he had promised. "Ohima nara Kite ne" was the breakthrough song that Satsuki had been hoping for due to "...her adorably charming beauty paired with her fine vibrato" (translated from the J-Wiki article for the song). Approximately 18 months later, the singer would find herself performing the song on her first NHK Kohaku Utagassen appearance on New Year's Eve 1962, and it has become one of her trademark tunes.

Midori Satsuki -- Isshukan ni Touka Koi （一週間に十日来い）

While we're just getting set up here for the family to get together for Christmas today, Japan is already into the 26th so their Yuletide is done for another year. This will mean all that the Xmas gloss and glitter will be taken down lickety-split from the various department stores and all of the New Year's decorations will be going up just as quickly. I can pretty much guarantee that the place in the above photo, Kaminari-mon, the gate for Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa, will be totally crazy in the hours going from December 31st way into January 1st. When my anime buddy was in the Asakusa area once during New Year's, he had naively assumed that it wouldn't be too busy on the 1st since everyone got in their prayers around midnight. Uh...nope. Think about rush hour multiplied by a factor of 10. Anyone going there on that day, you have been duly warned.

Not that I'm saying that this song is a New Year's tune by any means but it's got that traditional Japanese brio which would make things quite festive, and as quiet as it is outside for the first few days of the New Year there (outside of shrines and temples, that is), inside is a whole lot of talking, eating, drinking and all-round carousing with family and friends.

This would be "Isshukan ni Touka Koi" (Come For 10 Days A Week) by singer/actress/tarento Midori Satsuki（五月みどり）. The title is a bit odd but since the lyrics by Koshu Kojima（小島胡秋）talk about a woman lusting for some guy at a bar, I gather that it is showing the depth of her desire that he show up as much as possible. And as for that lyricist's name, I had never heard of him before I first saw the song performed on an episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）, so I'm not quite sure how that given name is pronounced considering that he doesn't have his own J-Wiki page and the kanji doesn't seem to compute on jisho.org. But feel free to correct me if you know the proper way to pronounce it.

Minoru Endo（遠藤実）is a far more familiar name to me as the composer behind the jaunty enka arrangement. Kojima's lyrics may talk about potential romance in a bar as would be the case in any bluesy Mood Kayo piece, but Endo has woven a melody that is much more suited for an old-fashioned town festival. And I think for a certain generation, this would be the sort of song that could be sung together after a goodly amount of beer/sake.

As for Midori Satsuki, she was born as Fusako Omodaka（面高フサ子）in 1939 in Tokyo, and made her debut in 1958 with "O-zashiki Rock"（お座敷ロック...Tatami Room Rock）. However, it seems like her breakthrough hit was in the early 1960s with "Chirimen Vibrato" (ちりめんビブラート...Silk Crepe Vibrato) which led to her first invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen in 1962. "Isshukan ni Touka Koi" was her next song to be performed on NHK's New Year's Eve special the following year, and according to the Tokyo-based Video Research Ltd., her performance set a record in terms of viewership ratings at apparently 85.3%! Nowadays, any producer of the Kohaku would kill simply for half of those ratings.