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Well,I don't like this song. This song was written when I was one year old, but I have been familiar with it.

This song is supposed to be one of the most famous songs of "Group Sounds"(GS) a Japanese music genre which was popular late 1960's. Yes,it really sounds like GS.
After I grew up,I was surprised to learn that GS including this song was Japanese understanding of The Beatles. It is amazing: you put The Beatles in some Japanese brain,and then they put out something completely different. This is Japanese magic!
Previously I wrote as below:
>The history of Japanese modern music could be said “The battle against Japanese language or Japanese culture”. Many Japanese composers, influenced by new style of the era such as Jazz, Blues and Rock etc, have been trying to make new style songs, but in many cases their songs were very different from the songs they adored, and their songs eventually became something “unique” Japanese pops.

The following article about Blue comets proves my opinion.

GS boom: Hit song and regret. (from Asahi shimbun evening edition Dec.15th.2005. Translated by me)

　The Beatles’ concert in Japan in 1966 caused a big fad of “ Group Sounds ” (GS) which mainly use electric guitars. The golden age of GS was 1967 to 1968. There were more than 300 bands in Japan, but the boom lasted only several years.
“ Jacky Yoshikawa and Blue Comets”　was one of the most famous GS bands.
When Jacky Yoshikawa, band leader and drummer, listened to Beatles for the first time by record, he was astonished by the novelty of its chord progression and chorus.
The Beatles let him have an idea : “We can write songs by our-self and sing like them. Good chorus is important”.
Therefore they accepted an offer to play the opening act of The Beatles’ concert in Japan. He also wrote a song called “Welcome The Beatles” with Tadao Inoue, one of the members of his band.
After the opening act, they were locked in the back stage. Inoue and Tsunaki Mihara found that a small speaker in the bath room was relaying the stage sound. They huddled and listened to The Beatles voraciously.
After the concert , Yoshikawa went to the stage where all staff left, and hit Ringo Starr’ s drums one by one. The pitch was same as his drums. But something was different. When he was watching them, a staff of The Beatles shouted “Don’t touch”.
Next year, in 1967, Blue Comets’ “Blue chateau” or “Blue castle” won the “Record Taisho” or the most famous music award in Japan. One day, Yoshikawa saw some children singing the parody of “Blue chateau” : “Mori-Tonkatu Izumi ninniku”. (“Forest pork-fly Fountain garlic”. The original lyric was “Mori to .Izumi ni” or “the forest and the fountain ”) . He says, ” I thought the song would be a big hit. As a leader, I was happy”.
Inoue ,who composed the song , however, regretted about the song.
The song was made while he was making songs for Nana Kinomi,a Japanese female singer. The song which he took only a few minutes to compose was a sort of “Kayoukyoku” ( a term which means Japanese pops until 1980’s).　It was used " Minor Scale without D and G”, one of the typical scale of Japanese traditional songs. He thought, “This is male’s song ”,and they played and released it.

“The song was the beginning of the tragedy of GS”, Inoue said during the interview in 1987. “I just wanted to create something sounds cool like “Yougaku” ( a Japanese term which means European music, but it usually suggests American or British pops and rock), but the song was exact opposite of it. Then , other GS bands were forced to resemble our “Blue chateau” .
The records companies in Japan at the time expected the big hit like this song. Although Inoue hoped that the GS boom would change the Japanese music scene, but Blue comets’ followers were ordered to play “Kayoukyoku” style songs which were written by some professional composers.
He denied and berated himself. Kazuo Sugimura, then band staff, says, “I knew he was worrying about it. Other members didn’t want to play the song either ”.
Inoue composed “Run away” in 1980 for “ Chanels ”, a Japanese doo-wop band, and it became a big hit.
He said,” I’ve finally done what I wanted to do ”.
He committed suicide in 2000 worrying about his disease.＞＞＞＞＞＞＞



Oh my God! They played at The Ed Sullivan Show!!!!!

　This song was popular about 10 years ago. I knew only its chorus part, and I think the part was used by some commercial message at that time.
I saw their gig at Summer Sonic, a famous rock festival in Japan, in 2009. When they started to play this song, I couldn’t recognize what this song was. But when they played its chorus part, I could understand.

The style of this song comes from some music movement which Green Day, a U.S rock band, belong to. In Japan, the movement was called “Melo-core” or “Melodious hard core punk”. Well, what ever it is called, its origin is Sex Pistols or something.

When I heard the song for the first time in Japanese CM (it played only its chorus part), I felt a very strong taste of Japanese traditional song. They might be trying to do something new, but their spirit is on something very big stream of Japanese music or Japanese mind. I guess, probably Japanese language made them made the melody although they might be a follower of Sex Pistols.
It is hard to explain, but Japanese language has strong influence when you compose using Japanese language. The history of Japanese modern music could be said “The battle against Japanese language or Japanese culture”. Many Japanese composers, influenced by new style of the era such as Jazz, Blues and Rock etc, have been trying to make new style songs, but in many cases their songs were very different from the songs they adored, and their songs eventually became something “unique” Japanese pops. For example, some might say Japanese “Enka” is Japan’s original genre and represent Japanese spirit, but many of “Enka” songs were based on the adoration for American Blues. “Enka” never sound like American Blues. I think this is interesting and important point when you listen to Japanese music. Mongol 800 is also not the exception.

"Minato no Yoko Yokohama Yokosuka" or "Harbor gull Yoko and Yokohama Yokosuka ".
This is a song of 1975. This song reminds me of some song of Iggy Pop.
I don't know the back ground of this song,but it is definitely influenced by some American rock of the era.
This song is very odd ,however,it was very popular,and I can tell everybody in Japan knew this weird song and could sing including myself who was only 9 years old. This kind of thing happened a lot in those days. Nowadays few people know number-one hit of Japan.

In this song,it seems a man looks for a missing girl, Yoko, in Yokohama and Yokosuka.The lyric takes a style of replies of some people who know Yoko. Everybody say at the end of the story "Anta anoko no nan-nano-sa?"I don't know how to translate this in cool English ,but this is very rude way to say "What is your connection to her?" It was a very popular phrase,and it sounds funny to me and maybe to most Japanese people.


Yokohama and Yokosuka are both port towns near Tokyo. There was a big U,S camp in Yokohama,and Yokosuka is still a U.S Navy's base.Therefore,the images of the towns are sometimes exotic and wild. Many songs about Yokohama and Yokosuka basically based on these images relating to U.S base..

This is Shinichi Mori version.




This is Takuro Yoshida version.

Takuro Yoshida is a famous folk singer in Japan,and he composed this song.
Shinichi Mori is a famous Enka singer,and his version is far more popular in Japan.

This song is about Cape Erimo,Hokkaido Japan.
As I mentioned before,in this song, Hokkaido is also described as "the end of Japan" or "the end of the world". Japan is a small island country,and Japanese people are consciously or unconsciously feeling that there is no way out. There is no place like "south of the border" in the U.S. Therefore,in Japan,people tend to believe that if you need to escape then you should go to the north where there are less people.

As you might assume,Takuro Yoshida's sound is something similar to American folk songs of 1960's to 70's. I guess this song was a mixture of Japanese musicians' understanding of American folk and Japanese native music.
In Shinichi Mori version,I think,this Japanese native music is emphasised because of his traditional Enka style singing and his technique. Yoshida's singing is kind of plain,and I think this is what he wanted to do,and I guess he wanted to sing like American musician.

The image of Yoshida's singing is like a story of some "hippie" who settled in Hokkaido.
However,Shinichi Mori's singing sounds like it is a story of some people who live in small town Cape Erimo, including fisherman,farmer and everybody. It's a magic of Enka singer, I don't know which was better though.

Aki Yashiro is a famous Enka singer in Japan.

I don't understand the back ground of this lyric very well ,but it seems this is a story of a lonely man who is drinking at Izakaya or Japanese style bar at somewhere near a port of some small town. The man is probably not the resident of the town. Maybe he dropped by the town for some reason. Maybe he is escaping from something.

Loneliness, port,small town and escape are usually staple term or theme of Enka ( a genre of Japanese songs).

I think this type of song used to represent the scenery of Japan until 1980's.