I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Ah, yes. The post-relationship trip to someplace unknown...a classic enka lyrical theme. I've come across it a number of times since first posting Sayuri Ishikawa's（石川さゆり）1977 hit"Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki"（津軽海峡・冬景色）all the way back in 2012. I still wonder if there are melancholy folks who flee to that strait up north.
Well, not too long ago, I encountered this enka for the first time during an episode of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. Titled "Onna---Hitori Tabi" (Woman...A Journey Alone), this was enka singer Toshimi Tagawa's（田川寿美）debut song from April 1992, and the song even faintly hints at Ishikawa's trademark tune melodically speaking. However, instead of Takashi Miki（三木たかし）handling the composition, it was Jun Suzuki（鈴木淳）who created the sad melody. The lyrics of a woman going to this unknown place up north all by her lonesome without her erstwhile paramour as had originally been scheduled were provided by Keiko Yuuki（悠木圭子）, who recently passed away in March of this year at the age of 90.
Reaching No. 45 on Oricon, Tagawa made her debut on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1994 with "Onna...Hitori Tabi". She would make three more appearances thus far on the New Year's Eve special in 1995, 1998 and 2002.
Enka singer Toshimi Tagawa（田川寿美）has been a regular presence on the kayo kyoku-based programs such as "Uta Con"（うたコン）and "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新・BS日本のうた）, and yet I'm a little embarrassed to state that she's only appeared on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in just a couple of songs, neither of which has her on the byline. Well, it's time for me to eradicate that glaring omission.
Interestingly enough, I saw her sing her latest single "Kanashii Meguriai" (Sad Encounter) from May 2024 on the latter NHK show, and I wouldn't say that it was purely an enka tune. I would place it in that hybridized genre that I've called New Adult Music since there's quite a bit of soul in there to the extent that I had also considered City Pop in its roots. The urbane melody by Kohei Miyuki（幸耕平）under the arrangement of Masayuki Sakamoto（坂本昌之）even had me thinking that it could almost be something that the God of Love Songs, Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）, would possibly tackle. Daizo Saito（さいとう大三）handled the lyrics.
"Kanashii Meguriai" is the 38th of her singles in a career that began in 1992 for the Wakayama Prefecture-born singer. Tagawa has also put out eight studio albums along with other releases.
Back in the postwar period, there were a lot of songs recorded and released about regular folks having to come into the big city or elsewhere away from their hometowns to find work. They may be working hard and saving up for their families but they truly miss their furusato. One big representative of that type of song is "Ahh, Ueno Eki"（ああ上野駅）from 1964 by Hachiro Izawa（井沢八郎）who sang about the young people flowing into Tokyo's Ueno Station from the various regions.
Another similarly-themed song came in a bit earlier. That would be "Souran Wataridori"(Souran Migratory Birds) from April 1961 by the Komadori Shimai（こまどり姉妹）, Eiko and Yoko Namiki（並木栄子・並木葉子）. I caught an episode of NHK's "Itsuki Sensei no Utau! SHOW Gakko"（五木先生の 歌う！SHOW学校...Itsuki-sensei's Singing Show School） on Tuesday..."Uta Con"（うたコン）has been on summer hiatus...in which the theme was Hokkaido songs, and "Souran Wataridori" was on the playlist.
The thing about "Souran Wataridori" is that the melody by Minoru Endo（遠藤実）and the the lyrics by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由起）are very familiar to me especially the chorus of "yaaren, souran, souran, souran"（ヤーレン、ソーラン、ソーラン、ソーラン）that the sisters chant out. Unlike "Aah, Ueno Eki" with its setting of a major station in the capital, I think "Souran Wataridori" is more likely set at one of the larger but regional port cities employing fishery workers who may have come south from Hokkaido or moved to one of the coastal cities in Japan's northernmost prefecture.
What I found out from jisho.org is that a souran bushi（ソーラン節）is a "traditional work song of Hokkaido herring fishery workers, performed by school students in modern choreographed interpretations". So, perhaps the workers didn't actually sing and bring in the fish in a rhythmic fashion but the teachers and kids interpreted their work that way.
In the first verse, though, there was a mention about someone plucking away at the shamisen so maybe the song wasn't just devoted to the migrant port workers but also to all those who left their hometowns (labourers, entertainers, etc.) to find work in the big cities. The Komadori Shimai themselves were born in Hokkaido and came to Tokyo to work as strolling musicians on the streets.
Being able to remember the song is probably not so surprising considering that it has probably been covered countless times since the 1960s. Above we have Toshimi Tagawa（田川寿美）and Aya Shimazu （島津亜矢）among othersproviding their version. The songwriters, by the way, also provided the Komadori Shimai with their first single, "Asakusa Shimai"（浅草姉妹）back in 1959.
I recently found myself down a Youtube music hole, as I often do, and ended up on this video of Toshimi Togawa (田川寿美). >
As soon as the intro hit I knew I'd heard the song before, but sung by someone else. It took around 20 minutes of me going through my iTunes library before I found Wo He Ni by Teresa Teng.
The original Japanese song, Kitaguni No Haru (Spring in the north country) was first sung in 1977 by Masao Sen (千昌夫)and there seems to be versions in various Asian languages. The Teng version is in Mandarin and the lyrics are different (Wo He Ni translates as "You and Me".) Of course, Teresa was singing and releasing records in Japanese at the time, and there exists a recording of her singing the original Japanese version of the song as well. The Japanese lyrics are from the perspective of someone from a small town in presumably Hokkaido, who has since left for the big city. This is a common general theme in Enka songs of the era, of course during this time many Japanese were leaving small towns for cities. the string section flourishes and drawn out vocals really give the track a springtime longing sort of feel. And there's a great version by one of my favorites, Fuji Keiko (藤圭子.)
