Battle Hymn of John Brown's Baby (E&J)

[Susan B. Klein]

Getting slightly off topic, but I thought I'd relate another story about
the ways that music with which Americans have strong associations is often
lacking those associations for Japanese (perhaps not surprisingly). Back in
the late 1980s I was in Tokyo doing my dissertation research, and I ended
up spending a lot of time with Kazuo Ohno (one of the founders of the Butoh
dance movement -- he just turned 93). He was preparing for a performance at
Japan Society in NYC and had been trying out different songs. One afternoon
he came into the studio extremely excited about a piano piece that he'd
heard which he thought would be perfect. He put it on the stereo for us --
and it turned out to be "The Theme from Love Story." Somehow we convinced
him that it wasn't quite the right song for his purpose -- but if he'd gone
ahead with it, I suspect the NYC audience would have read it as highly
ironic camp.

Susan




At 09:16 AM 12/16/1999 +0900, you wrote:
>
>There are, of course, several "folk" versions of this tune that are not 
>particularly patriotic, the most famous of which is certainly "John Brown's 
>Body." One of them goes like this:
>
>John Brown's baby has a cold upon his chest
>John Brown's baby has a cold upon his chest
>John Brown's baby has a cold upon his chest
>So he rubbed it with camphorated oil.
>
>(I'm not making this up!)
>This is, oddly, the version that came to Japan as
>
>
>$B8"J<1R$5$s$N$"$+$A$c$s$,Iw<Y$R$$$?(J $B!J#x#3!K(J
>$B$=$3$G92$F$F<>I[$7$?!#(J
>
>So I wouldn't look for much political meaning in its use in the movie.
>
>David Hopkins
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________
***********************************************************
"Every exit is an entrance somewhere else." Tom Stoppard
***********************************************************

Susan Blakeley Klein
East Asian Languages and Literatures
HIB 479
UC Irvine, Irvine CA 92697

Office: 949-824-8165 
Fax: 949-824-3248
sbklein at uci.edu

___________________________________________________________