Japanese popular songs brought home: Histories and current circulations of post-Second World War audible souvenirs from US military bases in East Asia

Abstract

This article focuses on the transpacific circulations of Japanese popular songs alongside touring American military personnel in East Asia between 1945 and 1958: that is, from the end of the Second World War, across the span of the Korean War, and up to the year of the American ground forces’ withdrawal from ‘mainland’ Japan. By first tracing the trans-oceanic travels of musical souvenirs such as phonograph records and music boxes, and then by delving into their ‘afterlives’ as ex-souvenirs variously lost or preserved, this article reveals the seemingly minor yet no less significant histories and memories of musical objects containing within them the traces of post-war Japanese popular song. Over this period, musical souvenirs entered into postwar American households with returning military personnel, imparting to family and friends an auditory sensation of ‘Japan’ that carried with it the fantasy of knowing a place and culture that lay far across the Pacific. Although many of the Japanese pop songs contained therein lost their ‘souvenir’ status in the late 1960s, their recent revival via transnational online media suggests new ways of re-‘discovering’ and circulating a wealth of music that might have otherwise fallen into obscurity.