歌手： 水曜日のカンパネラ
アルバム： SUPERMAN
曲： 一休さん
…………………………………注釈
一休さん -- Ikkyu-san, a Japanese Zen Buddhist monk and poet of the Muromachi Period, esteemed for his poetry in the Classical Chinese style. He believed in the importance of zazen meditation above anything else, and also a major critic of the politics of temple life, which often made him quite unpopular with the higher-ups of the temples. At the same time, he was also seen as a vagabond-figure, who drank excessively and frequented brothels, which he argued deepened his enlightenment. He was also a major figure in various traditional Japanese arts, including tea ceremony, sumi-e ink painting, and calligraphy. His flute-playing was also seen as one of the major influences on the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism, a movement known for its monks who often play the shakuhachi flute and wear a woven basket on their heads while begging. (*)
Seen as both a heretic and a saint, Ikkyu is more popular as a folk hero. For most Japanese, he is most widely known from the animated TV series Ikkyū-san, a fictionalized account of Ikkyu’s childhood. He solves a variety of problems and riddles, helping poor farmers and outsmarting greedy merchants, often in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. One of his quirks is the pose he assumes while solving a riddle, cross-legged and rubbing his fingers in circles around his head. The most famous of his トンチなぞなぞ riddles are “The Bridge” and “The Tiger in the Folding Screen.” (*)
一休 means “one pause,” and so throughout the song SuiKan plays on that dual meaning, creating an image of a procrastinating genius who claims, perhaps rightfully, that taking a quick break would improve his thinking. The phrase 「下手な考えは休むに似たり」 (“It’s hard to tell a poor thinker from a lazy one”) is an actual idiom in Japanese, used to tell someone to take a break instead of wasting their time on a futile endeavor, or even to taunt an opponent for taking too long to decide their next move in a game. Here, however, it seems to be used almost as an excuse for Ikkyu-san to slack off. In Ikkyu-san’s world, you have your wits or you don’t; there is no try.
The chorus especially deals with a lot of word play. The syllables of Ikkyu’s name are flipped from “一休さん Ikkyusan” to “サンキュー Sankyu,” the Japanese pronunciation of “Thank you.” おつかれ is a common greeting in Japanese, often used to thank someone for their hard work, but it comes from the word 疲れる, literally meaning “to be tired.” The real question is Ikkyu-san working hard, or hardly working?
Kowloon Walled City -- The setting of the music video is an anachronistically retro club atmosphere completely at odds with the zen aesthetic of a temple but probably not unlike a rowdy evening at the red light districts the original Ikkyu frequented. Filmed in an entertainment facility modeled after Kowloon Walled City, the music video captures the romantic dystopianism the now demolished city is nostalgically remembered for. A haven for drugs, gambling, and prostitution, the actual walled city in Hong Kong was a site for both triads and squatters, but has been used as the setting of numerous martial arts movies from Jackie Chan to Van Damme. (*) From the punchy KOMU-ZOU to the use of Chinese in the subtitles, the movie blends the lantern-lit vibe of Hong Kong culture with the folk story of Ikkyu, creating a lone bomber, a hero for the partying masses taking on the corruption of organized crime the way the real Ikkyu stood up for the common man in the folk stories.
「ハッとして!Good」and KitKat -- 「ハッとして!Good」is a popular single by Tahara Toshihiko from the Showa era, a softer and more romantic contemporary to the Hong Kong martial arts movies the video references. The song tells the story of meeting a woman in a telephone box on a hill with whom the singer immediately falls in love:
ハッとして グッときて
パッと目覚める 恋だから
フッとした瞬間の 君は天使さ
Because of this love that took my breath away,
Touched my heart and fluttered open my eyes,
Suddenly in that moment, you were an angel
The song was also used in a Glico Almond Chocolate commercial where the singer Tahara meets another Showa idol, Matsuda Seiko, at a telephone booth. They fall in love and enjoy Glico chocolate together. (*)
Here though, SuiKan changes the chocolate to a Kit Kat, perhaps playing on the long-lived tagline for the chocolate popular in the 80s when it was being marketed as a break time snack to get you through a long day of work, “Have a break. Have a Kit Kat.” (*) To reflect that, I veered away from a translation that mirrored the romanticism of 「ハッとして!Good」to a more playful and awkward “gulp.” Knowing Ikkyu, however, there’s no guarantee he’s retiring to his temple bed alone.
湾岸署 -- Wangan Police Department is the department portrayed in the Japanese blockbuster Bayside Shakedown (踊る大捜査線) TV and movie series. The second movie in the series, Bayside Shakedown 2 (踊る大捜査線 THE MOVIE 2 レインボーブリッジを封鎖せよ! 2003), is the highest-grossing Japanese live action movie, and in the climactic scene, the police block off the Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo to catch a suspect. In the movie, the blockade is a rather difficult task (although one that is successfully overcome), that requires all sorts of paperwork and permissions. In reality, however, it seems police can and have blockaded the bridge quite simply, both for natural disasters and accidents. At those times, radio commentators and newspaper headlines have joked “Rainbow Bridge really has closed!” (*) However heroic the police of the Bayside series are, however, they would likely prove no match for Ikkyu.
Sutras and Pandemonium, Wooden Fish and Disco -- In contrast to the original story in the folding screen, the tiger here seems to be successfully summoned, perhaps as some kind of divine punishment for some misbehaving lords? Sutras are typically recited by Buddhist monks as a preparation for meditation or for rituals, but often in pop culture they are attributed magical powers, as seen in anime characters like Hino Rei (Sailor Moon) and Miroku (Inuyasha). Whatever the result, the lords have fallen into Pandemonium--either a literal screaming and shouting uproar over or a loose tiger, or perhaps a more sinister fate. Much like the English word Pandemonium, “阿鼻叫喚 abikyokan” has connatations with Avici, the lowest level of Buddhist hell to which those who commit the gravest sins are cursed. (*) The real-life Ikkyu-san caused quite a lot of problems for the higher-ups, and here it’s unclear whether the real source of the lords’ ire is the tiger or the degenerate priest. But ultimately, now that the tiger has been released, the only one who can tame it is the priest they so despise.
A wooden fish bell is a percussive instrument unique to Buddhism, often played to count out the rhythm for sutra recitation. Some stories say that the shape originated from one monk who, while on a journey, broke a promise to fish who helped him. As punishment, the fish splashed the priest, soaking the valuable sutras he carried with him. In his irritation, the priest carved out a bell in the shape of a fish to beat out his frustration… but with every beat of the bell, out popped another syllable of the sutra, until the priest had regained everything that was lost. While fish bells did exist in the Muromachi period when Ikkyu-san actually lived, they really began to be used in earnest during the Edo period, when Ikkyu-san Banashi grew in popularity with the Japanese masses. It is also the sound that accompanies the animated Ikkyu-san’s thinking time. (*,*)
Here, however, the fish bell is not being used for its original purpose of reciting sutras, but to beat out the rhythm to “Y.M.C.A.” As one of the most popular songs all around the world, I imagine “Y.M.C.A.” hardly needs an introduction. But I do think its selection, as one of the ultimate disco party songs that balances both unironic praise of an upstanding religious organization with the subtext of a popular cruising spot for gay men in the 1970s, was very intentional. To many, especially Westerners with a Christian background in particular, this might seem to be a contradictory, even hypocritical image, as they might be inclined to think of religious figures and organizations as symbols of chastity and restraint. (And indeed, the actual Y.M.C.A. has not always had such an accepting view of the song or LGBTQA+ identities.) But Buddhism does not actually forbid sexual relationships for priests, and many temples in Japan have a long history of musical performances as traveling musicians often used them as cheap accommodations while on the road. It would not be so unusual then, to see a group of priests singing and dancing along to “Y.M.C.A.”, and it is perhaps in thanks to figures like Ikkyu-san, who merged the austerity of Buddhist Zen and worldly revels into one harmonious world.
