Silent Radio Waves and Shouting Guitars: Shigeru Izumiya's "War Songs" and the Shadow of Television (ca. 1973)

Silent Radio Waves and Shouting Guitars: Shigeru Izumiya's "War Songs" and the Shadow of Television (ca. 1973)

1973. The shadow of the Vietnam War was reaching Japan, and Shigeru Izumiya released "Senso Kouta" (Little Song of War). The song, with its lighthearted lyrics, masked the absurdity of conscription, orders, and the battlefield with laughter, but it was not broadcast on television as is. The TV station called it a "self-imposed restriction" and replaced some of the lyrics. What the broadcasters feared, not the state, was the thorn in the side of the words.

It was censorship that was not called censorship. Officially, the song was silenced, but it did not disappear. Izumiya was angry, strummed his guitar, and howled at the live performance. The song, which television had silenced, was transmitted through cassettes to the ears of young people. The "voices that don't want to be heard" continued to stream from folk bars on the corner and from amps on the street.

War Songs" is not just an anti-war song. It was a small proof that songs can still be passed on from person to person in an age when words have been reduced to a system and sound has been twisted by images. The sound of the guitar was drowned out by the television. But only the sound that touched my heart truly remained.