Yasuhiro Kido -- April

 

Yes, indeed we are in April and once again, I have an appropriate song. Strangely enough, it just happens to be the same song that I used to commemorate the arrival of the fourth month back in 2018.

For you Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）fans, if "April" sounds familiar, it is because that the J-AOR crooner had first recorded it as a track on his 6th album from March 1986 "Realistic". It was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Yasuhiro Kido（木戸やすひろ）with a slightly doo-wop arrangement by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）. 

However, Kido covered his own composition for his September 2017 album "KID 65 ~ Kiseki no Kakera"（奇跡のかけら...Pieces of a Miracle） which seems to be a sequel to his one other album "KID" which was released all the way back in 1978. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Motoyoshi Iwasaki（岩崎元是）arranged Kido's cover as a mixture of happy pop and some 1960s Phil Spector. As for those Akimoto lyrics, I hadn't written about them in the original Inagaki article but here's another kayo reflection of a cheery melody paired with some rather sad words. Apparently, a fellow is reminiscing about a woman that he loved (and perhaps still holds a torch for) but when the topic of marriage was broached, she left him so quickly that the air most likely crackled. Didn't want to be tied down with that institution, she said. Ouch! I'm just hoping that the guy is as wistful and happy as that Kido melody.