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26.
Bottom's Song
Shakespeare's words
are sung to a Japanese popular tune of the late 40s called
"Aoi
Sanmyaku"
(Green Mountain Range) which symbolizes hope for economic
recovery:
- With
youthful, cheery singing voices
- Snowslides disappear as blossoms
reappear.
- Green
mountain range, (and) yukiwari zakura (mealy
primroses)
- The
horizon evokes our dreaming too.
-
- Farewell to an old jacket.
- Farewell to lonely dreams.
- Green
mountain range. To the rose-coloured clouds,
- Birds
also sing to see a charming girl pass by.
Ironically the mood
of this song, evocative of innocence and freedom, is out of
step with Bottom's schoolboyish impression of a 'military
march past' - played both forward and in ridiculous reverse
(the action of the War?). That action is punctuated, as
Titania wakes to her assinine "angel", by Bottom's
schoolyard callisthenetics, which echo the "rajio
taisou"
(radio calisthenetics) programs of the day promoting a
healthy mind in a healthy body.
The complex and
contradictory educational experiences of wartime schoolboys
seem to be encapsulated here: taught to glorify the Emperor
and the military, pushed prematurely from school into the
army, and then demobbed into a bleak inflationary world of
racketeering.
Note that Bottom
interpolates "Thank you, baby" at the end of his song like a
rock 'n roll singer; in this environment the dreaming
Titania might seem like an American pin-up of the Postwar
Occupation.
In the Bar version
(Bar 30.
Sukiyaki Song), Titania is aroused from her drunken sleep
on two bar-tables by Bottom's singing as he slugs alcohol at
another table across the room. The audience laugh as, to the
last line "dare not answer...[nay]', he appends "Bottom".
The Mask version
(Mask 20.
Bottom: "I thank you") allows a rather tense and agitated Bottom
to hit the high Cs. Again his final interpolation, "Thank
you baby", earns him a laugh.
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