Thing #12: What is Playing at Your Town Festival （Begin’s “Nada Sousou”) June 15, 2009

Somewhere near you, there is a festival and a stage and a young boy and girl are doing their first ever live performance of this song:

Um, that is, if you live in Japan. This is a fairly recent track (lyrics by Ryouko Moriyama, music by BEGIN) that now turns up at matsuris and school festivals everywhere.

「涙そうそう」 (Okinawan reading “なだそうそう”, note the difference from the standard 涙　reading of ”なみだ”) is Okinawa-dialect for 「涙がぽろぽろこぼれ落ちる」. Which is Japanese for (roughly)  “Stream of Tears”

Here’s a translation of the song to English (Natsukawa Rimi version), and here’s  a few Japanese commentators talking about the story behind the lyrics .

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BONUS: If you like the Okinawan stuff, here’s one you’ll definitely hear being covered: 島唄　（”Shima Uta”). Here’s a super-subbed (English, romaaji, kanji) version:

AND FOR FELLOW SANSHIN STUDENTS: A Japanese-American who studied at Ryukyu university set Simple Sanshin Source, a site that teaches the basics of Okinawan Sanshin. (On hiatus, but lots of good stuff there.)

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