Wine Column 55: Songs That Touch the Heart

Title Design: Ryoko Sakata
Photography: Masaru Yamamoto

This may be sudden, but there is a song called "Danny Boy."
For a long time, whenever I hear this song, I feel a strong sense of nostalgia and my heart becomes restless. If I hear it playing in a shop or on the street, I find myself straining my ears to listen.

This song was released in 1913 and is based on an Irish folk song.
The melody existed previously as the "Londonderry Air," and lyrics were added to it to be released as "Danny Boy." Incidentally, 1913 was the year before the outbreak of World War I.

I have a deeper attachment to this song than the word "like" can express, and if I hear it, I cannot help but listen.
"Danny Boy" seems to have a great power to stir my heart. For some reason, when I listen to the song, I feel nostalgia and an indescribable emotion.

There is no way it could be true, but I even thought for a moment, "Could my past life have been Irish?"

The first time I became clearly aware of this song was when I was attending a language school before university.
One teacher seemed to love this song so much that when he was in the mood, he would sing it a cappella. I wasn't that moved at the time (perhaps it was the singer's fault...), but it was the moment the song "Danny Boy" was clearly imprinted in my consciousness.

According to the lyrics, it is a song about a mother's feelings of parting and loss as she thinks of her son going off to war, and it resonates with the heart along with its poignant melody.

Decades after hearing "Danny Boy" in that classroom, to use a well-worn phrase, it has become my "song of the heart."

There is another song that remains in my heart.
It is Yoko Kishi's "Kibou" (Hope). It was released in 1970, the year of the previous Osaka Expo.

Unlike other female singers, she had a calm, low voice.
I remember listening to her sing, sitting motionless in front of the television when I was a junior high school student. My junior high school heart was restless.

Yoko Kishi graduated from the vocal music department of an arts university, but she had a background of being forced to become a chanson singer due to heart disease.
That vocal ability became the backbone of "Kibou," making it a song that stood apart from other popular songs of the time.

To summarize the lyrics, it is a song about traveling in search of a lover.
The lover is expressed as a personification of "hope." I travel to a "distant town" in search of my lover. Perhaps I had a longing for a "distant town" back then. After all, I later became a "travel lover" who would go on solo trips every year. It wasn't just longing; I also sensed words in the lyrics that hinted at my future life.

The end of the first verse sings that I will continue an endless journey until I meet my lover.
Here, the "lover" being addressed seems to represent dreams or happiness. The "endless journey" is life itself.

At 15, I was vaguely aware of that.