A Dispatch from Japan

April 1997

Susan writes from her hotel room:

I sing traditional Japanese folk songs in English here...an odd path that I have been following for the past 6 years. This is my 21st trip here. I have made three albums for Japan. Two of Japan songs and one of Western classics. This tour I decided to do a whole concert of just the Japanese melodies. These are not as you might imagine foreign sounding songs. They were, for the most part written after Japan opened to the West and the writers were influenced greatly by Scottish and Irish folksongs and hymns. If you listen closely you can hear the distinct sound of this culture woven through each melody. The most important part though is the feeling of the songs. They are about the love of nature. .., the sea, the trees, flowers and home and family. They are songs of longing and silence. Bittersweet. They are all songs that every Japanese person learned as a child until very recently. I have written lyrics that hopefully follow the original story, but mostly try to capture the feeling. Some of the songs have been changed considerably lyrically. Example: Aogeba Toutoshi is the song that every Junior High and High School kid sings at graduation. It is at least 100 years old. The original lyrics speak of the experience shared as they went through school together, their love for their teachers and how they will miss it all. David and I wrote lyrics called “Graduation". They speak of a different kind of passage...

Suspended on the edge of time

Remembering who we are

Our blue green planet spins and turns

Around a burning star

Across the silent galaxies

The universe unfolds

This great ship sails the seas of space

Toward the vast unknown.

Companion travelers all are we

Whether stranger, foe or friend

Evolving through this birth and death

A spiral without end

Sharing joy and sorrow

Our laughter and our tears

We're learning in this school of life

Together through the years.

The universe within our hearts

Embraces all that live

True rest we find and peace of mind

Are all we have to give

Our place is here, our time is now

Sunrise through sunset

The beauty of these days we share

I never will forget.

Next week I will do a concert at a high school in Fukushima for the students and their parents, at the invitation of the principal, Mr. Unno, who is retiring this year. He has played the recordings for the students and they have learned the English lyrics and we will sing them together. I wonder if they understand the difference between the original and the translation.

I am working with a wonderful Chinese pianist born in Japan named Wong Wing Tsan and a Japanese percussionist who plays Brazilian percussion. What a wild combo! In Tokyo we perform in a very beautiful classical concert hall and use no PA. Clear natural acoustics, holds about 300 people.

Night before last there was a very old woman traditionally dressed seated in the front row with her family. I am always quite honored when one of the older Japanese comes to these concerts of their music sung by an American. In Japan when someone has a cold and they are out in public, they wear a cotton mask over their mouth and nose to protect those around them from the germs. Quite thoughtful, don't you think? She was wearing one of these masks the whole concert, so that I could not see if she was enjoying it or not. For the encore, we always do Amazing Grace and I walk off the stage into the audience. I stepped down as I was singing and she pulled the mask off her face and she was beaming... her whole face was lit up. She stood up to meet me all 4 and 1/2 feet of her and grabbed my hand with a strong grip and would not let go, and looked straight into my eyes, as I sang Amazing Grace to her. I was beginning to move on and she said to me in perfect English "Eighty Two!". I could only imagine what an 82 year old Japanese woman has experienced in her lifetime and it was being transmitted to me through her strong clear gaze and tenacious hands.

I am interviewed fairly often here and one of the most often asked questions is of course why are you here and why are you singing Japanese Folk songs? Good question. One of the answers is that it is a kind of karma. In a very real sense, I would not be here in this life if it had not been for the Japanese and WWII. My mother's first husband was shot down by the Japanese. A few years later she married my father and I came along in 1950. Some kind of big circle... someone's loss produced me. This is the way it is. I know that I came because I made a prayer and asked to be used for some good in this world and next thing I knew, it was 7 years later still working in Japan, learning about myself in this incredible culture. Not sure what good I am doing other than I know I am healing myself and sharing my love of song.

Whatever the reason, I am here and feel honored to be ...I will write these little stories all along he way to you. I hope that you don't mind receiving them. It helps me to digest it all to write it down ind fire it off to someone. We leave Tokyo tomorrow for Nagoya, then Takamatsu, then Tenkawa Shrine way up in the mountains.

Aogeba Toutoshi “Graduation” from ”The Pearl” Wong Wing Tsan -piano, Brian Becvar - keyboard, Ryo Watanbe - percussion, Ralph Illenberger - guitar, Susan Osborn and Masato Ushijima producer

Note: The song Aogeba Toutoshi was so old and with old fashioned words that folks couldn’t seem to translate it for us. Just that it was about graduating and moving on from those you’d spent time with. So we decided to make it a kind of universal or planetary graduation song. Don’t know how many understood our version either.

-dD

BTW- I have four paintings in a show at the Perry + Carlson Gallery in Mount Vernon, WA. Up until Nov 30 if you happen to be in the neighborhood.