Composed by Raimonds Pauls with lyrics by Leons Briedis as 'Dāvāja Māriņa meitiņai mūžiņu'. Performed by Aija Kukule and Līga Kreicberga, it was a maternal myth-song that won Latvia's Mikrofons festival.
After Andrei Voznesensky's Russian lyrics and Alla Pugacheva's Soviet hit, Tokiko Kato wrote her own Japanese version in 1987. Her expressive reading made the Pirosmani love legend a Japanese chanson / kayokyoku standard.
Transformed from a reflective Latvian song of maternal fate into an iconic ballad of a painter's unrequited love.