Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Sumiko Yamagata -- Kumorizora (曇り空)


Long time, no see Sumiko Yamagata(やまがたすみこ). Welcome back to the blog! I was kinda looking for something City Pop and thought that I could find an entry in Yamagata's discography since she had her period of urban contemporary starting from the late 1970s.


However, I ended up making a detour when I found this interesting and lovely song by her. It's titled "Kumorizora" (Overcast Sky) and was a track on her 5th album "Orgel"(オルゴール...Music Box)from August 1975. Before Yamagata made that right turn into New Music/City Pop, she had been known as a young folk singer. But I think there is more of a drama in this song that was composed by her and written by Tadashi Akai赤井正...I hope that's how the name is pronounced)so that the arrangement takes things into a more New Music area. Perhaps, there are other tracks in "Orgel" that may have been slowly convincing her that she could make a crossing between genres.

In any case, the lyrics by Akai have a woman silently pining for someone she's fallen for under that titular overcast sky and exhorting him to notice her, especially since there is a hint that he may have just broken up with someone else and is mourning that loss. I do love that guitar, that piano and Yamagata's voice here.

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