I've been continuing to go through the additions to my kayo record collection and found one such record by the beloved kayo duo The Peanuts（ザ・ピーナッツ）. And yep, I'm quite happy that I finally have a platter by Emi and Yumi.
The record I have is a 33 1/3 maxi-single with two songs on each side, one of which is titled "Kanashiki Kangaroo" (Sad Kangaroo), a cover of a popular 1960 single, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" released by the (now notorious) Australian singer-entertainer Rolf Harris. The Peanuts' cover came out in January 1964 with the Japanese lyrics written by Kazumi Minami.
However, a few months previously, the group Danny Iida & The Paradise Kings（ダニー飯田とパラダイス・キング）provided their own more country music-feeling cover of "Kanashiki Kangaroo" as another example of their Yakushi Pop（訳詞ポップス）, Japanese-translated versions of Western tunes. In both the Kings' version and the one by The Peanuts, the wobble board from Harris' original is applied. And I think with both covers, the happy-go-lucky jingly-jangly nature of the song would probably have made it quite popular in Japan and on Japanese TV as well.
And here I thought that there was only one Japanese pop song with a kangaroo in the title.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.