みだれ髪
みだれ髪 Misora Hibari
A few comments about this song:
In 1986 Hibari recorded the now so loved Ai sansan, but we must remember that to Hibari this was her biggest failure as a singer. The melody and rhythm were too modern for her traditional fans and her voice was too old for the new generation. The record sold less than 20,000 copies. The once called "Baby Shizuko", "the Genius Girl", "The Princess of the song", "The Queen of popular song" and finally "The Queen of enka", was not capable of selling more than 20,000 copies of a single, being that she once sold 1,800,000 copies of Yawara (1964), 1,450,000 of Kanashii Sake (1966) and 1,400,000 of Makkana Taiyou (1967). To Hibari's detractors was clear that Hibari was nothing without her mother who died in 1981. Hibari, feeling that her fans had already forgotten her, she decided to do something different, she, the one who many times said that the most important thing in her life were her fans, decided to sing opera, regardless her fans or spetialists critics. I comment this because even nowadays there's still the idea that Midari gami became a hit because Hibari's fans pitied her, but I think this is quite wrong. Hibari's success as an opera singer was so great that immediately emerged three big proposals of work. The first one, was to be the leading role of a Japanese modern version of Bizet's "Carmen". The second one was to be the very first Japanese singer to sing in Japanese in South Korea. We must to remember that in South Korea was forbidden to sing in Japanese at that time. A rich Korean business man was looking for the best person to be this one. He thought first of a lot of Japanese young male singers, but hearing about Hibari's new face as opera singer he made her an invitation to sing in South Korea. This event would be the opening to the previous celebrations to the Soul Olympic Games. In other words, in a bit different field, this would Hibari's great come back. This was when Hibari said that she would be delighted of singing in Korea (just as she did in the USA, Brazil and China). Sadly she was hospitalized. The third proposal came little after this. They wanted her to sing at the Tokyo Dome.
She was told that she should be 8 months in hospital but she leaved it in only 4 months. She was a whole month in her own house in the same conditions as in hospital. The first time she appeared in public was in the occasion of the Midare Gami recording.
The author of the lyrics is Hoshino Tetsurou. He was asked for a song for Hibari even before Hibari was hospitalized but time passed and nothing occurred to his mind. Finally he went to Shioyasaki (Fukushima-ken,Iwak-shi) , were Hibari was hospitalized by that time. He says that seeing the old Shioyasaki lighthouse, he thought Hibari was just like that lighthouse, completely alone, with nothing but darkness in her life, giving light to others. (To that time Hibari's parents, Hibari's teacher Haruhisa Kawata, Hibari's two young brothers and Hibari's half sister, had all died.) That's why he included in the last phrase of the song the words: ひとりぽっちに しないでおくれ。 Please, don't leave me alone.
The music of the song was in charge of Funamura Touru, who at first didn't liked Hibari's singing and he said once he felt offended the very first time he was asked to give one of his songs to her. They say that when Hibari first had the Midari Gami music sheet in her hands, she read it carefully in silence and then said- "This is a song for me, not like THAT one", obviously referring to Ai sansan.
Hibari arrived that day to the Studio 1 in Columbia Records Japan, were she recorded most of her songs since she was a child. The orchestra made a very long rehearsal of the song and Hibari listened patently to this. Then, the orchestra took a brake. Hibari sung almost in a whisper the song accompanied by Funamura at the piano, and then again with her full voice. Then, the orchestra came back and there was a rehearsal of the full song, this time with Hibari' voice. At the beginning of this video Hibari appears singing this song dressed in a grey suit with a false pearls necktie. Those are images of that rehearsal. The orchestra director is Funamura. All the media was allowed to be there at that time but, before the real recording, they were asked to leave the studio. It was needed only one take for getting the final recording. Hibari, Funamura and all the orchestra members were giving the best of themselves.
But Hibari was still very ill and after this she spent again a whole month in rest. Then the requests for singing at the Tokyo Dome and for playing Carmen, came again. Hibari decided to accept first the Tokyo Dome offer. She wanted to be close to her fans that finally had returned to her. The chance for playing Carmen never came, but she left for us this beautiful song.
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