Carnation single
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Song info: Theme song for the NHK TV drama "Carnation" (about a woman who is also a mother of three; a carnation is a traditional gift to mothers in Japan).
Liner notes (Ringo's "point worthy of note" written for the drama's website): Carnations are in the caryophyllaceae*. Doesn't that title call to mind those women who showed us their radiant gallant figures this summer? It's a flower that symbolizes the pride of the women of Japan, the most single-minded in the world.
Now, the mothers in the hominidae are endowed with excellent automatic functions that express the idea of "Any child is my child." It's an unconditional ability to try to keep precious life in good health. We don't expect that function to have had an original name, but in the space between nature and civilization, can't it be considered that we've come to call it "love"? This past March, at the unstoppable loss of so much life, we women in every place in the world shed large tears. I think that those were the crystallization of the "love" we couldn't show.
Sadness and joy that go back and forth only between those given life and made to live. That's all in this screenplay by Aya Watanabe-sensei, without any whitewashing. It's a work so real that even a certain cruelty can be felt. I also had the sense that it will grapple with you unarmed and unashamed. I hope this song will fit into the drama. And that it will be a song that gently nestles close to all the viewers.
Ringo Shiina
* In Japanese, the word for caryophyllaceae--the biological family carnations belong to--contains "nadeshiko," which is a type of flower, a potential feminine name, as well as part of the phrase "yamato nadeshiko"--the Japanese feminine ideal. In English, caryophyllaceae is commonly called "the carnation family" or "the pink family."
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