Irwin Brings Heart of Japan to World
Cultural News, March 2005
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Wisconsin native Greg Irwin not only specializes in singing doyo, but he also sings English versions of them that he translates from Japanese. (Courtesy of Akua Music)
TOKYO – “I believe these songs are Japan’s forgotten treasures and that they could become a part of ‘world music’ if they are ever given the chance to be heard more outside of Japan,” says Greg Irwin. The American expatriate is referring to songs known as doyo, literally translated as “children’s songs,” that were composed during the Taisho Era (1912-26) in a Western style.
Irwin not only specializes in singing doyo, but he also sings English versions of them that he translates from Japanese.
Since moving to Tokyo in 1990, Irwin has translated over 100 traditional Japanese songs. He has performed concerts all over Japan and abroad, while appearing on television, radio and in print.
In addition to his musical career, Irwin is an established voice actor in Japan, as well as a popular master of ceremonies. Last year, he returned to the Japanese stage, appearing in productions at the prestigious Embujo theatre in Tokyo and at the Misonoza theatre in Nagoya.
In 2002, he received the first ever Japan Doyo Culture Prize. In 2003, he signed with Victor Entertainment, releasing his major debut CD "Blue Eyes." His first CD single “Shojoji” has been on sale since January 2005. Irwin's translations of Japanese traditional songs have been printed in several Japanese textbooks and he occasionally makes speaking engagements at Japanese high schools encouraging young people in Japan to take pride in themselves and their culture.
Irwin first translated doyo when he was a radio disc jockey in Yokohama and Tokyo about a decade ago. After translating a number of songs, he began to understand the depth of the genre and realized that the nostalgic element in songs like “Furusato” (My Country Home) gave doyo “really good potential for export.”
The bilingual singer performed doyo in concert at New York’s Lincoln Center in 1994 and has appeared on Japanese TV with singers Saori Yuki and Sachiko Yasuda, sisters who have taken doyo to new levels.
One of Irwin’s greatest achievements came in 2002 when the Association of Children’s Song Writers in Japan awarded him the first Doyo Culture Prize, worth 500,000 yen. The award is given to individuals or groups who contribute to spreading doyo.
In May 2003, Victor Entertainment released a CD titled “Blue Eyes – Beautiful Songs of Japan,” which Irwin calls his “best work so far.” The title refers not simply to the fact that Irwin is a blonde, blue-eyed American, but also to the title of one of the tracks, “The Blue-eyed Doll,” (Aoi Me no Ningyo). The song is about an American doll that accidentally ends up in Japan and is very homesick. A little Japanese girl befriends her and she never feels lonely again.
Beside “The Blue-eyed Doll,” CD “Blue Eyes” also includes: “I’m Longing for Spring” (Soshunfu), “Song of the Seashore” (Hamabe no Uta), “Tangerine Hill” (Mikan no Hana Saku Oka), “Moon Over the Desert” (Tsuki no Sabaku), “Shojoji” (Shojoji no Tanukibayashi), “Scolded Child” (Shikararete), “This Old Road” (Kono Michi), “Autumn in the Country” (Sato no Aki), “Dragonflies” (Akatombo), “My Country Home” (Furusato), and “Sumayama.”
“When I first translated ‘Akatombo,’ I was so moved by the sad quality of the verse I cried,” says Irwin, “Doyo songs have a beautiful quality of ‘wabi, sabi’ (traditional Japanese aesthetic values favoring the simple and quiet), and I think their melody is cut out for the world market.”
Irwin grew up in Wisconsin, in what he openly describes as a dysfunctional home. His father drank and greatly disliked the Japanese. By contrast, his mother was “like an angel who taught me that prejudice was always wrong.” Bullied through elementary school, it was by appearing on stage that he gained acceptance, by stealing the show in his first school production.
With his amazing natural talent, a deep baritone voice, and gentle character, he landed the part of Jesus in the musical “Godspell” in his first year of college. However, after studying music and theater at the University of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota, respectively, he “escaped to Hawaii” during his senior year.
It was working as a pedicab driver there that he first met Japanese people. The first Japanese he learned was “Norimasen ka?” (Would you like a ride?) “Japanese people seemed so refined, gentle and trusting. I felt at peace with them,” Irwin recalls.
At the invitation of a Japanese student who had been studying in Hawaii, Irwin lived in Tokyo from 1982 to 1985. He did a home-stay, taught English, and partied at the fashionable Roppongi district in Tokyo. Then, he went backpacking in Asia for six months.
Back in Hawaii, an enka producer heard him singing and promised to make him a star. “I returned to Japan and tried it. He put me in onsens (hot spring inns) for 10,000 yen a night, sharing a room with elderly ‘former stars,’ who chain smoked and got drunk every night. Being a singer is a gift, but it can also be miserable,” Irwin remembers.
In 1987, he went back to college, this time to Hawaii, to study Japanese. Donald Ritchie taught him Japanese film, and Irwin wrote a paper on the Kurosawa film “Ikiru” that merited much attention. He even became a Buddhist.
After graduating, he decided to return to Japan to utilize his linguistic ability, thinking he would then go to New York to find a job as a singer. “I would have gone to New York if I hadn’t encountered doyo,” Irwin recalls.
During this second stay, Irwin, who took on several jobs including those as an English teacher and a radio disc jockey, made up his own business card that described himself as a singer/songwriter. In 1994, a senior employee of a company specializing in English study materials asked him to translate doyo songs into English for use in language resources for children.
At first, he thought the job would be easy because the materials where intended for young children, but he soon realized he was mistaken. He had to read through documents on doyo and there were many words and phrases that were incomprehensible even when he looked them up in dictionaries.
“I asked my friends the meaning of those songs, and when I finally discovered what they meant, I found many of them have a very sad quality,” says Irwin.
Though these songs are intended for children, who grow up without giving them much thought, some doyo songs are quite mournful and sad.
For example, “Akatombo” describes a woman who has left home after getting married and no longer keeps in touch with her family.
“‘Akatombo’ is like a masterpiece of music. Though it is very short, it has a beautiful story and haunting melody,” Irwin says.
The singer also places great importance on seasonal themes in his translations. Many Japanese verses include words that only implicitly refer to the seasons, leaving specific seasons ambiguous. As it is impossible to convey their implicit meaning in English, Irwin instead directly describes the season mentioned in the song.
For example, in “Akatombo,” which Japanese listeners connect to autumn despite the absence of any seasonal description (dragonflies appear in autumn in Japan), Irwin put the phrase “late November” in one of the verses. As for “Shojoji,” he refers to an “autumn night” because “moonlit night” in the original song indicates the song takes place in autumn.
One of Japan’s virtues is that it has four seasons, which creates one of the fundamentals of Japanese culture,” Irwin says, “I never literally translate these songs and I respect the sense of the season contained in the songs.”
Besides releasing “Blue Eyes” from Victor Entertainment, Irwin has had other CDs published. This includes “Happy Child,” by Japan Victor, “Japan's Best Loved Songs of the Season - Vol. I & II,” by The Japan Times, and "Children’s Songs of the World," by Japan Crown.
Meanwhile, Irwin’s agent, Qualia Inc., is hoping to release Irwin’s CD in the United States. “Greg has succeeded in making superb translations of doyo songs without altering the sensibilities of the originals, and I’m sure foreigners will understand the beauty of doyo,” Qualia President Tsutomu Fujita says.
“Doyo songs are very beautiful and convey human feelings,” Irwin says, “People appear to be very different in their language and culture, but it’s only the surface. I’m sure doyo songs also move American’s hearts with their beauty and sadness.”
Courtesy of Qualia Inc., three “Shojoji” CDs will be given to readers of the Cultural News. To win Greg Irwin’s doyo CD, e-mail Cultural News at info@culturalnews.com or send a postcard to Cultural News Doyo CD, P.O. Box 48678, Los Angeles, CA 90048.
For more information about Greg Irwin, visit his website at www.gregirwin.com For any inquiries on his U.S. promotion, visit www.akuamusic.com
(Sources: www.gregirwin.com, The Japan Times, The Asahi Shinbun, The Daily Yomiuri, Metropolis magazine in Tokyo)
Doyo: Essential Element of Japan’s Musical Education
Cultural News, March 2005
After Japan was opened to the West in 1867, music teachers were invited from abroad, and some of them adapted Japanese words to simple foreign songs. In time, Japanese composers began writing children’s songs, called Shoka, in this new Western style. These songs were mainly sung in compulsory music classes in primary schools around the country.
In 1918, a new movement began in which Japan’s top songwriters assembled to consciously create higher quality children’s songs. It was called “The Red Bird Movement,” referring to a progressive magazine that published the songs. The songs were called Doyo, and they were later introduced in textbooks throughout Japan, becoming an essential element of the nation’s musical education.
All Japanese are familiar with the songs today, and most people have a great affection for them. Despite their somewhat recent origin, they are considered to be an important aspect of Japanese culture.
(Source: www.gregirwin.com)