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.
