The Lullaby I Never Knew Was Mine

🌱 The Lullaby I Never Knew Was Mine

Have you ever heard of Takeda no Komoriuta?

It's a song you've probably heard before—on TV, in concerts, or maybe in karaoke.

But do you know where it really comes from?

Turns out, I didn’t either. But I was born in the very town where it was created.

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This lullaby was sung by young girls who lived in poverty.

They sang it with a sense of playfulness.

“That old man’s terrifying. That monk at the temple? So mean.”

They’d joke like that as they worked, teasing the people and places around them.

It wasn’t just a lullaby to soothe babies.

It was their way of enjoying the world they lived in.

Originally, it was sung by young girls, barely ten years old,

who worked as live-in babysitters—called mamori-ko.

They were sent off to serve in wealthier households,

often looking after babies in temple grounds.

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I grew up in this town.

And I grew up with that song—

hearing it on TV as a kid.

It was famous. It was beautiful.

I didn’t know where it came from.

I just liked singing it at karaoke.

It always moved me in a way I couldn’t explain.

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Years later, almost by accident, I stumbled upon a different version.

As an adult, I came across an album by Soul Flower Union.

One track caught my ear—

"Takeda Koikoi Bushi."

The lyrics were… strange.

They mentioned places I knew:

“Honcho has a temple, but Shindachi doesn’t.”

“Shindachi has a doctor, but Honcho doesn’t.”

Wait—those are my neighborhoods.

And then—Kichimatsu-san showed up in the lyrics.

I had never heard of him, but my mom knew him well.

“He used to scold us all the time,” she said.

I was stunned.

A real man from my mother’s childhood—now a character in a song.

I asked her again.

That moment rewrote everything I knew.

The song I had loved for so long

was born right here, in my own hometown.

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That’s when everything changed.

I realized that Takeda no Komoriuta —

the lullaby covered by Keisuke Kuwata, Yo Hitoto, and many other famous artists —

was rooted right here.

A song everyone knows—but few know where it truly came from.

Not just a lullaby from somewhere—

a song from here.

From a community often left out of official stories.

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But what happened to this town?

My town was once labeled a buraku area—

a community historically discriminated against.

For a while, government programs helped improve things:

cleaner roads, new parks, even a proud public bathhouse.

My mom used to brag about it to guests.

“Go try the bath!” she’d say, like it was her own.

That progress came from the Special Measures Law for Buraku Communities (1969–2002).

But when the law ended, so did the support.

The city bought up houses.

Now, empty lots surround us.

My house stands alone, wedged between overgrown plots.

This town—once full of life—feels like a ghost town now.

No one talks about rebuilding.

The town slips away, piece by piece.

Officials say, “There are no plans.”

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The song survives. The town fades. Its stories—left untold.

You can still hear Takeda no Komoriuta—

on YouTube, in concerts, on records.

But most people don’t know where it came from.

They don’t know the names in the lyrics.

Or the streets behind those verses.

But we do.

We live here.

We remember.

And we always will.

The people mentioned in the lyrics—they were real.

Kichimatsu-san was real.

The temple in Honcho still stands,

and the clinic that once answered “no doctor in Honcho” still serves the town.

The names have changed—Shindachi is now Kagayashiki-cho,

and Honcho is Kariga-cho—

yet the places remain the same.

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This isn’t about assigning blame; it’s about preserving truth.

All we ask is this—remember the lullaby.

Remember its home.

This town still exists.

And if we don’t speak up,

even its memory may disappear.

So we tell this story.

To honor the song.

To remember the town.

To make sure that neither is ever truly lost.