ABSTRACT
‘Tears’ is the most frequently used noun in Japanese popular songs after 1868 (the next most frequent is ‘dream’). It occurs in 83 of the 451 songs taken up here, or nearly twenty percent. Its distribution increases steadily over time, as follows: https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
%
Early Meiji
(1868–89)
1
song(s) of
95
1.0
Later Meiji
(1890–1912)
12
112
10.7
Taisho
(1913–25)
6
46
13.0
Early Showa
(1826–45)
28
99
28.3
Postwar
(1946–63)
36
98
36.7
A closer inspection of the occurrence of the symbol of tears, by 7-year intervals, is presented in Figure 3.1. liiere is a dramatic proportional increase from 1903, about the time of the Russo-Japanese War. Thus the period when tears was the key symbol of Japanese popular songs is exactly that period which was examined in Chapter 1, when anger twisted inward to resentment or bitterness, and criticism shaded into sarcasm. Proportion of popular songs using the word ‘tears' https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203843956/5452df2c-10f5-4c2b-854f-a25b132a7cbc/content/fig3_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>