Popular Song Studies, No. 2: Yogiri no Blues

English translation of the prose

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

Originally published: 28 November 2022.

Popular Song Studies, no. 2: “Yogiri no Blues”

Seishu Hamano

English translation of the prose in the nine-page Japanese article. The author’s historical assertions and imagined scenes are retained as interpretations from the source; quoted lyrics remain in Japanese in the linked original PDF.

1

Verse 1 is quoted in the original Japanese PDF. The lyrics are left untranslated.

There is an expression, “a man in his prime.” This song gives us the image of a fully grown man, physically strong and articulate, someone others respect, who would be shown to a superior seat on entering a club. Sing it imagining such a man in his thirties or forties. “Yogiri no Blues” depicts the essence of manhood, so both words and music have a powerful resonance grounded in history.

The singer should therefore pay attention to expression and costume. Wear an American-cut suit, a burgundy tie, a soft hat with a slightly broad brim, and a Burberry trench coat. If possible, coordinate the shoes and tie in Burberry style too.

In DAM karaoke, a somewhat older Dick Mine appears in a monochrome film dressed this way, exchanging blows with gangsters. The time is the 1930s—or perhaps around 1944, when defeat was already near. The place is Shanghai. Does the man live in Hongkou, the Japanese quarter? He looks every inch a roguish intelligence agent. We need not see inside the bulge at his chest to know its contents: a large Nambu automatic pistol, Luger-like, capable of piercing a target’s heart a hundred meters away. It has the power of a P38 rather than a Walther PPK. With it in his breast pocket, he fights the rough men swarming around him. The karaoke backdrop is Yokohama’s red-brick warehouses, which slightly spoils the atmosphere, but Dick Mine moves briskly and looks the part.

When will the enemy use a Soviet gun? Who cares? Even if they kill me… I am a wanderer who long ago abandoned Japan, and even his own fate. Nobody will mourn if I die.

The song’s words capture this reckless life well. From a songwriter’s viewpoint, its creation of a situation is skillful. A feeling of “If you are coming for me, come on!” fills the song. That is why one can stand proudly, a dandy, and bring a low voice up from the abdomen. Words and music were presumably put together late in the war with tightened abdominal muscles and the attitude: this is victorious imperial Japan’s dandyism.

Yet the work was released after the war, soon after its end, when the prevailing mood was “We have had enough of war—never again.” Returning defeated soldiers were filthy, penniless, and hungry. Men already deeply frustrated by the postwar rejection of war intoxicated themselves with this song. It was the return of the man with guts.

The film, however, does not portray it that way. Contrary to the strength filling the lyrics, its story exudes remorse and melancholy. One cannot even discern the dandyism of smiling outwardly while crying within. Yet the song itself celebrates a lone wolf, and thus brings tears.

In Showa 30, 1955, a foolish politician announced that Japan was “no longer in the postwar period,” provoking disapproval, as the source recounts it. Dick paid no heed. He sang this at the Showboat cabaret, a shabby Shimbashi building that had survived the bombing, to an excellent clientele. In Showa 34, 1959, I too came to Tokyo for university and worked part-time as a singer at Showboat, opening for Dick and closing the evening. As the Shimbashi night grew late, the lights dimmed dramatically when I appeared. At the center of the hall, couples pressed tightly together and danced to my “Yogiri no Blues.” When I sang this or “Dance Party no Yoru”—another masterpiece—they embraced and danced, forgetting how late it was. Where is that old brilliance now?

This decadent atmosphere is surely the song’s distinctive character. So listen on YouTube in a mood of traveling back through modern history. Dick Mine habitually said, “I will be a bad boy all my life.” In fact, he was a serious man from Rikkyo University, but saying this, he became the story’s protagonist himself. It is admirable that he lived his life that way.

Picture that atmosphere, listen repeatedly on YouTube, and learn the song. When writing your own lyrics, do not imitate even a line or phrase. But if you come to love this masterpiece, you too should be able to write a good song.

2

Verse 2 is quoted in the original Japanese PDF. The lyrics are left untranslated.

Now read the first and second verses, counting the sounds one by one on your fingers: seven, seven, five; seven, seven, five. It is a typical seven-five rhythm. Even in the twenty-first century, lyrics in this meter suit only great singers such as Hibari or Aki Yashiro. Fixed verse forms suit larger-than-life singers. Conversely, seven-five songs do not suit singers lacking that atmosphere, or young singers.

As for the second verse, even this wanderer had a girl he loved. She is Chinese. “This love cannot succeed. You are Japanese. Eventually you will return to Japan and abandon me.” In tears, she throws the bouquet he has given her into the street. Japanese imperial soldiers and spies, pursued by the Chinese army, will be expelled from Shanghai. “Then isn’t it our fate that you can never stay with me?” She throws her love bouquet into the road. Having given it, he can only watch silently.

At that moment he understands deeply that he has nowhere he can settle and live in peace. The song might be said to depict the lament of a dandy who acts tough. On both the Chinese and southern fronts, Japanese soldiers tended not to harm local inhabitants, but to show kindness and affection, in the author’s account. Thus tens of thousands of romances with local women occurred. “Let us marry when the war is over…” Once divided into enemies, such dreams ended. The Chinese girl knows this, so with tears she throws back the bouquet, that symbol of love.

3

Yet at the dance hall, the woman who works as a dancer reports for duty as usual. Wearing a long pink dress, she stands against the wall. He finds her, takes her hand, leads her to the middle of the hall, and begins to dance. That is the content of the third verse.

Verse 3 is quoted in the original Japanese PDF. The lyrics are left untranslated.

These four lines require considerable knowledge of Shanghai, so let me explain. To guard the Japanese quarter, the Imperial Navy’s landing-force headquarters stood roughly between Hongkou and the French concession. Between this white-tiled building with rounded corners and Hongkou, a dance hall called the Bluebird stood beside the road. Its dancers were Chinese young women, and its customers, naturally, naval officers.

The song’s protagonist is a lone-wolf spy. Chinese agents might be watching anywhere. Therefore, after the last dance, going to a hotel together would be far too dangerous. The young women, too, often worked as double agents between the Japanese and the Chinese army. An innocent smile on receiving a bouquet of love could get her killed. For this reason as well, she throws it away before him, crying. If the Chinese army’s fifth column—counterspies—noticed and exposed their relationship, all would be over. Thus she throws away the bouquet, and when they meet again at the hall, she only dances in his arms.

The protagonist leaves with a Japanese companion. Outside it is raining. Sharing an umbrella, they walk through the evening streets. Surely fifth-column men follow them. Tonight will bring a storm. Tonight we may be eliminated… Bang, bang!

Another exchange of military-pistol fire tonight? In Shanghai he is utterly an outsider. It is winter, and even whether he can remain until spring is uncertain. In the end, he is destined to disappear here without a name.

The man walks along the rain-soaked pavement thinking that tonight, at last, his life may end.

The song is still often sung at karaoke. Most of you probably have not read its meaning this far. That is fine. Depicting approaching terror against exotic Shanghai, the song closes by adorning the life of one lonely man with stylish background music.

Seishu Hamano

Original nine-page Japanese article. The original page’s video remains available with its source materials.