“Sen’yū no ikotsu o daite” (Carrying My Comrade’s Ashes) (1942), a Japanese military song about the fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942, is a subversive text. Written and composed by Japanese soldiers, the song served during the...
more“Sen’yū no ikotsu o daite” (Carrying My Comrade’s Ashes) (1942),
a Japanese military song about the fall of Singapore on 15 February
1942, is a subversive text. Written and composed by Japanese soldiers,
the song served during the Second World War as a propaganda text
celebrating Japanese imperialism, and after the war as an anti-war text
promoting post-war pacifism. Both during and after the war, however,
the song triggered responses in audiences, often through the act of
crying, to reveal the war memories that both imperialist and pacifist
ideologies had submerged.
