Listen to an old Japanese song Miako no ame ni/Carlos pueblo

Listen to an old Japanese song Miako no ame ni/Carlos pueblo

The song, Miako no ame ni, literally means At the rain in the Capital.

I assume the Capital is Tokyo, the largest city and the capital since the Edo

Era. It is composed by Toru Funamura, a very famous songs writer in the

current time, words by Ou Yoshida who is a famous poet of the time, and

first sung by Ichiro Toba. I was attracted by this song 20 some years ago

when I found a video on You Tube performed by Toba and a young lady

whose name was identical spelling with Chiako Naomi. It was sung by two

of them both with guitars. Later, I found more videos by Funamura himself,

Chiaki by herself, and the first hit by Toba. There is a piece collected by

someone for all three in series on a video.

Yoshida’s poem is following a 5 characters rule in a line in Japanese. It is what

my understanding of Chinese classic. It is very pretty even though I am still far

away from understanding in Japanese yet I can tell. It is the tune and melody

that attracted by me. I was brought up during the time not far from the end of

the War in the vacuum of in music in Chinese civilization. What I learned was from

the loud speakers of records stores on the main street of a small town in Taiwan.

They were all Japanese songs.  Listen to old Japanese songs bring back my memory

of my childhood and admiration.

Chiaki has been retired ever since her husband’s death. I love many of her hit songs,

i.e. Shitsure no watashi, is a song about a boat ride across a small river outside of

Tokyo. A young couple was across the small river to enter the capital for luck. She was

one of many famous singers made it after the original hit. I made a special visit one

year when I visited Tokyo. The boat piers are still standing there, one side is Shitsure

with garlic greens farm and the other side is a township famous for preserved Edo era

architecture.

A few of old Japanese hits were lost or perished in Japan, yet are born again in Taiwan,

for instance, two of Frank Nakai’s old hits, Yokiri no Dairikkudo literally means On a foggy

night of the #2 national Highway; and Watsuteraretamachi that I translate to an abandon

street. Both come back alive in Taiwan and the later became a theme song of the movie,

a city of sadness about a story of the 228 massacre in Taiwan by Nationalist Chinese on

February 28, 1947.