本の針 [Needle]
1966 · Minoruphone KA-58 · Japan
![本の針 [Needle] – 北山和子 [Kazuko Kitayama] (Picture sleeve (front))](/im/VWSP3596-3.webp)
- Artist
- 北山和子 [Kazuko Kitayama]
- Title
- 本の針 [Needle]
- Release
- 本の針 / メコン河も泣いている [Needle / The Mekong River Is Crying]
- Year
- 1966
- Label
- Minoruphone # KA-58
- Format
- 7" · Single
- Language
- Japanese
- Country
- Japan
- Genre
- Japanese Music · Kayōkyoku · Pop
- Primary theme
- Peace, Protest & Anti-War
Annotation — Japanese Songs
Double-sided anti-war Vietnam single. The first song "本の針" ("Needle") (Minoruphone Records # KA-58) was performed by 北山和子 [Kazuko Kitayama] in the Kayōkyoku genre - "a Western-influenced vocal Pop music which was popular in Japan during the latter period of the Shōwa era, approximately from the 1950s to the late 1980s". The record label ran an advert promoting the single, under the headline: "A dark-skinned mixed race female singer... appeals for peace in Vietnam". It went on to say "a black -skinned girl born to a Japanese woman affected by war, is one such child of mixed race, and will make her debut... with a social song... a prayer for peace in Vietnam... it is a heartfelt song expressing a wish for peace, saying that Vietnam is now a hell of a mountain of pins and needles". (1) The song noted "Vietnam is now feeling the hell of pain of needles". It questioned the point of the war: "what are we fighting about? Ideology is nothing more than human beings". It concluded that "everyone's wish is to stop the war". It also contained a few specific references to Japan: "the pain that Japan felt at that time on that day", presumably a reference to the atomic bomb during WW2, and…
Annotation by Justin A. Brummer
Notes
The record label ran an advert promoting the single, under the headline: "A dark-skinned mixed race female singer... appeals for peace in Vietnam". It went on to say "a black -skinned girl born to a Japanese woman affected by war, is one such child of mixed race, and will make her debut... with a social song... a prayer for peace in Vietnam... it is a heartfelt song expressing a wish for peace, saying that Vietnam is now a hell of a mountain of pins and needles".
About the artist
Kazuko Kitayama was a mid-1960s Minorphone Records artist, a labelmate of Kazuko Mifune, with four catalogued singles: "Asakaze to Watashi" (1966), "Ippon no Hari" ("A Single Needle", 1966 - this row's song), "Furusato wa Doko ni" (1967, a "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" adaptation) and "Remi wa Hatachi" (1967). No personal biographical detail was located beyond the discography. [Source: Discogs]