You Going Up
This is a characteristic homely song descriptive of a countryman going calling with a few rude gifts. Both plum and scallion are commonly served with tea to casual visitors in the Kuma region. There is probably a double entendre here of the sex act with the man bearing certain gifts to the woman; see note 32. The form is a short hayashi.
| 15 | You going up |
At Taragi’s Bunzōji
This song involves a play on kedo ‘but,’ and ke ‘hair,’ in this context, pubic hair. Thus the last three lines might be interpreted to mean that the hair is not there, i.e., does not matter when “it” (copulation) is just right. Another interpretation is that when the orgasm is reached pubic hair does not matter or interfere. In Japanese jokes about sex the pubic hair, especially that of a woman, receives a good deal of attention, mostly as an interference with the joys of love.
The last line is sometimes used as a refrain to other songs.
Taragi and Yunomae are country towns in Kuma; Bunzōji and Nekohatsu names of taverns or geisha houses.
The form is hayashi of irregular syllabication.
| 16 | At Taragi’s Bunzōji, |
- ↑ Strong emphasis is put on the o and t of this word to emphasize dance movements as when, for instance, on one occasion this song was sung at a women’s party to accompany a dance where one woman followed another making abrupt movements with her hips as if copulating from behind—hotsuri, hotsuri ‘slowly, slowly’—enough to shake the house with laughter in any party in Suye.
- ↑ For: umeboshi, pickled plum; as noted in the foreword ‘u’ is often used in the Kuma dialect for the ‘o’ of standard Japanese.
- ↑ Or: san.
- ↑ A variant of the last three lines, sometimes sung by themselves is:
Chōdo yoka tokkya
Ke mo nan mo mekkonda
Ke do koija gozansan - ↑ This line also means, literally, ‘But it is not love’.
