都会での生活に少し疲れていた2009年、夜のアパートは意外に静かで、眠りにつくには少し物足りなさすら感じていた頃、無性に田舎のカエル達の声が聴きたくなりました。田んぼに囲まれて生まれ育った私にとって、この騒音ともとれるニホンアマガエルの合唱は、いつの間にか梅雨時の心地よい子守歌となっていたようです。
その年の帰省のタイミングがちょうど田んぼに水を張った頃だったので、これを逃すまいと、深夜に田んぼの真ん中の畦道にレコーダーを置いて私は離れ、１時間程放置しました。鳴いたり鳴かなかったり、周囲と呼応しながら、合唱の輪が広がっては静まってゆく、いつもと変わらない自然な鳴き声が録れたと思います。
東京に戻って、寝つきの悪い夜には時折聴きながら眠りにつきました。軽トラを運転しながら聴く事もありました。これは全くもって自分の為に行った、とても個人的な録音ではありますが、私と同じように「無性に聴きたくなった」どこかの誰かに届けば幸いです。
【YouTube】50 Minutes of Frog Song
Back in 2009, I was feeling worn down by city life and longed for a little something more to lull me to sleep. I began to dream of making a trip back to the countryside to listen to the frogs sing. As someone born and raised amid the rice paddies of Tokushima, it seemed I had come to miss the cacophonous chorus of the Japanese tree frog, a comforting lullaby that arrives like clockwork each rainy season.
When I at last managed to return to my hometown that year, the water was already full in the fields. Eager to seize the chance, I ventured out into the fields in the still of night, and left a recording device on the footpath. When I returned an hour later and listened to the recording, I found the familiar natural refrains from my boyhood: call, silence, response, followed by a crescendo of frog voices across the fields, all falling back into silence once more.
Since returning to Tokyo, I sometimes listen to the recording of the frogs whenever I have trouble falling asleep. On occasion, you can even hear the frogs singing in my pickup truck.
This is an unabashedly personal recording, made for my own satisfaction. But I have uploaded the frog song on the off chance that their chorus might similarly bring comfort to someone, lying awake in their bed, somewhere out there in the world.
– Translated by Philip Gayle