Mariko Nagai -- Lonely Christmas (Lonely クリスマス)

Yup, City Hall's Xmas tree has been up for some weeks now. The weather has started to get even more wintry and there is supposed to be a good dumping of snow from tomorrow night so that Yuletide feeling is beginning to come in. Plus, I've got the usual get-togethers for the season from next week. There will be 3 consecutive days and nights starting from Thursday with end-of-year thingies so I'm feeling that old sensation of bonenkai season from the old Gunma days.

Well, I guess it's then time for another Xmas tune but this one is going back quite a few years. I had actually been searching for the Xmas version of "Zutto" by Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）which does exist on a compilation of J-Pop Christmas tunes but not seeing it on YouTube, I did find another Yuletide song that the perky singer had recorded.

Titled "Lonely Christmas", it's another in a long line of bittersweet songs about spending the Holidays alone without that loved one due to various circumstances. My impression is that death wasn't the culprit here for the protagonist...just the usual unavoidable business trip or schooling overseas. Composed by Katsuki Maeda（前田克樹）, the style of the music is just as nostalgic as the theme of Xmas itself here. The lyrics were whipped by Airin（亜伊林）who usually goes by her real name of Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）.

The song was recorded especially for the Xmas album, "Merry Christmas to You" crafted at the recording company Fun House back in November 1989. Featuring four of the female singers who belonged to Fun House at the time,  Nagai, Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）, Reimy（麗美）and Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）, each of them had their own contributions to the album but the four of them then got together to provide their own group tune which became the title track. Hard to believe I wrote about that one almost 4 years ago.