In the Shadow of "Tokyo March"--The Dream of Chiyoko Sato in the Early Showa Period to the Postwar Period

In the Shadow of "Tokyo March"--The Dream of Chiyoko Sato in the Early Showa Period to the Postwar Period

In the early Showa period (early 20th century), when radio broadcasting began and popular music began to sprout in Japan, Chiyoko Sato emerged as "Japan's first commercial record singer. After dropping out of the Tokyo Music School, she joined Shinpei Nakayama and Ujo Noguchi on a "nationwide song tour," and in 1929, "Tokyo Koshinkyoku (Tokyo March)" became a big hit, selling 250,000 copies. This was an unprecedented accomplishment at a time when there were only about 100,000 phonographs in Japan.

In the midst of her glory, however, she went to Italy to pursue her dream of becoming a classical musician. Upon her return, the leading figures in the music world had been replaced, and there was no place for her. During the war, she toured the southern front as a comfort singer and was entrusted with "Song of the Night Squadron" by Isoroku Yamamoto, but after the war, she fell into hardship and ended up being arrested for fraud.

She was insulated from her ally, Masao Koga, and paid her debts at the door - in her later years, she lived with the humiliation of being called a "popular singer," and died alone at the age of 71 in a Shinjuku hospital. In her final days, she sang her last song, "Tokyo Koshinkyoku," a big hit 40 years ago. Her life, in which she sang of the dream of a modern Tokyo, was truly a symbol of the glory and sorrow of the Showa era.