Cattle Straits

"The song is about the custom of “Ho-ko” (the Japanese old custom that was held partly), in which children were sent away from home to work for wealthy families as live-in servants. The children performed daily chores and babysat for the wealthy families. The lyrics of this song also include old Japanese words which are no longer in common use".

Jun Togawa based the title on the 1962 Tsutomu Mizukami novel Hunger Straits (飢餓海峡). Despite the lyric's themes, this song has no relation to the 1956 Shouzou Numa novel Yapoo, the Human Cattle (家畜人ヤプー).

The first version was released on 1984's Alphabet, the only issue of GGPG (GE GJMGJGAM PRRR GJMGEM), intended to be a series of cassette mooks by B-Sellers. For it, various artists contributed pieces themed after each letter of the alphabet; Togawa was the only audio artist that chose "G", alongside separate visual works by Kotomi Yamamura (山村琴美) and Nobuko Edadzune (えだづねのぶ子). Taped at Jagatara Studio, it was produced and arranged by that band's guitarist, Oto, the only musician to make a song themed after "C".

Jun Togawa Unit rerecorded the song, one of two tracks on their album Far Eastern Comfort Songs (極東慰安唱歌) that were removed from the original release by their leader, who wanted a good-sounding 45rpm mini-LP. This delayed a CD release, as it left the 12-inch single without enough material for the standards of the time. Regulations were loosened by 1987, when it was finally reissued with those tracks included, a sequencing that all subsequent versions adhere to.

Susumu Hirasawa made a bold techno rearrangement for the Showa Kyonen Tour of early 1990, where he and his solo backing band keyboardists (Hikaru Kotobuki and Kitune Akimoto) accompanied Togawa.

Lyrics
The meaningless "eiyasahoi" chanting between verses in both studio versions was thought up by Oto.


 * 1 "The word “people” is written with the kanji for “stranger”."