Takeda Lullaby

"Takeda Lullaby" (Japanese: 竹田の子守唄 or Takeda no komoriuta) is a popular Japanese cradle song. It originated in Takeda, Fushimi, Kyoto.

The song has long been sung by the people in the burakumin areas of Kyoto and Osaka in a slightly different form. During the 1960s, it was picked up as a theme song by the Buraku Liberation League, particularly its branch at Takeda.

Burakumin ("hamlet people") were an outcast community at the bottom of the Japanese social order that had historically been the victims of severe discrimination and ostracism. These communities were often made up of those with occupations considered impure or tainted by death (e.g., executioners, undertakers, workers in slaughterhouses, butchers, or tanners). Professions such as these had severe social stigmas of kegare, or "defilement", attached to them. A burakumin neighborhood within metropolitan Tokyo was the last to be served by streetcar and is the site of butcher and leather shops to this day.

In this lullaby, a young girl comforts herself by singing about her miserable situation. One day, she is forcibly sent away to work for a rich family at a village across the mountain. Every day as she works with a baby on her back, she is reminded of her family, looking at the silhouette of the mountains in the direction of her homeland.

In 1969, the folk singing group Akai Tori [ja] (赤い鳥) made this song popular, and their single, recorded in 1971, became a bestseller. The song has also an additional history in that NHK and other major Japanese broadcasting networks refrained from playing it because it is related to burakumin activities, but this ban was stopped during the 1990s.

The song was popularised in Taiwan through a 1975 adaptation sung by Judy Ongg, with Chinese lyrics written by her father, Ongg Ping-tang (翁炳榮). Compared to the original, the Taiwanese version had nothing to do with discrimination but was titled "qidao" (simplified Chinese: 祈祷; traditional Chinese: 祈禱; pinyin: qídǎo; lit. 'pray') and focused on hope. This version is often taught in primary schools.^[1]

In 2001, singer Eri Sugai included a version of the song on her album Mai.

In 2017, the folk supergroup Bendith included a Welsh-language version on their self-titled EP.

• Other Japanese lullabies: Itsuki Lullaby, Edo Lullaby, Chugoku Region Lullaby, Shimabara Lullaby, etc.

• Takeda Lullaby (in Japanese)
• Takeda Lullaby (Lyrics with Japanese translation)
• Takeda Lullaby (Music score)
• Takeda Lullaby (MIDI music)
• Lullaby of Takeda (Played on the ocarina, YouTube)