The last time I went to Osaka was back when was single digit – I went to Japan (Yokohama, Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Kyoto) during the summer for the first time with my parents and it was the first time I fell in love with Japan.
Growing up in Hong Kong means I have a massive influence from the Japanese culture so going to Japan for the first time was amazing than seeing it on TV (as a kid they have lots of travel programmes and I watched them religiously).
Osaka Rainy Blues is one of those songs that the moment I listened to it, I knew it’s a beautiful song (without even knowing what the words meant again).
It was really the first song that I loved by KanJani8.
Back when there were eight of them (The ‘8’ has always been written as the infinity symbol ∞, but they call themselves EITO, which is the pronunciation of ‘eight’ in Japanese-English), this was one of my favourite songs to listening to when they perform it live.
The dance is beautiful, and the lyrics is great.
It’s a bit of a mouthful trying to sing the song, but once you can master getting your lips and tongues round the words, it’s a great song to sing and also a great song to play on most instruments… admittedly I have only played it on the piano and on the harp (Yes, the harp).
But I have seen it done on the guitar and I’ve seen it done on traditional Japanese instrument, it’s amazing – even though it’s got a blues melody (should have guessed it with the name of the song), it still sounds amazing on traditional Japanese instruments (which most of them, are pentatonic instruments, though it is possible to play all the notes).
Also, the song also has a name of the place, so every time I listen to it, it reminds me of Osaka.
So does New York, New York – but I have a stronger tie with Osaka than with New York.
To be honest I can probably say London Bridge is Falling Down but that didn’t come to my head until I thought about songs with names of places.
So Osaka Rainy Blues it is.
Middle of nowhere femme 