＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
The NHK morning drama series “Yell” began airing on March 30, 2020. “Yell” is, of course, a reference to “sending cheers” and “support (for Fukushima).”
The drama tells the story of the eventful lives of Fukushima-born composer Yuji Koseki (1909-1989), a prominent figure in Japanese music history during the Showa era, and his wife Kaneko Koseki (1912-1980), who was also a successful singer.
The opening scene of the first episode attracted attention for its light-hearted and comical depiction of how music has been a part of life since prehistoric times 10,000 BC.
So, in this article, we’d like to introduce you to Yuji Koseki, the model for the main character, Yuichi Furuyama.
1. About Yuji Koseki
(1) Birth and Childhood
Yuji Koseki (real name: Yuji Koseki) was born in 1909 to Saburoji and Hisa, the eldest son of Kitasan, a kimono shop in Omachi, Fukushima City, Fukushima Prefecture. His mother’s family, the Muto family, was one of the wealthiest families in Fukushima Prefecture.
His father loved music and purchased a gramophone (record player), which was still rare in the Taisho era, and always played records.
Seeing his son enjoying listening to records, his mother bought him a small piano, and he happily took to the piano, engrossed in playing. As he played, he began to understand the meaning of the notes, and by the time he graduated from elementary school, he was able to read sheet music.
Living in the same neighborhood, he often played with a childhood friend named Kihachi Suzuki (1904-1966), who was five years older than him. Suzuki later became a songwriter under the name “Tosio Nomura” and, together with Furusawa, produced numerous songs.
(2) Youth
In 1916, he entered the elementary school attached to the Fukushima Prefectural Normal School. By the age of 10, he was able to read music and began purchasing commercially available “Senoo Music Sheets (*).”
(*) “Senoo Music Sheets” is a series of piece sheet music published by Kojiro Senoo during the Taisho era. The cover art featured works by famous artists such as Yumeji Takehisa, who was considered a “symbol of Taisho romanticism,” and is said to have taken the world by storm. The secret to Senoo Music Sheets’ popularity lay in the song selections that captured the musical tastes of Japanese people at the time and the beautiful, innovative design of the binding.
His homeroom teacher was a music lover and devoted himself to music instruction. He taught himself composition and became so fascinated by it that his classmates would bring him poems and ask him to compose them.
In 1922, he enrolled in the former Fukushima Commercial School (now Fukushima Commercial High School), a school filled with musicians. He entered the school to take over the family business, but he always carried his harmonica with him and apparently even repeated a year, becoming more absorbed in composing than his studies.
Around this time, he continued to study composition on his own, collecting Senoo sheet music and Yamada Kosaku’s “How to Compose,” but his family’s kimono shop went bankrupt while he was still a student.
Around the time he graduated, he joined the Fukushima Harmonica Society, one of Japan’s leading harmonica bands at the time, where he was responsible for composing, arranging, and conducting.
It was here, when a group called the Firebird Society, run by a group of local musicians, held concerts featuring modern musicians’ records, that he first encountered modern French and Russian music and was deeply moved.
He was devoted to Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” as well as Debussy and Mussorgsky.
After graduating from school, his family’s kimono shop went bankrupt, so he took a job at Kawamata Bank (now the Kawamata Branch of Toho Bank), where his maternal uncle was president.
Around this time, he mailed sheet music to the office of Kosaku Yamada, whom he had admired since his student days, and exchanged letters with him several times.
In 1929, his orchestral dance suite “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,” won second place in a composition competition held by the Chester Music Press in London.
This was the first time a Japanese person had won an international composition competition, and the news was widely reported in the newspapers at the time. After reading this news report, Kaneko Uchiyama, an aspiring vocalist living in Toyohashi City, Aichi Prefecture, sent him a fan letter, and after a passionate long-distance relationship of just three months and correspondence, they quickly married in 1930.
He compared his relationship with Kaneko to that of composer Robert Schumann and his wife Clara, and dreamed of living with her as his partner in his musical career.
(3) Becoming a composer exclusively signed to Columbia
In 1930, he joined Nippon Columbia on the recommendation of Nippon Columbia advisor Kosaku Yamada. His first record was “Fukushima March.” In 1931, he composed Waseda University’s cheer song “Konpeki no Sora.” In September of the same year, he was appointed Nippon Columbia’s exclusive composer on Kosaku Yamada’s recommendation, and the couple moved to Tokyo.
In Tokyo, he studied under classical composer Akio Sugawara.
However, after his family’s financial collapse, he was forced to leave classical composition to support his family. His 1935 composition “Funado Kawaiya” became a major hit. Around this time, his wife, Kaneko, who aspired to be a vocalist, was attending the Imperial Music School.
In 1936, he composed “The Song of the Osaka (Hanshin) Tigers/Commonly Known as Rokko Oroshi.” This is the oldest team song of any of the 12 current professional baseball teams.
He also composed the Giants’ cheer song, “Giants’ Song/Fighting Spirit” in 1963.
(4) Wartime
His 1937 release, “Bivouac Song,” became a huge hit, selling 600,000 copies. In 1938, he visited Shanghai and Nanjing as part of the “military musical unit” at the request of the Central China Expeditionary Army Press Department.
His 1940 release, “Praying at Dawn,” and his 1943 release, “Song of the Young Eagles (Yokohama Air Force Academy),” also became huge hits.
The military songs he composed were not “division songs” or “regimental songs” commissioned by the military, but rather “military national songs,” “wartime songs,” and “home front songs.” He is said to have composed nearly 100 songs. However, the exact number is unknown, as some of the sheet music was destroyed by GHQ after the war.
(5) Postwar
The war ended on August 15, 1945. After the war, he made a fresh start, devoting himself to activities to brighten up Japan’s dark and anxious times through music.
① “Pointed Hat” (1947): The theme song for the radio drama “The Hill Where the Bell Rings,” which focused on rescuing war orphans.
② “The Crown Shines on You” (1948): This is the high school baseball tournament song that is still played at Koshien every summer.
③ “The Bells of Nagasaki” (1949): A magnificent requiem not only for Nagasaki but for all of Japan.
④ “Olympic March” (1964): This march rang out at the opening ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
He continued to release a string of other cheerful, uplifting, and heroic songs, including “Francesca’s Bell,” “Your Name,” and “The Highland Train Is Going.”
I believe that Koseki Yuji lived a life of “one body, two lives.” This was probably true for many of our parents’ generation, who experienced the war and witnessed great changes in the world, but in the case of Koseki Yuji, it’s clear that he was a different person during and after the war, as many of his famous compositions remain. He seems to have been a different person during and after the war.
As an aside, Fukushima Prefecture-born singer Ito Hisao (1910-1983), who was popular for singing “militaristic songs” such as “Song of the Bivouac” and “Pray at Dawn,” composed by Koseki Yuji, also felt a sense of responsibility for singing so many militaristic songs. Immediately after the war, he retreated to his evacuation site and became an alcoholic, and it was said that he would never recover. Like Koseki, he seems to have suffered great depression and distress.
However, he made a comeback with “Yofuke no Machi,” the theme song for the 1947 Shochiku film “Hell’s Face” (directed by Makino Masahiro). Then, in 1948, he made a fresh start and seemed to have gotten over it by singing the cheerful “Glory Shines on You.”
(*) One body, two lives: This phrase originates from Yukichi Fukuzawa’s “Outline of Civilization,” in which he describes his own position as a Confucian-educated man raised during the Edo period and then an intellectual leader of the modernization movement in the early Meiji period: “It is as if I have lived two lives in one body, as if I had two bodies in one.”
This means, “Experiencing completely different lives in one lifetime is like having two bodies in one person.” He likely felt, “There is no more convenient position for comparative research between ancient Japanese civilization and Western civilization. Such an opportunity will likely never come again after this lifetime.”
(6) Later Years
In 1969, he was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon.
He served as a judge for the Fuji TV music entertainment program “All-Star Family Singing Battle,” which began airing in October 1972, for 12 years, until June 1984.
Many people who watched this program likely remembered the face and name of Koseki Yuji.
In 1979, he was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class, and also received the Japan Record Award Special Prize.
He passed away in 1989 due to a cerebral infarction. He was 80 years old.
I believe that his songs, for better or worse, were “cheer songs” that cheered people on. During the war, they boosted the morale of soldiers and provided emotional support for women and children on the home front, helping to lift their fighting spirits. After the war, they completely reversed course, serving as a source of encouragement for the nation, helping them rise brightly and strongly from the despair caused by defeat. There is no doubt that his songs had this power.
It is said that he composed as many as 5,000 songs. He is also known as the “Japanese Sousa” for the sheer number of cheer songs and marches he composed.
By the way, “Sousa” refers to John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), known as the “King of Marches” for composing over 100 marches, including “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Washington Post,” and “Thunder.”
As an aside, the man known as the “King of British Marches” is Kenneth Joseph Alford (1881-1945). His most famous work is “Colonel Bogey,” which was later used as the theme music for “The Bridge on the River Kwai” under the name “The River Kwai March,” and is well known in Japan.
Songs have the mysterious power to heal the wounded, to inspire courage, and to evoke nostalgic feelings. It’s impossible to categorically rank “poetry” and “melody” as being superior to one another.
Lyrics and composition are like the two wheels of a cart; without either, a song wouldn’t have become a “Japanese favorite song” or a “song of the Japanese heart.” When a song is set to music, I believe it resonates with many people when it’s combined with excellent poetry (lyrics) and a suitable composition.
However, in his songs, the power of composition is significantly greater, and perhaps I’m being biased in thinking that it was his melodies that made them such moving songs.
2. Yuji Koseki’s Signature Songs
(1) Signature Songs from the Prewar Period
The year after he joined Nippon Columbia in 1930 (Showa 5), he composed the Waseda University cheer song “Konpeki no Sora” (Deep Blue Sky).
He then had successive hits with “Tone no Funauta” (Funauta) and “Funato Kawaiya” (How Cute the Boatman), solidifying his position as a popular composer.
During the war, although it was unavoidable given the circumstances of the times, he composed many songs to boost the morale of the people. Beloved songs include military songs such as “Song of the Bivouac” (Bravely, we will come back to victory…), “Praying at Dawn” (Ah, with that face, with that voice…), “Song of the Young Eagle (Yokohama Air Force Academy)” (The young-blooded Yokohama Air Force Academy…), and “Flower of Patriotism” (The nobility of Mount Fuji, shrouded in mist…).
Other songs include “The Comfort Bag,” “Through the Rain of Bullets,” “Song of Patriotic Women,” “The Wild Eagle I Long for,” “The Wild Eagle Yearns for,” “Oh, Prince Kitashirakawa,” “March of the Sea,” “The Destruction of the British Eastern Fleet,” “Let’s All Support the War,” “We Will Definitely Win,” “Air Defense Surveillance Song,” “The Army Song of the Greater East Asia War,” “The Sunny Entry into Singapore,” “The Bombing of America,” “God of War in the Skies,” “Fighting Prime Minister Tojo,” “Fire and Never Stop,” and “Rabaul Naval Air Corps.” The list goes on.
Although he may be criticized, it is a fact that he was “the greatest hitmaker of military songs” during the war. He also apparently harbored guilt for those who were sent to the battlefield and died because of his own songs.
(2) Representative Postwar Songs
After the war, he enjoyed hits such as “The Bells of Nagasaki,” “The Night of Iyomante,” and “The Highland Train Is Going,” as well as radio drama theme songs such as “The Hill Where the Bells Ring” and “Your Name.”
He also composed famous sports songs, such as “Rokko Oroshi” (the Hanshin Tigers’ cheer song), “Olympic March,” “The Crown Shines on You” (the National High School Baseball Championship song), “Fighting Spirit” (the Yomiuri Giants’ cheer song), and “We Are the Champion” (the Keio University cheer song).
3. Anecdotes about Yuji Koseki
(1) He sent New Year’s cards to his wife even after marriage.
He married 18-year-old Kaneko Uchiyama at the age of 20, and apparently continued to send her New Year’s cards with the sentiment, “Let’s get along well this year too.”
(2) He had a sweet tooth and loved Mitsuya Cider.
4. Words of Yuji Koseki
(1) When faced with a theme or poem, imagine the scene. Then, music will begin to flow in your head.
(2) Knowledge is like shoes. You can walk without them, but wearing them will protect you in many ways.
(3) When I was in business school, I preferred musical note beads to abacus beads.