Ayako Fuji -- Utakata no Koi（うたかたの恋）

When I checked out what this "Utakata no Koi" was all about, I could only find various adaptations of a romantic tragic novel titled "Mayerling" by Claude Anet, including a 1968 movie starring Catherine Deneuve and Omar Sharif.

The spark that started off my curious search was that I found this enka ballad with the same title performed by veteran Ayako Fuji（藤あや子）. The direct translation for "Utakata no Koi" is "Fleeting Love" and the lyrics by Yasuteru or Yasutoshi Miura（三浦康照）relate a love between two people...most likely walking through the streets of Kyoto while wearing traditional Japanese garb...although that love is temporary for some reason (extramarital affair, going off to war, illness, etc.). The music by Hideo Mizumori（水森英夫）is the thing that has struck me...although it sounds like a typical enka, there is something in that arrangement that hits a pleasurable nerve. Despite the ephemeral nature of the romance, the melody sounds fresh and optimistic and bubbly like a young creek as if it is trying to tell listeners that the couple is making every moment of their brief time together count.

It took me a while to find out when "Utakata no Koi" was released or even if it had originally been a Fuji song. My wrong assumption was that the song came out recently when in fact it had been released all the way back in March 1997 as Fuji's 10th single.