Sakura Sakura

The story

"Sakura, Sakura" is a Japanese folk song about spring, the season of cherry blossoms, and it is often sung abroad as a song that stands for Japan. Its melody is not ancient, as is often believed: it was a popular urban tune of the Edo period. The melody has been popular since the Meiji period, and its words took their present form then. One theory holds that the song is a parody of "Saita sakura", thought to have been a koto song of the Edo period; other theories about the original words exist.

The tune uses the in scale (the miyako-bushi pentatonic scale), in quadruple metre and in three parts (ABBAC) over 14 bars. Because its range is narrow, it suits instruments with few notes, such as the shakuhachi or the Native American flute. An arrangement by the Ongaku Torishirabe-gakari was printed in 1888 in a Collection of Japanese Koto Music for beginning koto students at the Tokyo Academy of Music. It is still often the first piece koto beginners learn, since every phrase can be played on neighbouring strings; the koto is tuned for it in the hira-joshi tuning.

In 1941 the Ministry of Education published a new verse in the school songbook Uta no hon, placed before the original verse, which became the second.

The cherry blossom carries deep meaning in Japanese culture as a sign of the shortness of life. In Buddhist reading the five petals stand for the five skandhas that make up a human being, which arise, are beautiful for a short time and fall; the blossom is a chief example of mono no aware, the beauty of passing things. Falling flowers have also served as a metaphor for warriors who died in battle and for the souls of the dead.

What it says

The song pictures spring, the season when the cherry trees bloom. Its mood is quiet and admiring, and behind it lies the meaning the blossom holds in Japanese culture: a beauty that lasts only a short time.

The words