Japan: Japanese HUG Lullaby

Visitors to Japan encounter one of humanity’s most complex and fully articulated cultures. Japanese traditions in language and literature, arts and crafts, cuisine and architecture, social mores and performance have been defined and shaped through centuries of continuous practice, and all continue to have growing edges as long and keen as a Samurai sword’s. Japanese social and cultural sophistication may put off some visitors, but for most of us, that is precisely why we’re here!

It should come as no surprise, then, that lullabies—komoriuta—form a longstanding musical genre in Japan. The brilliant (and physically challenged) New Orleans journalist-turned-Japanase-folklorist, Lafcadio Hearn, collected a lullaby (from Izumo province, in the early twentieth century, about a baby sleeping) that parallels the lyrics to the song we wrote below.

The lullaby that Jan and I wrote to commemorate our stay in Japan is a living part of the komoriuta tradition. Here’s the very moving back story:

At Bokko Birth Center in Takamatsu, I witnessed a very tender moment that Jan had with a grandmother and her baby. The grandmother, Taeko Watanabe (an English teacher), was learning from Jan some games to play with her daughter’s month-old baby. In the course of their conversation it was revealed that Ms. Watanabe’s husband had died a month before the baby was born.

Naturally, she was still grieving this loss, even as she was overjoyed about the birth of her new granddaughter. Jan helped Ms. Watanabe learn about a baby’s increased crying at two weeks of age—a normal development that the grandmother had interpreted as the baby’s crying for her lost grandfather. 

Jan suggested to Ms. Watanabe, a Christian, that in America some people think that when babies look away from their caregivers (another normal newborn behavior) they are "watching angels."

This observation deeply touched the Japanese grandmother, and she had a little cry and hug with Jan. Right after that moment, Ms. Watanabe spontaneously launched into singing a lullaby—not having heard, yet, that lullabies are a special interest of mine. Her voice caught with emotion as the camera rolled.

I could not NOT base my Japanese lullaby on this touching experience. The melody Ms. Watanabe sang sounded familiar, and with a little Internet research I discovered that it was written by Franz Schubert. Our nursing professor friend, Kimie Tanimoto, confirmed that this song is, indeed, one of the most common Japanese lullabies. Ms. Watanabe later sent me the Japanese lyrics (in romaji characters), and she gave permission to use her recording.

My arrangement of this song (see it below) starts with Ms. Watanabe’s version of the Schubert lullaby (in Japanese, of course). She took some liberties with the melody, and chose her own key; both changes I preserved. Then, after a father-friendly key change, three verses in English follow, which Jan and I wrote.

The Japanese babies we met, and whom Jan got to work with, possessed remarkable powers to calm themselves and to focus on objects or faces. Dr. Brazelton had observed the same phenomenon when he worked in Japan in the 1980s. The lullaby lyrics we wrote reflect the capabilities of a baby—so reassuring to a loving parent, or a grieving grandmother—and also tell the story of birth in a Japanese setting (based on the birth that Jan attended).

I hope you enjoy this attempt to distill part of our experience of Japan into a simple song.