Wikipedia
is the sixth single of the J-pop idol group Morning Musume, released on July 14, 1999 as an 8 cm CD. It has sold over 170,670 copies and reached number five on the Oricon Charts. In 2004 it was re-released as part of the Early Single Box and again in 2005 as a 12 cm CD. The lead vocalist of this single was Natsumi Abe.
Furusato has since become a Morning Musume/ Hello! Project standard, with many Morning Musume members having sung their own solo versions. As of September 2005, versions by Nozomi Tsuji, Mari Yaguchi, Ai Takahashi and Risa Niigaki were released to fan club members, while Yuko Nakazawa has done an acoustic version on her second solo album, and Natsumi Abe has re-recorded it for her 2004 solo album Hitoribocchi.
is a well-known Japanese children's song, with music by Teiichi Okano and lyrics by Tatsuyuki Takano. The song was composed in 1914.
The Japanese word furusato means "old home" or "hometown". Although Takano's hometown was Nakano, Nagano, his lyrics do not seem to refer to a particular place. Instead, they describe a person who is working in a distant land, expressing his feelings of nostalgia for the hills and fields of his childhood home.
The Japanese government has designated Furusato as a Japanese children's song to be taught in the Japanese public school system, and the song has also been included in the recent popular song collection known as Nihon no Uta Hyakusen.
The composer and the writer of the song were unknown until the 1970s. Since 1992, however, the names of both Teiichi Okano and Tatsuyuki Takano have been printed with the song in Japanese music textbooks.
At the closing ceremony of the 1998 Winter Olympics at Nagano, the song was played, and in 2014, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Furusato, the song was performed by children's chorus with orchestral accompaniment at the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto in Nagano, under the direction of Seiji Ozawa.
Furusato means "hometown" in Japanese and may refer to:
- "Furusato" (children's song), a 1914 Japanese children's song
- "Furusato" (Morning Musume song), a 1999 song by the Japanese girl group Morning Musume
- , a 1972 Japanese film ;
- Furusato, a 1983 Japanese film
- 77560 Furusato, asteroid.