Singer Mie Nakao appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) on May 21st. She talked about her hit song "Kawaii Baby" and her feelings towards her mother.
In 1962, she debuted with "Kawaii Baby" (Cute Baby). When Kuroyanagi said to her, "You've made a living as a singer with just that one song. I think that's amazing. That cute baby really suited you," she replied, "I don't know if it suited me or not, but now it's a little embarrassing to sing it seriously, so from the second chorus onwards I change the lyrics to 'Kawaii Baaba' (Cute Grandma)."
My mother was obsessed with Western things, she recalls. "I was born right after the war," and she had high expectations for "anything made in America."
Around that time, "young soldiers were constantly coming and going from our house, and (my mother) doted on them," she recalled. "It seems like she wanted me to marry an American or something. She might have been happy if I had an international marriage," she mused, and added, "FEN (American military radio broadcasting) and jazz were always playing in the house from morning till night."
She will turn 80 in June. "I think I'll try to keep going for another 10 years," she says. Seeing Ms. Kuroyanagi, who is in her 90s and still working, sitting in front of her, she laughs and says, "I think I'll be fine until I'm 90."
He expressed interest in a self-sufficient lifestyle, saying, "I'm thinking of trying it in the future." He added that he believes "you have to try what you can do yourself because you never know what's going to happen in the world," and that considering pesticides, "I think it's a good idea to eat something you actually grow yourself from the soil."
