Songs as Gifts of Their Times: Seishu Hamano’s Historical Commentary on the Jun Hayama Concert

English translation of the prose

AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.

Jun Hayama Concert: “Songs Are Gifts from Their Times”

Japan Romanticism Society commentary edition
President Seishu Hamano

Historical concert program. Dates, performers’ circumstances, and the author’s historical interpretations are retained from the original. Quoted poetry and lyrics remain in Japanese.

• Thursday, 22 January 2026: doors 15:30; performance 16:00.
• Venue: Sazanami Hall, Zushi Cultural Plaza.
• Performers: Jun Hayama, Yukinori Hirano, Yuki Yamashita.
• Lyrics, production, and historical research: Seishu Hamano (Kahori Tachibana).
• Theme: “Songs Are Gifts from Their Times.”

Opening words from the Japan Romanticism Society

Welcome, everyone. This commentary approaches the concert from a different angle than the program distributed at the venue. Our Society too emphasizes a living, human touch, with creators at its center. As times change, the weight of songs’ history leaves an ever deeper impression on people’s hearts, becoming an enduring “history of the heart.” Mindful of this, we continue presenting new works and spiritedly appearing on YouTube with historically informed songs. This too is thanks to your support.

An auspicious day in January 2026
Seishu Hamano, President, Japan Romanticism Society

Program: Part One — from the present to a century ago

Exactly a hundred years ago, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises appeared, opening the age of hard-boiled fiction. Amid the Charleston dancing of flappers intoxicated by Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, published the previous year, Japan, suffering the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake, sought a way forward in building Manchukuo. Before traveling back to that time, let us begin in present-day Shibuya.

The Great Kanto Earthquake led to the breakdown of Japan’s economy, while America was in turmoil with impoverished refugees from Eastern and Southern Europe. Then came the Great Depression. Withdrawal of American dollars from Germany left Germans at rock bottom amid high prices. People placed their hopes in vigorous Nazi policies; militarization surged and led to the attack on Poland. This background is not in the concert program, so I offer it here. Even today, the collapse of the world economy could bring another war of aggression. It is a dangerous prospect.

1. “Dojokko Funakko” — words: Seishu Hamano; music: Jun Hayama

The children’s song of the same name comes from Akita. Becoming creatures of a stream, it tells of the human world versus the natural world. A boy and girl who were childhood friends and played the mischievous outsiders there come to Tokyo. Asked to sing at a friend’s wedding reception, they awaken not to “Ginkoi” but to the natural world of home. What becomes of these little Akita loaches living in Shibuya’s crowds?

Junior-high-school graduates arriving from Tohoku were called “golden eggs”; hundreds of “Young Roots” associations formed. That generation is now preparing for the end of life. They were young people who worked and worked. I wish always to remember their lives. Wholesome love built through effort is eternal. It is romanticism.

2. “Wakare no Blues” (1937) — words: Ko Fujiura; music: Ryoichi Hattori; singer: Jun Hayama

Noriko Awaya’s singing was exquisite. The song became enormously popular overseas in Japanese-controlled territories, to the military’s displeasure. Years later, on an official entertainment visit to special-attack pilots, Awaya saw young men salute even midway through her song, board their Zero fighters, and depart. She sang through tears. Their commanding officer also cried, as did the schoolgirls seeing them off.

After the war, singer Hamako Watanabe continued official morale visits. Hoping for the release of the many soldiers detained overseas as war criminals without justification, she sang a mother’s feelings in “Aa Muntinlupa no Yo wa Fukete.” We must not forget the miracle that followed: all 108 Japanese Class B and C war criminals imprisoned in the Philippines’ Muntinlupa Prison received pardons and returned home. The song closes with 日本の土を踏むまでは…. This love too is romanticism.

3. “Nagisabashi Blues” (2024) — words: Seishu Hamano (Kahori Tachibana); music: Jun Hayama

We return to the present. Parting is painful. The place is Nagisa Bridge in Zushi. Her lover is returning to the home where his wife and children wait. The heroine cries もう帰って来ないでいいの and laments that she is like からっぽの貝. Her feelings invite more sympathy than words can express. I wrote under a female pen name; after the release, repeated comments that the heroine was so pitiful eventually prompted me to write a sequel.

4. “Onarimachi Blues” (2024) — words: Seishu Hamano (Kahori Tachibana); music: Jun Hayama

Ten years after the farewell at Nagisa Bridge, the scene moves from Zushi to Onari Street, on the Enoden side of Kamakura Station. As an aside, this sort of reunion also appears in Edo kouta:

近くへ来たときゃ寄りゃしゃんせ、誰に気兼ねがエ、あらうかひな

Adult love can be remarkably brazen. After ten years, the innocence of one’s twenties becomes something more formidable. A middle-aged woman waits in the café where they once met secretly. What is in her heart? This too is a generation’s gift to our own time.

At Nagisa Bridge there was a feeling of making amends; on Onari Street that feeling is outweighed by the single-minded wish to see him. This too is romanticism.

5. “Soshu Yakyoku” (1940) — words: Yaso Saijo; music: Ryoichi Hattori; singer: Jun Hayama

The time is the year before the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor: a love story amid increasingly complicated relations with a neighboring country. Suzhou is a water city easily reached from Shanghai. Even today people take boats out to enjoy a spring evening.

There is an expression utakata no ai, fleeting love, with utakata written 泡沫, foam. Rowing a boat creates bubbles, but they soon break; love is the same. This is an ephemeral love song: a relationship between a Chinese young woman and a soldier of imperial Japan would naturally vanish like foam, yet still they wish it would not. This too is romanticism.

6. Variations on “Haru ga Kita” — mandolin: Yukinori Hirano

Today we offer a song announcing spring a little early: “Haru ga Kita,” arranged by Jiro Nakano. Nakano made Teiichi Okano’s original into an unaccompanied mandolin solo. Keeping the melody’s outline, he changes tone color, rhythm, and layered sonorities to broaden its expression. As the variations progress, we hear the pleasure of the same song becoming different. Sparkle, chords, and lingering resonance lead toward the ending. It stands as a work in its own right, suffused with the promise of spring appropriate to the early season.

The explanation above is from the performer, Yukinori Hirano. Listen for how his mandolin artistry expresses this arrangement.

7. “Maho Kakete Miyo!” — words and music: Jun Hayama; premiere

In Himitsu no Akko-chan, one could transform into anything by saying “Tekumaku Mayakon.” Created by Fujio Akatsuka, with the anime beginning in 1969, it was hugely popular with girls and was the ancestor of the magical-girl series that continue today. I was one of those girls who begged her parents for a magical compact. But as adults we forget such dreams and hopes, and every day becomes messy. Wait—surely there were more things I wanted to do. Am I not the one who can change myself? We live only once. Remembering the excitement of girlhood and casting a little spell on myself produced this song.

Intermission: 15 minutes. Part Two begins at 16:55.

Part Two — youth in the decade beginning in 1955

This was also the era when “Petite Fleur” became enormously popular. Pop songs played daily from shopping-street speakers, putting a spring in people’s steps. There were no CDs yet. LPs flourished; tape recorders became common, moving from reels to cassettes that could fit in a pocket. Transistor radios also boomed. Car stereos used cassettes too. We dubbed LP records onto cassette tapes. It was an age of such enjoyment.

8. “Gakusei Jidai” — words and music: Seiji Hiraoka; singer: Jun Hayama

Because it is Peggy Hayama’s signature song, it is sometimes called Aoyama Gakuin’s song. Widely sung elsewhere, it is less so at Aoyama Gakuin. I taught American studies in its evening division for fifteen years. Peggy was still well, and I consulted her about reviving Fiddler on the Roof. English Department students invited me to attend Mass in the chapel. In retrospect, those days were just like the song’s words. Yet returning to campus now, I see only unfamiliar faces. My teaching days too are a dream, a dream.

Is it the changing of the times that is so fleeting? This too is romanticism.

9. “Oka o Koete,” composed by Masao Koga, and an Italian medley — mandolin: Yuki Yamashita

Today I introduce another outstanding player in Japan’s mandolin world, Yuki Yamashita. This spring he graduates from Meiji University, where he specializes in history. Just before graduation, he is also concertmaster of its distinguished Mandolin Club, founded by Masao Koga. When he plays Koga melodies, their feeling sinks deeply into every listener’s heart. He will also play melodies from Italy, the mandolin’s home. As it is a medley, listen for what he has woven in: I imagine you will think, “How nostalgic—this tune!” This too is romanticism.

10. “Haru no Umi” for mandolins

Michio Miyagi’s “Haru no Umi” is for koto and shakuhachi; here two mandolins take it on. Listen to the breath of youthful hearts in this masterpiece offered to the spring sunshine.

春の海　終日のたり　のたりかな　与謝蕪村

Introducing key members of the Japan Romanticism Society

Our regular leading performer, Jun Hayama, attracts attention as a rarity in the music world, singing while operating piano, Electone, and synthesizer. Her new songs have been well received and released on CD. Since last year, Hirano has been extremely busy performing, with full houses in many places. Yamashita graduates this spring as concertmaster of the distinguished Meiji University Mandolin Club: a brilliant professional debut for a young musician. We ask for your continued support this year.

11. “Tsukushite Kobande Nakinurete” — premiere of a new sequel; words: Seishu Hamano; music and singing: Jun Hayama

The couple who parted in Zushi’s “Nagisabashi Blues” reunite ten years later in Kamakura’s “Onarimachi Blues.” But society treats them coldly. They flee to the far north. What is in the heroine’s heart as she waits at a station in sleet? What will become of their love?

L. A. Fiedler, author of Love and Death in American Literature, often said that love and death are inseparable and unavoidable. Born frail, I still enjoy life only because of my parents’ love. One day I will reach my end. But more than imagining my wife and children mourning, I picture my deceased parents weeping bitterly in the other world. Feeling sorry for them, I take care of my body. I cannot die. You too must care for yourselves. This too is romanticism.

12. “Nostradamus no Tamashii” — words: Seishu Hamano; music and singing: Jun Hayama

A chilling fortune-teller’s story with lyrics by Kahori Tachibana: a song of a soul flying through time and space, taking you into a world of fantasy. To break a dark destiny, one must become a monk who breaks his vows. Both Koga and Hattori had a divine presence within their souls; freeing the self described in the lyric 暗い運命にうらぶれ果てし身を, they built radiant lives. In admiration, Jun and Kahori dedicate this song to these two great predecessors. YouTube.

13. “Mo Ichido Chokkyu Shobu” — call and response

This is a song of a woman rousing herself. Men of the world, do not underestimate women. How frightening! Do you know that the fashionable word “feminism” did not begin today? It was also the position of Raicho Hiratsuka and the Seito circle in the Meiji 30s [1897–1906, as dated in the source].

Historical notice: next concert

Saturday, 30 May: doors 13:00; performance 13:30. Venue: Kirara Kamakura, Kamakura Lifelong Learning Center. Reservations and inquiries: Jun Music Office, 090-4822-0935; email: [email protected].

Historical notice: social gathering

Thursday, 22 January 2026, at Sazanami Hall, Zushi Cultural Plaza, after the concert. Fee: ¥2,000. Reservations: 090-4822-0935; email: [email protected]. Jun Music Office; supported by the Japan Romanticism Society.

A joyful life begins with this spring event. Everyone who loves songs is invited. Under the title “Romanticism in Japan,” the Japan Romanticism Society invites you onto the stage: audience members, please offer your words and songs, one after another. We look forward to 22 January.