Photo/Illutration Makoto Kitajo in 2011 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

"Kandagawa" (Kandagawa river), a memorable 1973 hit song, was completed in less than an hour.

The opening line goes, "Anata wa mo wasuretakashira" (I wonder if you've already forgotten).

It took lyricist Makoto Kitajo only 30 minutes or so to write down the lyrics on the back of a flier at hand.

He then read them out on the phone to Kosetsu Minami, bandleader of Kaguyahime, who finished setting the words to music on his guitar in five minutes.

The song was about Kitajo's past romantic relationship with a female university classmate, with whom he shared a tiny one-room pad in the student quarters of Tokyo's Waseda district.

"Kandagawa" became a million-selling record and was made into a movie the following year.

"The music was a gift from heaven," Minami later noted.

Kitajo was a sickly child. A famed fortuneteller who saw him predicted, "He won't live past the age of 7."

He commuted to elementary school in a stroller and did not attend physical education classes for the first three years.

After dropping out of Waseda University, Kitajo started working as a broadcast writer. He was 25 when he wrote "Kandagawa," and his life took a dramatic turn.

Practically every song he produced became a hit.

In the meantime, he ignored his marriage and family life, roaming from town to town to bet on speedboat races and horse races.

His wife walked out in disgust, leaving their two small children with him.

Kitajo died on Nov. 22. He was 74.

Upon learning of his passing yesterday, I walked along the Kandagawa river where he used to live.

I discovered that the "backstreet bathhouse" in the song had gone out of business around 30 years ago. There were neat condos where the "tiny three-tatami room in the boarding house" he shared with his girlfriend once stood.

There was no vestige of the Showa Era (1926-1989) in the neighborhood itself, nor in the fashions of the young people on the streets.

"To live means to play and also to write," Kitajo once told The Asahi Shimbun.

The fortuneteller was dead wrong. The nonconformist poet lived out his 74 years of life to the fullest, leaving behind numerous unforgettable songs that vividly captured the era.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 2

* * *

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

Related News