Shiga Prefecture's most famous and beloved song is called Biwako Shuko no Uta (琵琶湖周航の歌) which I've translated as "Lake Biwa Rowing Song." It's about a four-day, boat-rowing trip around Lake Biwa (Japan's largest lake) undertaken in 1917 by seven college boys from Kyoto who were members of the school's rowing club. The song mentions many famous places in Shiga and employs a lot of vivid imagery and color in the lyrics.

Since there was no singable English version of the song, I decided to create one matching the melody composed by Yoshida Chiaki. After over a year in the making, I finally completed this English song and unveiled it to the public on June 3, 2006 at Imazu, Shiga Prefecture. As far as I know, this is the first English version matching the melody.

My English version was sung for the first time in public by twin sisters Jamie and Megan Thompson in front of the song monument at Imazu Port. About 30 people witnessed the event which was more of a videotaping session opened to the public. This public performance is recorded in this DVD video. It shows these two American women singing the song in both Japanese and English on this day. It is about 8 min. long.

Needless to say, this footage is great PR for Japan-America relations, English teaching, tourism, and all concerned. The video will be shown at the song museum (and on this Web page) for years to come, and many more people will eventually hear it.

As you can see in the video clip, while Jamie and Megan were singing, Lake Biwa's biggest boat named "Umi no Ko" appeared sounded a toot-toot just when the twins started to sing the English song, as if to cherr them on. Then it docked at Imazu Port as if it came to greet the new English song.

You can see a low-resolution sample of the video at:
http://photoguide.jp/pix/biwakorow-e.wmv

The DVD contains a full-screen, high-resolution video of the Thompsons singing both the Japanese and English versions. The Japanese song is subtitled with the Japanese lyrics in both Japanese and romanized lyrics. The English song is subtitled with the English lyrics by Philbert Ono.

More about the song here:
http://photoguide.jp/txt/Lake_Biwa_Rowing_Song

Price above includes overseas shipping.