Sunlight, Bright and Gentle: Kei Ogura's "Ai Sansan" and My 66 Years

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I first came across Kei Ogura's song "Ai Sansan" ("Love, Shining Bright") when I was still in my mid-twenties. It had originally been written for the singer Hibari Misora, and it was through her voice that the song first reached the world. Years later, I had the chance to hear Ogura himself sing his own composition, and his quiet, unadorned way of singing moved me in a completely different way.

At the time, I had strayed quite far from the path I had once expected to walk, and I had no clear answer for how I was supposed to live from there. Watching classmates settle into their chosen fields while I felt uncertain of my own direction left me with a kind of quiet unease. It was in that period that I first absorbed the song's calm message: that life brings both sunny days and rainy ones, that the sun always rises again regardless, and that our days continue on, carried along by other people's kindness. Looking back now, I think that message was quietly holding me up during those uncertain years.

Photo by Anil Jose Xavier on Unsplash

My Twenties, and the Song's Warmth

In my twenties, if I'm honest, I don't think I truly grasped the weight of those words. The idea of life's ups and downs felt like something I understood intellectually rather than something I had actually lived through. Even so, for someone caught in a kind of formless anxiety, the warmth of this song — its quiet way of saying "it's alright, this is fine as it is" — was, without question, a comfort. Around that time I took my first step into an entirely unfamiliar world, working at a Japanese restaurant in London, and looking back on the eventful years that followed, I can't help but feel it was no coincidence that I encountered this song right before that leap.

What I Feel Now, at 66

Now, at 66, listening to the song again, my sense of it has changed considerably. The challenges of building a Japanese food business, the years spent studying acupuncture and herbal medicine, time with family, and now a life divided between the UK and Japan — looking back, it certainly wasn't all sunny days. Some ventures didn't go as planned, and I notice, more often now, the effects of age on my strength and my memory. And yet I can also see clearly, in a way I couldn't before, that it was precisely because of the rainy days that certain views came into sight, and certain people came into my life to support me. The song's sense that "life still shines, even so" — something I once only understood in theory — has, over the years, settled into something I feel in my bones.

Impermanence — Why Change Itself Is Hope

Listening to this song, I sometimes find myself thinking of the Buddhist idea of mujo — impermanence: the notion that nothing stays fixed, that everything is always shifting. Sunshine and rain, happiness and hardship — none of it lasts forever. It's precisely when we feel a run of bad luck that we tend to imagine it will go on indefinitely, but in truth, like the weather, it always turns. In my youth I took this idea as something close to resignation. At 66, it sounds instead like a word of hope: whatever state I'm in right now is only a waypoint, not a destination.

What the Garden Teaches Me

Working in my garden, growing vegetables and flowers, I've come to understand in a very physical way that crops don't grow on sunny days alone. Rain, wind, and sometimes even storms are all part of what makes a harvest possible. I think life works much the same way, and I'm reminded of it every time I hear this song. In my youth, I saw life's ups and downs as trials to be overcome. Now I can accept, quite simply, that those same ups and downs are exactly what enrich a life.

Tending that same garden, I notice something else: a plant already carries, deep inside it, the will to live — I don't have to supply that. All I can really do is shape the conditions that let it come through. I suspect healthspan works much the same way. It's less about adding some special regimen than about not getting in the way of a capacity the body already has, through small daily choices — walking, sleeping properly, laughing. Looked at that way, living a long healthy life has less to do with piling things on than with letting go of needless strain, a thought that comes to me often while I'm out looking over the garden.

Across Countries — A Shared Quiet Strength

When I learned that this song was originally written for a commercial built around the image of a resilient mother holding her family together, I couldn't help but think of my own life in England. There's a British phrase, "Keep Calm and Carry On," born under wartime conditions, that speaks to a similar kind of strength — not making a show of one's feelings, but simply continuing, day after day. It strikes me as not so different from what "Ai Sansan" is really saying: to bear a rainy day quietly, and wait for the next sunny one. Different countries, different cultures, and yet there's something people seem to share in how they meet hardship.

Closing Thoughts

I don't think there's anything especially significant in writing down my own experience like this. But if someone else who is moving through their own ups and downs happens to read this and feels, even briefly, that they are not alone in it, that alone would be more than enough.

I imagine the days ahead will keep bringing their own mix of sun and rain. But as this song reminds me, the sun always rises again, kindness continues to find us, and the days go on. With that thought, I find a quiet sense of hope that there are still pleasures and encounters waiting for me further down the road. This song has always, gently, nudged me forward — reminding me that life is worth living, through and through.

Reference Links

• Kei Ogura official artist page (Nippon Columbia Official Site)
• "Ai Sansan" (Kei Ogura's self-cover), from the album Fuin: A Self-Cover Collection of Songs Written for Other Artists — official product page (Universal Music Japan)
• "Ai Sansan" by Hibari Misora (official audio provided by Nippon Columbia / watch on YouTube)

Read the Lyrics (Uta-Net): https://www.uta-net.com/song/71720/Note: please enjoy the full Japanese lyrics on the external lyrics database site linked above — they are not reproduced here.

(Note: "Ai Sansan" was originally written for Hibari Misora and released as a single on May 29, 1986. Kei Ogura's own vocal recording of the song appears on the self-cover album linked above.)

About Kei Ogura

Kei Ogura (born Koji Kanda) was born on January 18, 1944, in the Ueno district of Taito, Tokyo, into a family that ran a small traditional restaurant and was steeped in the performing arts — his father played the biwa, and his mother practiced traditional Japanese singing. After attending a Tokyo metropolitan high school, he entered the University of Tokyo, studying private law in the Faculty of Law and graduating in 1967.

His path into music began at university, where he was deeply moved by the theatrical work of the playwright Shuji Terayama and began spending time with Terayama's circle. In 1969 he took part in an album by Terayama's experimental theatre troupe Tenjo Sajiki, and in 1971 he made his formal debut as a singer.

Yet Ogura never chose music as his sole career. In that same year he graduated, 1967, he joined the Nippon Kangyo Bank (now Mizuho Bank), rising through an elite banking career across its Ginza, Kabutocho, and head-office securities divisions while continuing, in parallel, to write and perform songs — an unusual dual life as both banker and singer-songwriter. For more than two decades after his debut he largely avoided the public eye, yet the demand for his work was extraordinary: his first concert at NHK Hall in 1976 drew 110,000 applications for tickets, and a resulting live album sold roughly two billion yen worth of copies.

As a songwriter, Ogura has been remarkably prolific, providing songs to more than 300 different artists over his career. "Cyclamen no Kaori," written for Akira Fuse, won the Japan Record Award in 1975. He also wrote "Ai Sansan" for Hibari Misora, along with other enduring hits recorded by Masatoshi Nakamura and Fumio Umezawa, among many others.

After retiring from banking at age 49 in 1993, Ogura began touring in earnest while also returning to the University of Tokyo, where he completed further undergraduate study in law and politics before going on to earn a master's degree in philosophy in 2000. In 2001 a routine health check caught stomach cancer at an early stage; he underwent surgery and returned to performing afterward.

In 2021, marking the 50th anniversary of his debut, Ogura announced his retirement from the entertainment industry, and on January 18, 2023 — his own birthday — he held his final concert at NHK Hall, closing out a long and singular career. Combining the discipline of a career banker with the sensitivity of a poet, he remains a rare figure in the history of Japanese popular music.