NEW YORK -- My colleague Jeff passed on to me a writer's query posted on the Internet. As it happened, the inquiring writer was a novelist of whom I am a fan, and the subject on which he sought help was intriguing. He wanted to know about Japanese popular songs -- especially popular military songs -- in December 1941.
The first thing that came to mind when I decided to respond to him was the talk kabuki expert Faubion Bowers gave in 1995. That year my office invited a few Americans to come to our monthly lunch meetings and reminisce about their war experiences. Bowers, whom I had the honor of knowing in his last years, was one of them. To reconstruct his talk from memory, he began this way:
"In 1940 I fell in love with Japan. At the time the most popular songs were 'Ginza no Yanagi' and 'Shina no Yoru,' and the most popular movie stars were Rikoran and Kazuo Hasegawa. The most popular military song was 'Umi Yukaba.' It's a beautiful, wonderful song."