Memorial Day in the United States commemorates its military personnel who died in defending their country. Music is often played in remembrance: the national anthem, “Taps,” “God Bless the USA,” “America the Beautiful,” “This Land Is Your Land.”
Music can also reflect political flows and tensions. Mid-nineteenth Meiji curiosity about Western culture included absorption of foreign classical and religious music. The first piano wasn’t heard until the opening of Japan, but by 1875 the Japanese were manufacturing their own pianos and other Western musical instruments. On the bureaucratic side, the Meiji government created the Music Study Committee, which encouraged Western music. They wanted Japanese composers to write in the Western style, and the committee the German model of music instruction for all students. The committee also led to the founding of the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, which Tomoko attended.
Just as often, Japan co-opted Western music to advance their own patriotism. One propaganda strategy during World War II was singing. As part of Japan’s growing nationalism, the government commissioned lyricists to write patriot words to Westernized music or traditional folk tunes, which became a required part of each grade’s curriculum. Tomoko was in elementary school at that time, and sang those songs. Besides promoting Japanese superiority, these songs also encouraged adventurousness. One of the songs ended with a verse that suggested, “I want to put a boat in the sea and go to another country.” Who knows if those lyrics waited in Tomoko’s subconsciousness to be awakened years later when she set her heart to come to America?
