Shimabara Lullaby ( ja, 島原の子守唄 or Shimabara no komoriuta) is a

folk song Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...

-like

lullaby A lullaby (), or cradle song, is a soothing song or piece of music that is usually played for (or sung to) children (for adults see music and sleep). The purposes of lullabies vary. In some societies they are used to pass down cultural knowled ...

by Kohei Miyazaki of Shimabara,

Nagasaki Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. Nagasaki Prefecture has a population of 1,314,078 (1 June 2020) and has a geographic area of 4,130 Square kilometre, km2 (1,594 sq mi). Nagasaki Prefecture borders ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

General

Shimabara Lullaby was written in the early 1950s by Kohei Miyazaki (1917-1980). It is related to the

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, the poor Japanese girls sold to work overseas as prostitutes, in Southern China and the Pacific island areas, such as

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.About Shimabara Lullaby
(in Japanese) This song became famous when

Chiyoko Shimakura (30 March 1938 – 8 November 2013) was an ''enka'' singer and TV presenter in Japan. She was considered "the Goddess of Enka". Career Chiyoko was born in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, Japan. In 1954 Chiyoko won the 1st prize of the Columbia Music ...

recorded it in 1957, followed later the recordings by

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and others.

Lyrics

The original song had five stanzas, but is usually sung in three stanzas, the first of which starts with:

Japanese

おどみゃ島原の　おどみゃ島原の

Romanized Japanese

Odomya shimabara no, odomya shimabara no,

English translation

I was born in Shimabara, I was born in Shimabara, The lyrics cannot be fully listed for copyright reason.

References

External links

Shimabara Lullaby
(A Hundred Lullabies in Japanese, in Japan Society of Lullabies' home page) Lullabies Japanese folk songs Culture in Nagasaki Prefecture {{Song-stub