Death of charismatic rock musician and “Saint” of Japan’s ancient poetry

June 13, 2009

Death of charismatic rock musician and “Saint” of Japan’s ancient poetry

The funeral of the 58-year-old rock singer and song writer has attracted more than 40,000 fans from across Japan. Many celebrities extended words of condolences on his death. Some of his books were reprinted after his death. And NHK, Japan’s public TV network, aired a memorial program for him featuring his pet phrase “Loving each other?” Kiyoshiro Imawano (born Kiyoshi Kurihara) was dubbed Japan’s king of rock and the living icon of Japan’s rock n’ roll music. He died of cancer on May 2 after three years of attempt for life.
Imawano continued to write songs in his mother tongue while keeping the linguistic characters of the Japanese language. He inspired the Japanese language by giving a new dimension to commonly used words in today’s Japan. Nobody dares to say that his achievement compares with that of Kakinomoto Hitomaro, the Saint of Japan’s ancient waka poetry. But he may be called a remote “disciple” of the legendary poet beyond many centuries.
Hitomaro was active in the late seventh century, composing waka poems mainly for Imperial family members. He also sang of the solitude and the sorrow of parting for himself. Waka poems before his age had been archaic. The poet played an immeasurable role in refining the rhetoric and knack of waka poems. A poem composed by Hitomaro when he saw the deserted capital of Shiga follows:

On the Sea of Omi,
plovers are playing with the waves in the twilight.
When you, the plovers, cry,
my heart languishes with the past things recalled.
(A personal translation)

The poem is a highlight of Japan’s oldest waka anthology Manyoshu (ten thousand leaves), which was compiled in the eighth century. The regime in Shiga, facing the Sea of Omi, actually a lake, had been toppled in a civil war decades before Hitomaro visited there.
Kiyoshiro wrote many anti-Establishment songs when he was young, but he also made songs with fine, warm melody lines. His 1980 hit song, “Transistor Radio,” says in part:

Woo, I was at a sunny place after skipping the class, lying on the rooftop.
The smoke of my cigarette was so blue.
My transistor radio was always in my inner pocket.
When she was opening her textbook,
the hot number came from the radio and melted into the sky.
Ah, no way to tell a feeling like this. No, no, no.
(A personal translation)

Kiyoshiro’s songs were loved by Japanese from various walks of life, but he always stressed the rock music must be “poisonous.” His cancer started with the throat and spread to other parts. He declined to receive an operation, however, because he did not want to lose his voice.
He was much happier than Hitomaro, who lived a mysterious life. The years when Hitomaro was born and dead are unknown. Researchers are still having difficulty clarifying actually what he was. One opinion says he was dead from penalty.
Imawano was survived by his wife and two children. Up-and-coming young musicians are seen performing at public places like parks and station squares. Their songs are expected to help evolve the Japanese language as young people are curious about speaking for themselves amid a host of economic and social difficulties facing Japan.