Fujiyama Mama

The song was written in 1954 by Earl Burrows, one of several pseudonyms used by Earl Solomon Burroughs (who later was co-writer of "Great Balls of Fire" and other hits under the name Jack Hammer). Burrows wrote the song from the perspective of a Japanese woman. She says she has drunk a quart of sake and is about to "blow my top". The lyrics assert that "when I start you up, there ain't nobody gonna make me stop," and compare the woman's energy to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the iconic Japanese volcano, Mount Fuji.{{cite web|title=Fujiyama Mama|publisher=Musixmatch|access-date=December 21, 2020|url=https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Wanda-Jackson/Fujiyama-Mama}}

The song was first recorded by Annisteen Allen, an African American R&B singer, for Capitol Records in early 1955. It featured an instrumental and vocal group accompaniment by African American arranger Howard Biggs. The song and recording received favorable reviews from The Indianapolis News,{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66232785/fujiyama-mama-clip-1/ | title=What's Tops In Pops | author-first=Harold | author-last=Trulock | newspaper=The Indianapolis News | date=February 17, 1955 | page=14 | via=Newspapers.com}} The Pittsburgh Press,{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66233910/fujiyama-mama-clip-3/ | title=Record Corner | author-first=W. K. | author-last=Trosene | newspaper=The Pittsburgh Press | date=February 20, 1955 | page=10 (Section 4) | via=Newspapers.com}} and the Los Angeles Mirror-News.{{cite news | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66233033/fujiyama-mama-clip-2/ | title=Off the Records | author-first=Roger | author-last=Beck | newspaper=Los Angeles Mirror-News | date=February 19, 1955 | page=7 (Section III) | via=Newspapers.com}} Billboard magazine credited the record's "clever lyrics and Oriental sound gimmicks", but predicted that many disc jockeys would not play it due to its "off-beat lyric."Record Reviews, Billboard, February 19, 1955. Nevertheless, the song was listed on Billboard{{'}}s "Coming Up Fast" chart in March and April 1955.{{cite news|title=Coming Up Fast|newspaper=The Billboard|date=March 19, 1955|page=33|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7B0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28}}{{cite news|title=Coming Up Fast|newspaper=The Billboard|date=April 30, 1955|page=25|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CBwEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA25}}

Eileen Barton, a white pop singer, also recorded the song in March 1955 for Coral Records.{{cite news|title=Advertisement by Coral Records for Eileen Barton's Fujiyama Mama|newspaper=The Billboard|date=March 19, 1955|page=28|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7B0EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA28}}

Jackson recorded the song in 1957 for the Capitol label. In her autobiography, she recalled that she had wanted to record it since hearing Annisteen Allen's version. She suggested it to producer Ken Nelson, but he was "a little worried about me singing those words." She persuaded Nelson to let her record it, and it "has become a classic and is the one I think of as the start of the fully unbridled rockabilly version of Wanda Jackson that fans know me for today."{{cite book|title=Every Night Is Saturday Night: A Country Girl's Journey to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame|author=Wanda Jackson with Scott Bomar|publisher=BMG|year=2017|isbn=9781947026018}}

One music writer called it Jackson's “most lyrically and musically daring recording," as she added "growls, shrieks, and soft deep-voiced interludes to the song."{{cite book|author=Peter La Chapelle|title=Country Music and Domesticity in Cold War Los Angeles|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=2004|page=40}}

Jackson's version did not chart in the United States. In a 2009 interview, Jackson recalled: "Nobody would play it. They barely had accepted Elvis and the other ones, and they weren't too sure about accepting a teenage girl singing this kind of music." Others have suggested that the song's sexually charged lyrics were too controversial for an American audience in the 1950s. One author observed: "Wanda Jackson offers us the ultimate Virile Female metaphor here. [Jackson] did volcanic Rockabilly. Only a few female rock and rollers . . . have ever blasted Wanda’s incredible energy."{{cite book|title=Rock 'n' Roll Gold Rush: A Singles Un-Cyclopedia|author=Maury Dean|publisher=Algora|year=2003|page=139}}

The song was also covered by the American band Pearl Harbor and the Explosions.{{cite news |last1=Palmer |first1=Robert |title=Pearl Harbour Returns |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/30/arts/pearl-harbour-returns.html |access-date=13 January 2021 |work=The New York Times|date=30 January 1981 }}

Despite the lack of chart success in the United States, the song was a major hit in Japan, reaching No. 1 in 1958. It held the No. 1 spot in Japan for six months and was the first rock and roll song to become a big hit in Japan.{{cite book|title=Girls Rock! Fifty Years of Women Making Music|author1=Mina Carson | author2= Tisa Lewis | author3=Susan M. Shaw|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|page=2|year=2004|isbn=9780813123103}}{{cite web|title=A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs|author=Andrew Hickey|date=10 February 2020 |access-date=December 21, 2020|url=https://www.500songs.com/e/episode-69-fujiyama-mama-by-wanda-jackson/}}("Fujiyama Mama" by Wanda Jackson, and the first rock and roller to become "big in Japan") An earlier recording was also a hit in Japan in 1955 under the title "I'm a Fujiyama Mama & I'm About to Blow My Top".{{cite news|title=Over the Coffee|author=Harlan Miller|newspaper=The Des Moines Register|date=April 14, 1955|page=26|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/66075312/over-the-coffee/|via=Newspapers.com}}

With the song's popularity, Jackson toured Japan in February and March 1959. The tour was "a sensation" among Japanese fans.{{cite book|title=Roots of Japanese Pops, 1955–1970|author=Kurosawa Susumu|publisher=Shinko Music|year=1995|pages=68–71, 248}} During her tour of Japan, she played at theatres, clubs, and military bases, and was booked for three shows a day, seven days a week, over several weeks.{{Cite news|title=Wanda Jackson Plans To Tour Japan|newspaper=Maud Enterprise|date=January 29, 1959|page=1|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/50020138/maud-enterprise/|via=Newspapers.com}} Jackson remained popular in Japan and later recorded songs in Japanese.{{cite book|title=Western Rock Artists, Madame Butterfly, and the Allure of Japan|author=Christopher T. Keaveney|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2020|pages=24–25|isbn=9781793625250}}

Some have questioned how an American song that explicitly referenced the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan could have become a major pop hit in Japan.{{cite web|title=The Hidden Histories of "Fujiyama Mama"|author=Leah Branstetter|date=9 January 2019 |publisher=The Women in Rock Project|access-date=December 21, 2020|url=http://articles.womeninrockproject.org/fujiyama-mama/}} One author attributes the success of the song in Japan to its embodiment of the desire for female empowerment in post-war Japan. Another author cited the song's provocative sexuality and even suggested that Jackson, a white singer, was engaged in "appropriation of the sexual allure of an oriental woman."{{cite book|title=Icon of Japan: Mount Fuji|author=H. Byron Earhart|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|year=2015|isbn=9781611171112}}

The song was also covered by a number of Japanese singers. The first notable cover was done in 1958 by Izumi Yukimura, whose rendition became a minor hit in the US in March 1959. It was also covered by Tamaki Sawa and Haruomi Hosono, the latter of whom is better known as the founder of Yellow Magic Orchestra.

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Category:Wanda Jackson songs

Category:1957 songs