Jinku

[Senkoho 552]

So I saw a couple of jinku videos and my main question is: what are they singing about (more or less)? Is it always the same lyrics or are they different for every performance? Also, in the glossary it says that the "chorus" lyrics are "aaa-dosukoi-dosukoi"? Is it true (what does it mean, by the way)? Doesn't sound like this to my untrained ear...

Thanks!

[Hokkaiko 50]

Jinku are Sumo folk songs, performed by Makushita and lower ranks (normally). A song is always including that contains the specialties of the town they are traveling throught. This genre was performed since 1716.

[Kintamayama 41,274]

Sometimes, especially during a danpatsushiki, they will sing praise of the rikishi himself.

[Akinomaki 35,585]

An article about a famous sumo-jinku, "Reborn Japan".
Yobidashi Taganojou (seems like in the past the yobidashi had more rikishi-like names) wrote it for the 1946 jungyo, held to help ease the daily distress of post-war life. He's a bit special in becoming yobidashi at an age over 40.
The text is on the page:
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/sports/news/CK2015062702000206.html
A 1950s photo, he's on the right, in the middle (ex-)komusubi Kuninobori, on the left ex-top maegashira Shimanishiki.

[Orion 431]

As others have observed, jinku go back a long way, and some of the classics are still performed. These days there are amateur jinku-kai all over the country and they have an annual get-together near the Kokugikan, around February (last time I attended one it was in the theater of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, that great clog-shaped building right behind the Kokugikan). The best-known teacher is Kuninishiki, who got as far as makushita and, after quitting sumo, got a job as chief cook at a retirement home but kept up a sideline of teaching jinku clubs in the Tokyo area. Of course, active rikishi have always been encouraged to sing jinku as part of the entertainment at sumo events, especially retirement ceremonies, where the final one is a specially-written one in honor of the retiree, often sung by a yobidashi who specializes in this. Kuninishiki-san himself has built up such a reputation that when one of the teachers in the Sumo School at the rear of the Kokugikan came to retire (he had been teaching 'shigin', a form of Chinese declamation that was considered good for breath training), they appointed Mr. K. as this replacement, teaching jinku, thus achieving two aims, in singing on a long breath but also adding sumo content.

Mr. K. and his Ryogoku branch of amateurs also have a regular spot singing in one of the restaurants between the station and the Kokugikan. It is one of my great pleasures to arrive home late at Ryogkoku station to meet three or four middle-aged men in parrot-colored kimono and be greeted enthusiastically by name!

Hope the automatic spell-corrector hasn't left any really awful mistakes in this message. I've had to correct every mention of 'jinku' at least three times. At least it's better than one of my colleagues who recently tried to say she was taking a morning off with 'stomach-ache' and it turned into 'smokestack' -- I can usually guess what happened but that time I couldn't.

Orion

[Akinomaki 35,585]

Yobidashi Rikinojo (41, Takasago-beya) has written a sumo jinku against bank transfer scam and performed it at a police station in Kariya-city, Aichi.

He has written about 60 jinku, about the promotion of a rikishi and other subjects. (He also appears in the Hiyonoyama sumo song).

The lyrics are on the bottom of the article:

http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20150705k0000e040095000c.html

Edited July 5, 2015 by Akinomaki

[Yubinhaad 10,754]

A 1950s photo, he's on the right, in the middle (ex-)komusubi Kuninobori, on the left ex-top maegashira Shimanishiki.

Here's a slightly bigger version of that picture: