Japan's middle-aged warble 'Bengawan Solo'

By Maria D. Andriana

TOKYO (Antara): Yamamoto's two daughters were stunned as they listened to their father singing. To the girls, the lyrics of the song was as strange as the tune.

It was Bengawan Solo (River Solo), one of the most famous keroncong traditional Javanese tunes.

"Bengawan Solo riwayatmu ini .. (The story of River Solo..)," Yamamoto warbled while his daughters stared open-mouthed. Yamamoto, 46, said he learned the song in junior high school.

Written by Gesang in 1940s, the song is popular among older Japanese. Many of them also know it in the Japanese version.

Some of them draw a blank on its origins. A barbershop owner at Senzoku, Tokyo, who was quite familiar with the Japanese version, said he thought the original song was Chinese.

Several people aged over 50 acknowledged they can sing Bengawan Solo in Japanese but they do not remember for sure when they studied it and how they became acquainted with the song.

Many believe that Bengawan Solo was first popularized in Japan by the late Toshie Matsuda, Ichiro Fujiyama and the Dark Ducks quartet a few decades ago.

The Fujiyama version of the song relates the sights along the banks of the river, which is a divine gift and gives fertility to ricefields and sugarcane plantations.

During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia in World War Two (1942-1945), Fujiyama visited Indonesia on an art mission. He was later captured by the Allied Forces and detained.

Fujiyama's rendition of the song is very funny, especially in the pronunciation of Indonesian. In the Japanese version, his twists in the language are also odd and amusing.

Many famous Japanese singers have included Bengawan Solo in their albums. It is on late legendary singer Hibari Misora's CD recording of 49 songs from a concert at the Imperial Theater in 1979. The Nippon Columbia CD sells for 4,500 (Rp 90,000).

The Omagatoki recording company of Japan issued in 1991 an instrumental keroncong recording Bengawan Solo -- proof of the song's fame -- by the Senja Ayu Flute orchestra led by K. Soemardi and recorded in the Sound City Studio in Jakarta in October 1988.

Another recording by the same orchestra presents the melodious voices of Indonesian singers Tuti Tri Sedya, Mira Tania, M. Rivany, Wiwiek Sumbogo and Rita S. on the CD Kroncong Moritsko. Once again Bengawan Solo is included.

"Bengawan Solo's melodies and lyrics are very beautiful. But I do not remember when I heard the song for the first time," said Hiroo Nagai, a culture lecturer at Tokyo's Nihon University.

Japan's younger generation may not know Bengawan Solo, but other Indonesian music is popular among them. CDs and cassettes of Javanese and Balinese gamelan, and pop songs by singers Ruth Sahanaya, Hetty Koes Endang, Detty Kurnia, Rhoma Irama are available at the music stores. Commercial radio stations play the songs of Anggun C. Sasmi, who sings in French, English and Indonesian.