長崎の鐘 (Nagasaki no Kane) (Bells of Nagasaki) is a famous post-WWII song written in 1949 by the famous ryūkōka lyricist and poet, サトウハチロー (Hachiro Sato) and composer 古関裕而 (Yuji Koseki). It was written shortly after a book of the same name was released, which is a true story about the author's experience as a survivor of the bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. The bells in the title refers to the bells of the Urakami Cathedral that was destroyed by the bombing, and how their sound that was silenced by the bombing was the message of peace in Nagasaki.
The composition of this piece is fairly simple. Verses are written as i-i-V7-i-i-i-V7-i and the chorus as I-IV-I-V7-I-IV-V-I. This means that the verses are predominately minor, while the chorus is entirely major. This is used to represent the sound of the bells themselves, the major chords representing the peaceful message that the bells brought out, while the minor verses brought out the silence of the bells and therefore the gloominess of the post-war period. In the original version on Columbia they actually use bells to further emphasize this during the chorus.
The original version was sung by probably the most famous ryūkōka singer ever, 藤山一郎 (Ichiro Fujiyama). Because of the simplicity of the songs composition, he was chosen to sing this for his expressive tenor vocals, which can be a real tear-jerker. The lyrics also help a lot with him expressing himself, with the verses being very gloomy depictions of Nagasaki and the chorus being more hopeful-sounding.
Unfortunately, due to the song's popularity, the original version is still under strict copyright laws and is not easily available on websites like YouTube. Here's a canned version of it, with the original singer at least (although he's really old in this one, obviously). They changed the chords a bit at the start of the chorus, which kind of bugs me. They also made sure to overuse the bells in this one.
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