Hi there, nice blog. I was wondering if you can share some information about the wonderful and mysterious singer. Sad that she retired so early. RIP
Hello, happy new year and thank you so much.
Morita Doji (this is her artist name; her real name is unknown) was a Japanese singer-songwriter born in 1952, active from 1975 to 1983. She and her circle of friends were part of the Zenkyoto (All Schools Joint Struggle Committees) movement of the late 60s. After the death of one of these friends in 1972, she started making music under this artist name, keeping an enigmatic and anonymous appearance behind her trademark sunglasses and storm of curly black hair. Songs like "Our Failure" became the theme for the struggle and crushing of this generation. She gained a following for her music's unique existential directness, dark solitude and empathic ability. She would often be in tears as she sang her songs live. After seven albums she retired from music and disappeared completely from the public eye in 1983. Her music enjoyed some rediscovery/resurgence when "Our Failure" was featured as the theme song of a popular 1993 TV drama, "High School Teacher." This prompted a best of compilation album to be released which included an unreleased draft of the song, "The Sea Cries Out, You Can Die" called "Playing Alone." She passed away of heart failure in 2018. There is not a lot of information about her because she was very purposely self-effacing. There are rumours, bits of information people state as facts, certain information that has come to light which may or may not be true that I won't include here because apparently she did not even want her death to be publicly announced. Some of her inspirations come from the writers, Osamu Dazai, Kazumi Takahashi and manga artist, Yoshiharu Tsuge.