English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published:
This is material published on the Japanese website. Dates and notices in the text describe the circumstances at the time of its original publication.
The commentary is translated into English. Quoted song lyrics are retained in Japanese.
A Woman's Life Journey, Seen through the Song 赤い靴のタンゴ
Author's name as given in the original: 橘かほり
壱．誰が履かせた 赤い靴よ
涙知らない 乙女なのに
履いた夜から 切なく芽生えた 恋の こころ
窓の月さえ 嘆きを誘う
The song appeared in Showa 25 (1950), amid the boom in special procurements for the Korean War, just as people were finally putting an end to life on the knife-edge between having enough to eat and starving to death. Cabarets reviving the military world were everywhere. The tango style was therefore almost too sophisticated, sensuous and unsettling. Shining red shoes were an unattainable luxury.
In the song, an innocent girl who has yet to know a man is drawn into temptation: 'How about these fine shoes? Why don't you try them on?' The lyric describes an innocent girl by writing 「涙しらない」 in place of 「何も知らない乙女」, setting the heart aflutter. The film 赤線地帯, released in the Showa thirties, depicts a girl from a poor farming family amazed by the taste of a chicken-and-egg rice bowl: it is the first step in her seduction into that life. Here it is red shoes instead. Such is her innocence that even the sight of the moon moves her to tears at the gulf between it and her own circumstances. It is perfectly suited to the dance halls of the occupation forces.
弐．なぜに燃え立つ 赤い靴よ
君を想うて 踊るタンゴ
旅は果てなく 山越え 野超えて 踊るタンゴ
春はミモザの花も匂う
Dance halls and cabarets were springing up everywhere at the time. Dancers took customers all night long. During the Christmas season, even suburban trains ran through the night. The maiden in the red shoes goes wherever she is wanted, from base to base, from military cabaret to cabaret. Another year passes, and spring has come.
参．運命かなしい 赤い靴よ
道はふた筋 君は一人
飾り紐さえ 涙で千切れて さらば さらば
遠い汽笛に 散りゆく花よ
No item worn on the body carries a sadder destiny than shoes. However much they are liked and loved, they will eventually become worn-out shoes, destined to be abandoned.
These red shoes, too, have been loved until they are in tatters. And now she abandons her lover in Japan and goes overseas. In other words, she marries a member of the occupation forces and boards a ship. Perhaps it is the longed-for voyage to Hawaii. Farewell, farewell to her work as a dancer. As the ship leaves, the red shoes are thrown into the sea, appearing and disappearing among the waves. They sink.
The lyricist is 西条八十. You are a professor of French literature at Waseda, a scholar of Arthur Rimbaud, are you not? And yet, how could you depict a woman's life journey within such a short poem? You are a prodigy, portraying together the social conditions of the time and the passions of a woman swept along by them.
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.