This paper examines the evocation of melancholy in Nagai Kafū’s (1879-1959) short story, “A Song from Fukakawa” (Fukakawa no uta, 1909). I look at how melancholy as an emotion is crafted through the suggestions of the sound of the Utazawa music (Utazawabushi), a popular music style circulated in the pleasure quarter since the Edo period (1603-1868). I argue that the story can be read as Kafū’s social critique; the protagonist’s misgivings about Meiji Tokyo’s (1868-1912) urbanization development are expressed through his melancholic state of mind summoned and reinforced by his actions of hearing and singing of the Utazawa music.

In the story, melancholy is evoked through a juxtaposition of the dissonance of train noises and the harmonious, beautiful melody of the Utazawa music. In modern Japanese literature, trains and railways are popular symbols of modern, urban developments in Japan’s major cities. Using Sigmund Freud’s theories on melancholia and loss, I show in my analysis that the sad melody of the Utazawa music can be read as a vehicle, which enables the protagonist to indulgent himself in his melancholic state of mind, caused by his refusal to accept the loss of the Edo past. The tune and lyric of the Utazawa music conjures forth an imagined city space of the Edo Shitamachi, an invented past that to the urban dweller is his spiritual home, which has been destroyed as a result of the urbanization development in Tokyo during the modern era.