was a Japanese

songwriter A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music ...

, famous for his many

children's song A children's song may be a nursery rhyme set to music, a song that children invent and share among themselves or a modern creation intended for entertainment, use in the home or education. Although children's songs have been recorded and studied ...

s and

popular songs Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fun ...

(''

ryūkōka is a Japanese musical genre. The term originally denoted any kind of "popular music" in Japanese, and is the sinic reading of ''hayariuta'', used for commercial music of Edo Period. Therefore, ''imayō'', which was promoted by Emperor Go-Shirak ...

'') that have become deeply embedded in

Japanese popular culture Japanese popular culture includes Japanese cinema, cuisine, television programs, anime, manga, video games, music, and doujinshi, all of which retain older artistic and literary traditions; many of their themes and styles of presentation can be ...

. Nakayama was born in Nagano Prefecture, Nakano City, in 1887. His father died while he was very young, and his mother Zō raised Shimpei, his older brother and other siblings alone. She often took in washing and sewing to make ends meet. Shimpei was interested in music from the time he attende
Nakano Elementary
School, where he and his classmates would sing to the accompaniment of a small organ (what he called a "baby organ"). The songs they sang included popular military marches from the Sino-Japanese War (1894–95). At one point a small brass band sponsored by the Salvation Army came to town to play, and Nakayama remembers being smitten by the sound. His classmates remember him as an accomplished player of the Japanese transverse flute who would often play during Obon and other festivals at the local Shinto shrines and Buddhist temple. When Shimpei graduated from elementary school he took the required examinations and became a substitute elementary school teacher. His dream was to become a music teacher. For that, he had to go to school in Tokyo. So in 1905 he moved to Japan's capital city and became a household servant for Waseda University English Literature professor Shimamura Hōgetsu. In 1914, Nakayama composed the song ''" Katyusha's song"'' for a dramatization of

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's ''

Resurrection Resurrection or anastasis is the concept of coming back to life after death. In a number of religions, a dying-and-rising god is a deity which dies and is resurrected. Reincarnation is a similar process hypothesized by other religions, whic ...

''. The song, sung by actress

Sumako Matsui was a Japanese actress and singer. Born as Masako Kobayashi in Matsushiro, Nagano, Nagano Prefecture as the fifth daughter and last of nine children of Tohta Kobayashi, she was adopted by the Hasegawa family in Ueda at the age of six and in 1900 g ...

, was a massive hit and Nakayama became famous almost overnight. Today this song is considered one of the earliest examples of modern Japanese popular music. Another of his most famous songs is ''"Tokyo

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"'', which was a great countrywide hit in the 1930s. Today it is also known as the theme song of the

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

team

Tokyo Yakult Swallows The Tokyo Yakult Swallows () are a Japanese professional baseball team competing in Nippon Professional Baseball's Central League. Based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, they are one of two professional baseball teams based in Tokyo, the other being the ...

. His most famous children's songs are ''"Shabondama"'', ''"

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"'', ''"Amefuri"'', ''"Ano machi kono machi"'' and ''"Sekurabe"'', among others. Nakayama's song ''"

Gondola no Uta is a 1915 romantic balladDamian Cox and Michael Levine, "Looking for Meaning in All the Wrong Places: ''Ikiru'' (''To Live'')," ''Thinking Through Film: Doing Philosophy, Watching Movies'', Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. that was popular in Taishō peri ...

"'' features prominently in

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

's film ''

Ikiru is a 1952 Japanese drama film directed and co-written (with Shinobu Hashimoto and Hideo Oguni) by Akira Kurosawa. The film examines the struggles of a terminally ill Tokyo bureaucrat (played by Takashi Shimura) and his final quest for meaning. ...

''.Internet Movie Database
''"Gondola no Uta"'', Written by Shimpei Nakayama
''Ikiru'' at imdb.com. Accessed 26 September 2008.

References / External links

*

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080719232557/http://www.komuso.com/pieces/Habu_no_Minato.html The International Shakuhachi Society, "''Habu no Minato''" 1887 births 1952 deaths 20th-century Japanese composers 20th-century Japanese male musicians Children's musicians Concert band composers Japanese composers Japanese male composers Japanese songwriters Musicians from Nagano Prefecture People from Nagano Prefecture {{Japan-composer-stub