Nagasaki

Nagasaki {{Audio|ja-Nagasaki.ogg|listen}} (長崎市; -shi, literally "long peninsula") is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture located on the south-western coast of Kyushu, the southernmost of the four mainland islands of Japan. It was a center of European influence in medieval Japan from first contact through the era of isolationists efforts to block outside contact until the opening of Japan and the resultant modernization efforts of Japan during the Meiji Restoration. It became a major Japanese Navy Fleet Base during the First Sino-Japanese war and Russo-Japanese war and eventually was the second city on which an atomic bomb was dropped by the US during World War II.

Nagasaki in Western music and song

Nagasaki is the title and subject of a 1928 song with music by Harry Warren and lyrics by Mort Dixon. A popular success in its day, the music remains a popular base for jazz improvisations. The lyrics today are enjoyed for their ludicrous incongruity and their lack of political correctness. The song asserts: "Hot ginger and dynamite/There's nothing but that at night/Back in Nagasaki/Where the fellers chew tobaccy/And the women wicky wacky woo."

Related Topics:
1928 - Harry Warren - Mort Dixon

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Nagasaki is also the setting for Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly.

Related Topics:
Puccini - Madama Butterfly

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