一本の鉛筆 [If I Had One Pencil]

最近、朝日新聞の投書欄「声」にたびたびこの曲についての投稿が載ってます。エーちゃん、実はこの曲を聴いたことがなかったのですが、改めて歌詞を読んでみて感激しました。美空ひばりが歌っていた、というのが今ひとつピンと来ないのですが、昭和49年8月9日の第一回広島平和音楽祭で実行委員長の古賀政男さんのプロデュースで書き下ろされたものです。その後、昭和63年の第１５回広島平和音楽祭でも歌ってます。
62年に福岡で倒れ緊急入院。63年4月の東京ドーム公演で不死鳥のように復活し（白いフェニックスのような衣装が印象的）、翌年2月からツアーを再開したものの、2月7日の小倉公演の終了後に倒れて、6月24日に帰らぬ人となりました。

ザラ紙＝更紙はガリ版印刷でよく使いました。1000枚でワンパック。謄写版でビラを印刷するのですが、いかに早く印刷するか、また、原紙を破らないように力の加減も難しいもの。あまり早く印刷すると、どうしても力が入って、とても1000枚も刷れないのです。20分程度だったように記憶してます。とにかく、爪の間に油性インクが入るわ、服は汚れるわ。大変な作業でした。

"At the first Hiroshima Peace Music Festival in 1974, Hibari Misora sang a song called One Pencil (lyrics: Zenzo Matsuyama, music: Masaru Sato). This song, with its anti-war theme, contains the following line. "If I had one pencil, I would write 'I hate war.' If I had one pencil, I would write 'human life." Developing that spirit further, the Peace Declaration expresses Hiroshima's determination with respect to the 21st century. - Hiroshima Peace Site"

Tadatoshi Akiba is the Mayor of Hiroshima and his favorite peace song is called "One Pencil," a song by a famous Japanese singer named Hibari Misora. About 15 years ago, when Mayor Akiba was a member of the Diet, one of his colleagues told him about the song and that was the first time he heard it. The song is about Hiroshima and contains such lyrics as, "If I had just one pencil, I would write about the morning of August 6th." Mayor Akiba, who sometimes sings this song at karaoke, remarked, "The lyrics aren't long, but I like the fact that it clearly calls for an end to war." At the same time, he feels the song is successful because "One Pencil," although expressing opposition to war and nuclear weapons, is free from any specific political ideology. This is a key attribute of the song and makes it different from traditional anti-war songs. In 2000, Mayor Akiba included some of the lyrics from "One Pencil" in his Peace Declaration. He also told us that the late Mayor of Nagasaki, Iccho Ito, shared the song during his travels abroad. (Aya Nakashige,18) - Peace Seeds



Zenzō Matsuyama (松山善三 Matsuyama Zenzō?, born 3 April 1925) is a Japanese script writer and film director.[1] He was born in Kobe and grew up in Yokohama. After leaving school, he began training to become a doctor but dropped out of medical school to take up a career in films. In 1948 he became an assistant director at Shochiku studios. With the support of Keisuke Kinoshita, he also began writing film scripts. His first filmed script was Kojo no tsuki, based on the song Kōjō no Tsuki, filmed in 1954. In 1955 he married actress Hideko Takamine. He made his debut as a director with a film called Na mo naku mazushiku utsukushiku in 1961. He continued to work as a scriptwriter for films like Proof of the Man as well as a director. He also wrote the lyrics for a song Ippon no enpitsu for Hibari Misora. (en.wikipedia)