Let's Join The SDF

[Mulboyne]

During one of their gigs in Tokyo, Shibusa Shirazu once played a song in tribute to folk singer Wataru Takada who had just passed away. According to his Japanese wiki entry, he died almost three years ago to the day. He was only 56 (pictures show him looking older than that) and collapsed just after finishing a performance in Hokkaido. His heart later gave out in hospital. The only thing I knew about him when looking later in a record store is that his 1971 album Goaisatsu lifted it's cover art from the Velvet Underground's 1969 Warhol cover:



It was that cover which I saw in a bar recently and one of the guy's there told me that Takada had the distinction of having his anti-war song "Let's Join The Self-Defence Force" (Jietai Ni Hairou - 自衛隊に入ろう) banned which made him popular with later generations. Here's a live version (audio with still images):

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And here's a clip of part of the Shibisa Shirazu version:

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And another from punk band GaGaGa SP:

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If your Japanese is up to it, there's an interesting hour-long Japanese documentary on banned songs on YouTube which features Takada at the beginning. It's in six parts with the first part here.

[Visitor K]

And here's a clip of part of the Shibisa Shirazu version:

thanks, i miss being able to catch shibusa shirazu and i had never heard this before.. they had the best live performances.

[AssKissinger]

That first youtube sounds like a drunk Japanese Pete Seeger and the second sounds like Yoko Ono singing with Albert Ayler.