Inochi Kurenai
Segawa Eiko Sings about a Deep Affection of the Fated

Date：01, Mar, 2013
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
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It's lately been standing out that Japanese pop music has gone downhill on all sides like sales, musicianship, and visibility. Relatively, it is said that Japanese enka has come up little by little.

However, sad to say, we could not find any enka songs get to the top of the recent weekly chart by Oricon. Lately, only idol groups have taken the first place of the domestic hit chart and occasionally we see leading figures of pop music get the place.

From these days, it would be unthinkable for the young that there were surely the days for enka as the top of a one-year hit chart was an enka song. Inochi Kurenai is an enka song sung by Segawa Eiko and was the first of a hit chart in 1987.

I cannot remember when I heard the red string of fate for the first time. Most Japanese must be familiar to the words as an element of romance or as a metaphor of fatalism. They say red string of fate has joined a man and a woman who are fated to be together since the two were born. Nobody knows how homosexuals should do in the case. What sings about the red string is Inochi Kurenai. Inochi means life and Kurenai means deep red in Japanese.

With great emotion, Segawa Eiko sings about yearning, resolution and suffocating deep affection by a couple joined with red string of fate.

Being fated to be connected to live together, it does not always mean a sweet thing. It also means a perfect prison which you cannot get out from since you have to live all your life chained with a person you must go with. However, the sung love tightly tries to share all joys and sorrows in their life.

Now, I have to describe the vividness and the depth of the love would not be nearly portrayed in a late field of Japanese pop music.