ユエの流れに [The Moonlight in Hue]

Annotation — Japanese Songs

The song "ユエの流れに (The Moonlight in Hue)" (Express # EP-1115), a Japanese pop song set during the Vietnam War based around the city of Hue - narrated from the domestic perspective, as a woman longs for her partner to return from the war: "I long for that person's heart... the sound of drums resonated in the distance". As can be seen on the front cover, a soldier stands in front of a bombed building.

Annotation by Justin A. Brummer

Lyrics

Japanese: 母なる順化の流れよ 愛をば守らせ給え 火を焚く祭りの夜に 燃え立つ切ない恋よ

Notes

A. A Hue woman waits for her lover gone to war Express EP-1115 (EP-1115-A), stereo, 45 R.P.M., JASRAC, "Mfd. by Toshiba Musical Industries Ltd. in Japan"; "ユエの流れ / The Moonlight in Hue" (Yujiro Kiri, Yosaku Suma, Kenji Igarashi; arranged by Kenji Igarashi), 3'56"; B side "別れたって別れたって / Wakaretatte, Wakaretatte" (中村のりみつ words, 五十嵐謙二 music and arr.), 4'04". The front shows Mario Kiyofuji in sunglasses beside a photograph of a damaged palace building in Hue; ¥400; the back prints both lyrics. The insert carries a profile of the singer and an essay by 桐雄二郎 (stated to be a pen name of the writer 秩父重剛): he says the song was made in Saint-Jacques (サンジャック), south of Saigon, the year after the war ended, for a troupe entertaining Japanese soldiers, with music by bandmaster 須摩洋朔 built on a fragment of a local tune; he resolved to issue it after seeing magazine photographs of Hue's ruined citadel…

About the artist

Mario Kiyofuji (マリオ清藤) - born 31 July 1944 in Hirosaki, Aomori; graduated from 東京声専音楽学校 in 1964; singer of Latin music and boleros noted as a new voice of the Japan Latin Music Association. [Source: record sleeve and labels]

Themes

Hue · Vietnamese Perspective · Lost Love

In collections

Japanese Songs · Peace, Protest, & Anti-War Songs [War Years]