Children’s songs, school songs, and nursery rhymes with a river theme. Beloved classics about nostalgic watersides.
Children’s songs and school songs that entrust the babbling and flow of rivers to music are filled with a unique sentiment that deeply resonates with the Japanese heart.
From nostalgic tunes hummed in childhood to memorable songs learned at school, many people still remember river-themed pieces even as adults.
In this article, we introduce works that sing of the river’s beauty as it changes with the seasons and of the creatures that live in and around it.
Please enjoy as you bask in fond memories.
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Children’s songs, school songs, and nursery rhymes themed around rivers: Beloved waterside classics (21–30)
Rasa SayangDick Lee
This is a folk song well known in countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, to which Mikiharu Kobayashi added Japanese lyrics praising nature.
In September 1962, a version sung by the Tokyo Broadcasting Children’s Choir was aired on NHK’s “Minna no Uta.”
running riverHāmonī Ochiai
This is the second piece from the choral suite “Mizu no Tsubasa” (Wings of Water), composed by Yoshinori Kurosawa with lyrics by Chieko Kanazawa.
Released in 1993, it, along with “Izumi” (Spring) and “Umi e” (To the Sea), expresses the journey of water as it becomes a river, returns to the sea, and sets out on a new voyage.
It has become a staple in middle school choral competitions.
Children’s songs, school songs, and nursery rhymes themed around rivers. Beloved classics of waterside nostalgia (31–40)
Down the Mother VolgaHitotsubashi Daigaku Tsudajuku Daigaku Gasshoudan Humanite
It is a piece composed by Alexander Glazunov in 1921.
The Volga is a great river flowing through western Russia.
In Russia, the Volga River has long been a vital transportation route, and there are folk songs such as the Song of the Volga Boatmen, which describes the work of hauling boats upstream from the land with ropes after they had drifted downstream.
Summer has comeTōkyō Hōsō Jidō Gasshō
The lyrics were written by Sasaki Nobutsuna and the music was composed by Koyama Sakunosuke.
It was released in 1896 and was selected for the 2007 list of 100 Selected Japanese Songs.
The content depicts early-summer scenes, including riverside landscapes.
The title, in classical Japanese, means “summer has come.”
Afton’s flowKōbe Chūō Gasshōdan
This is a 19th-century American song that uses a poem by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.
The composer is Jonathan E.
Spilman, a lawyer from Kentucky, USA, and it is said to have been written in 1837.
The River Afton is a small stream flowing through South Ayrshire in southwestern Scotland.
London BridgeFunabashi Sazanka Shonen Shojo Gasshou-dan
It is one of the most representative Mother Goose rhymes in England and is known worldwide.
The lyrics vary by time and place, but it is thought to depict a bridge being washed away by floods when the River Thames overflowed.
It is used as a singing game for a gate-playing activity.
fireflyManiwa Sae
With lyrics by Takeo Inoue and music by Kan’ichi Shimofusa, this is a Ministry of Education school song.
It was released in 1932 as a piece for third-year elementary school students.
The song describes fireflies gathering under a willow tree by the riverside at dusk.
The lyrics “ho ho hotaru” evoke the children’s song Hotaru Koi (Come, Fireflies).