"Sakura Sakura", also known as "Sakura", is a traditional Japanese folk song depicting spring, the season of cherry blossoms. It is often sung in international settings as a song representative of Japan. Contrary to popular belief, the song did not originate in ancient times; it was a popular, urban melody of the Edo period.
Melody
The "Sakura Sakura" melody has been popular since the Meiji period, and the lyrics in their present form were attached then. The tune uses a pentatonic scale known as the In scale. Expressed as diatonic notes in the major scale, the In scale is 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 , 10 ; or the notes E F A B c e ; or in solfège Mi Fa La Ti Do Mi. The melodic scale can either be represented in older Western musical theory by the Phrygian minor or the Phrygian major mode, with the 3rd and 7th notes in the scale omitted. Because the melody spans a modest range, it is ideally suited to instruments that have a limited pitch range, such as the Native American flute. The melody arranged by Ongaku Torishirabe-gakari was included in Collection of Japanese Koto Music issued in 1888, for beginning koto students in the Tokyo Academy of Music.
Lyrics
The original lyrics are listed as the second verse in the table below. In 1941, the Ministry of Education published a new verse in Uta no hon which was listed first, with the original verse listed second.
The first lines of the original verse serve as a prelude to Bon Jovi's song "Tokyo Road" from their second album7800° Fahrenheit.
Kidsongs uses its own version of "Sakura" for I Like To Teach The World To Sing.
Japanese band BUCK-TICK used this melody in live versions of their "Victims of Love" song in the early '90s.
Alfred Reed's 1994 Fifth Symphony "Sakura" is based on this folk song.
In 2003, Ōta Jun'ya composed "Sakura, Sakura ~ Japanize Dream" as part of the credits theme for the video game Perfect Cherry Blossom.
Dream of the Cherry Blossoms by Keiko Abe, a virtuoso percussionist, is a five-minute piece for marimba that is based on "Sakura Sakura" that has become popular in the marimba repertoire.
In early the 2010s, Japanese singer Kiyoshi Hikawa performed the second of the two verses of "Sakura Sakura" - the first and only Enka singer to do so.
Yukihiro Yoko, a classical guitarist, made an arrangement for his instrument, a theme with variations, in which he uses different guitar techniques to imitate the sound of the koto.
Babymetal used this melody in their song "Megitsune" in 2013.
Many electronic crosswalks in Japan play the melody as "guidance music".
Headhunterz sampled part of this song for his 2017 song "Path of the Hunter".
In Kara, a short film/tech demo created by David Cage and his company Quantic Dream about a robot who is built to serve humanity, the robot is asked to "sing something in Japanese", after which she sings this song. Eventually, this short film was adapted into a video game, In the game, one of the main characters, Markus - an android, is trying to put himself together in a junkyard. This references the short film when Markus stumbles upon a dying Kara model, the one from the film, that is still singing the song.
The song appears in the soundtrack of the video game , playing during the game's campaign map mode.
The first fourteen notes plays as Piston Hondo's intro theme in some of the Punch-Out!! games
Flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and harpist Lily Laskine recorded a version for their album: Japanese Melodies for Flute and Harp
Sakura Sakura also appeared on Wii Music as one of the song selections in the Jam Mode.
In the Tokyo area, each train station has its own distinctive jingle used to signal train departures. The jingle for the Musashi-Koganei Station is based on Sakura Sakura.
