was the twelfth single by the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese band The Blue Hearts

The Blue Hearts

was a popular Japanese punk rock band that performed from the mid-1980s to the early-1990s. In 2003, they were ranked by HMV Japan as number 19 on their list of 100 most important Japanese pop acts...

 and reached #29 on the Oricon

Oricon

, established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan. It started as , which was founded by Sōkō Koike in November 1967 and became known for its music charts. Oricon Inc...

 charts in 1992.

Details

Too Much Pain was released as part of The Blue Hearts' fifth album, High Kicks

High Kicks

was the fifth studio album released by the Japanese band The Blue Hearts. It was the first album by the band to reach #1 on the Oricon charts.-Tracks:#"Minagoroshi no Melody" #"Monkey"...

, which had been released on December 21, 1991, but the song itself was from the band's amateur days many years prior. They had planned on including it in the independent release with Blue Hearts Theme

Blue Hearts Theme

was the fourth single by the Japanese band The Blue Hearts. Though it was released after their major debut, it was written before they signed with a major label. It was released as a "double A-side" track on July 1, 1988, with "Chernobyl" , a controversial single that was included with the release...

and Chernobyl, but the song Sha La La was thought to be a better fit.

Up until 1987, the song was performed regularly, with nothing more than Mashima's guitar and Hiroto Kōmoto

Hiroto Komoto

is a Japanese rock singer who has fronted bands such as The Blue Hearts, The High-Lows and The Cro-Magnons. The official kanji for his name are 甲本 浩人, but katakana is used when writing his name in official publications.-Personal History:...

's vocals. After that, they only played the song on special occasions. The last time that the two of them performed the song live by themselves was on May 31, 1989, on the last day of their On Tour tour in Yoyogi Park

Yoyogi Park

is one of the largest parks in Tokyo, Japan located adjacent to Harajuku Station and Meiji Shrine in Shibuya.What is now Yoyogi Park was the site of the first successful powered aircraft flight in Japan, on December 19, 1910, by Captain Yoshitoshi Tokugawa, after which it became an army parade ground...

. The two chose to perform that day because they had once seen Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

 perform at a concert there and sang it as a tribute.

The B-side track, , was also written by Mashima. It is still occasionally performed by The Blue Hearts' supporting member Mikio Shirai

Mikio Shirai

is a Japanese keyboardist who was born in Tokyo's Minato ward.-Personal History:In the late 1980s and early '90s, he worked as a support member for The Blue Hearts and played the keyboard for them on their tours...

 when he plays with his new band, The Big Hip.