Amefuri otsukisan

Amefuri Otsukisan” is a song that evokes the rainy “Tsuyu” season, from June to early July, which is unique to Japan’s climate.

tsuyu? baiu?

Tsuyu is the wettest season of the year. This is where the hot and humid Japanese summer begins.

The song speaks of a woman who is going to marry a bride alone on a night when the moon is hidden behind the clouds. Why does she go alone to get married? The mystery is not told, but the beautiful melody depicts it as a lonely but not tragic story.

In old Japan, it was common for a woman to marry into the family of a man she had never met before. Moreover, about 70% of the country is said to be forested. Because the agricultural land was not large, it was not uncommon for a bride to go over the mountains to a neighboring village to marry.

※Source:worldbank.org (CC BY 4.0)

The kanji for “bride” is a combination of the two characters for “woman” and “house. And marriage is a house-to-house event, and in the days when most Japanese were farmers, the emphasis was on how to secure the most manpower…in other words, how to have children. This is something that would raise eyebrows from today’s values, but in a time when this was the norm, family love must have been nurtured from marriage. That is why neither the lyrics nor the melody are tragic. You can even feel the strength of a woman who has quietly left her fate to her own devices.

By the way, it seems that this song was originally composed of two separate songs, No. 1 and No. 2, but they were combined into one. Since the first song, “Ame no Yureru Otsukisan” was well received, the second song was released as a sequel, “Kumo no Kage” (“Shadow of the Clouds”). It is said that when it was later proposed to be made into a record, the composer NAKAYAMA_Shimpei suggested combining the two songs.

The song is still very popular today and has been selected as one of the “100 Best Japanese Songs.