Soeda Azembo - A Life Adrift: Soeda Azembo, Popular Song and Modern Mass Culture in Japan

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A Life Adrift

A Life Adrift, the memoir of balladeer-political activist Soeda Azemb (18721944), chronicles his life as one of Japans first modern mass entertainers and imparts an understanding of how ordinary people experienced and accommodated the tumult of life in prewar Japan. Azemb created enka songs sung by tenant farmers in rural hinterlands and factory hands in Tokyo and Osaka. Although his work is still largely unknown outside Japan, his poems and lyrics were so well known at his careers peak that a single verse served as shorthand expressing popular attitudes about political corruption, sex scandals, spiralling prices, war, and love of motherland. As these categories attest, he embedded in his songs contemporary views on class conflict, gender relations, and racial attitudes toward international rivals. Ordinary people valued Azembs music because it was of them and for them. They also appreciated it for being distinctively modern and home-grown, qualities rare among the cultural innovations that flooded into Japan from the mid-nineteenth century. A Life Adrift stands out as the only memoir of its kind, one written first-hand by a leader in the world of enka singing.

The Author

Michael Lewis is Professor of History at Michigan State University.

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• A Life Adrift
• Soeda Azembo, popular song and modern mass culture in Japan
• Translated by Michael Lewis

A Life Adrift

Soeda Azemb, Popular Song, and Modern Mass Culture in Japan

Introduced, annotated, and translated from the Japanese by

Michael Lewis

First published 2009 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

2009 Michael Lewis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electric, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying or recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book

ISBN 0-203-88621-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-7103-1337-3 (hbk)
ISBN10: 0-203-88621-6 (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-7103-1337-9 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-88621-2 (ebk)

In Memory of Iwasaki Shigetoshi

Acknowledgements

I first encountered Soeda Azemb as a lone voice happily singing bitter songs about modernitys mixed blessings. In the years since I began learning about the life behind the lyrics, my solitary relationship with Azembs as subject for historical study has made for many friendships with people who have helped me come to know him better. Azemb was a prickly character, a pessimistic humanist and popular entertainer with a reclusive streak. I sometimes wonder how he might have felt about his individual poetic voice providing an opportunity to engage so many collaborators in assaying his place in Japanese history. I am still unsure how to answer that, but suspect that Azemb, ever the performer, would probably be pleased to once again be in a new publics gaze. From what I have learned about his willingness to give credit where it is due, I am more confident that he would approve acknowledging the players whose efforts make it possible for the mute cicada to be heard again after such a long silence.

I am especially appreciative of the librarians and archivists at Waseda University, Sophia University, and the Kanagawa Museum of Modern Literature Research (Kanagawa Kindai Bungaku Kan) who guided me to sources of information about Azembs life and times. The Kanagawa Museum additionally facilitated the use of photographs reproduced in this volume. Professors Anzai Kunio at Waseda and Kate Wildman Nakai at Sophia provided entre to their campus libraries and shared their thoughts on Azembs historical significance.

I received help from many quarters in translating A Life Adrift. Iwasaki Shigetoshi, an independent scholar and the person to whom this book is dedicated, taught me much about finding the meaning for ideas and expressions from an historical context that is no more. Iwasaki Sensei, at times bemused about one of Azembs arcane references, looked forward to reading how I would finally render Rysei-ki into English. I regret that the translation was not completed before he passed away. I trust that Iwasaki Yuko, who also became involved in this project, will appreciate how some of the puzzles of translation have been worked out in his final version, thanks to her and her husbands guidance.

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