Tweet

— ABOUT  Wasabi Stories… —

“If you just stay alive, you’ll meet kindness someday”

Today’s story teller is Japanese prominent songwriter Ide Haku.

One of his best known songs is the ending theme of “[W:Toyama no Kin-san]” which is the popular TV series of jidai-geki (samurai drama).

The song is called “Sukima kaze” meaning “draft (a flow of cool air)”, and today’s story is about this song.

In 1976, when he was commissioned to write a theme of “Toyama no Kin-san”, the first thing he did was …

“Even it is a jidai-geki, the song should be something that today’s people can relate. So I borrowed two episodes and watched in detail.”

What he found is that the key point of the drama is in the last scene when Kin-san judges wicked men, he preaches to the town girls who were deceived by them “live your lives hard from now on”.

“If you just stay alive, you’ll meet kindness someday.”

With the idea of that misery is accompaniment of life but if you live hard, there will be something good happened to you, he was thinking about a wretched woman who lives in the shadow of a hard world, and the word “draft” came up to his mind.

At that point he had the lyric…

“♪ Loving someone opens heart. Getting hurt and feel a draft.”

The song “Sukima kaze” was released but it was so away from hit.

However, when “Toyama no Kin-san” was re-broadcasted, the situation turned upside down. At this occasion, the sales dramatically increased.

Later he searched the reason for the hit, and he found that the time of re-broadcasting was 4pm, when bar hostesses in Ginza start to get ready for work and watch the show while they putting make-up.

So he assumed the phrase “if you just stay alive, you’ll meet kindness someday” touched their hearts.

The NIKKEI May/7/2009 by Ide Haku (song writer)

You should follow me on Twitter HERE.