A Life Adrift Soeda Azembo, Popular Song and Modern Mass Culture in Japan

This is a unique narrative of pre-war Japanese life as told from its lower depths by a tremendously popular social commentator and poet. An iconic figure in pre-war Japan, the balladeer and political activist Soeda Azembo was one of Japan's first modern mass entertainers, the writer of popular enka songs sung by ordinary working people. These songs uniquely impart an understanding of everyday life in the tumult of pre-war Japan, serving as a kind of shorthand for popular attitudes to political corruption, sex scandals, inflation, war, patriotism, class conflict and gender relations. Japanese people valued Azembo's music for being of them and for them, both modern and home-grown, qualities rare at a time when western cultural influences were increasing. Michael Lewis's annotated work introduces Azembo and his social and cultural milieu to an international audience for the first time. A Life Adrift, the only memoir of its kind, extends beyond biography to encompass the creation of modern mass culture in Japan and the role of the popular artist in that process.

A Life Adrift, the memoir of balladeer-political activist Soeda Azembo(1872-1944), chronicles his life as one of Japan’s first modern mass entertainers and imparts an understanding of how ordinary people experienced and accommodated the tumult of life in prewar Japan. Azembocreated enka songs sung by tenant farmers in rural hinterlands and factory hands in Tokyo and Osaka. Although his work is still largely unknown outside Japan, his poems and lyrics were so well known at his career’s peak that a single verse served as shorthand expressing popular attitudes about political corruption, sex scandals, spiralling prices, war, and love of motherland. As these categories attest, he embedded in his songs contemporary views on class conflict, gender relations, and racial attitudes toward international rivals. Ordinary people valued Azembo’s music because it was of them and for them. They also appreciated it for being distinctively modern and home-grown, qualities rare among the cultural innovations that flooded into Japan from the mid-nineteenth century. A Life Adrift stands out as the only memoir of its kind, one written first-hand by a leader in the world of enka singing.

1. My Early Years 2. The Period of Soshi Politics and Political Songs 3. The Eastern Moral Reform Group 4. Before and After the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) 5. Enka, A New Style 6. Tasiho: an Abbreviated Record 7. Spiritual Life 8. A Pilgrim’s Account

Michael Lewis is Professor of History at Michigan State University.