"Many" of my favourite Japanese musicians - Part 1

"The Boom" is one of my favourite Japanese bands. (Miyazawa Kazufumi is a vocal of the band.) I love some of their music. One of their songs has become very popular in South America as well. It is "SHIMAUTA" - Island Song-. An Argentinean musician, Alfredo Casero, covered the song, and it has become a big hit in Argentina in 2001-2002, and has been still loved by the people.

I myself have lots of good memories with Shimauta. I used to play this song and sing it with my friends for music parties / concerts, when I was a student in Europe. We performed it in front of students and other audience from various countries. And actually, there were lots of South American students at the parties, and I remember some of them came to me after the concert one time and asked me if they could have that song, as they loved it :)
Shimauta is a song from Okinawa, sung about the sadness and tragedy which happened in Okinawa island during the war. The island was attacked terribly by Americans back then. Okinawa people were trying to send their messages, feelings and fears, which they had in their hearts, to the people in Mainland of Japan. Those feelings are sung in the song. I happened to find a video with an English subtitle on Youtube, also with the one in Portuguese. (--> "SHIMAUTA" with a Portuguese subtitle.) I'll put the video with an English translation below. If you are interested in watching the band play, please click this. (--> "SHIMAUTA" by The Boom)

SHIMAUTA / ISLAND SONG by THE BOOM

The 2nd song I'm going to introduce is "KAZE NI NARITAI / I Want to Become the Wind, by The Boom, of course. This is a happy song and you can tell it has got a Samba rhythm, which makes you want to dance :) I can't help moving my body when I hear this song :D I sometimes do feel that I might have Latin blood in myself, not only about music, dance but also being very passionate about things. (I am 100 % Japanese though :D)


What I'm going to talk about doesn't really have anything to do with the song, but I'll just talk a little bit about the relationship between Japan and Brazil / some South American countries for people who don't know much about it; why we Japanese people have a close feeling or a sense of affinity toward Brazilian or Latin American people. After the war, there were lots of Japanese people who emigrated to those countries, especially to Brazil. Since then the relationship between those countries and Japan has become strong and we have quite a few of Brazilian and other South American people living in Japan too.


So, to me having some Brazilian friends and other South American friends here or from my time in Europe etc. in my daily life, the rhythm of Samba, Salsa etc. are natural to me now. I mean, I feel comfortable when I hear it, when I feel it. Automatically my body moves :) But I guess I am not very typical Japanese. Please don't misunderstand; I think the majority of Japanese people isn't like me. I don't really have Japanese friends who would go to Salsa party etc. with me and dance there ;)
I found a video clip of the song on Youtube. Unfortunately the quality isn't very good, but still it is better to have something I can show you than having nothing. Well actually I was glad to find it :) That was the only one I could find. I like the video, as everyone looks happy.

KAZE NI NARITAI (I want to become the wind) by THE BOOM

I hope you'll enjoy (or enjoyed) the music from my country. OK, this is the end of "Many of my favourite Japanese musicians" for today. That was Part 1. Please look forward to more Japanese music from now on too. I'll introduce Japanese music, which "I" think it's good; from the traditional one to the new one.
See you next time! Oyasumi nasai (=Good night. Boa noite, Buenas noches :)