Naomi Maki -- Tokyo Jenne（Tokyoジェンヌ）

 

The above is a photo of a building in Shirokanedai（白金台）, Tokyo. You might say that it's a pretty ritzy neighbourhood. I was there...legally, surprisingly enough...to join a couple of my students for lunch at a French restaurant one day. The area is so refined and expensive that the housewives who reside in Shirokanedai and Shirokane（白金）have been called Shiroganeze（シロガネーゼ）in the familiar way that a native of Milan is called Milanese. I guess, in a way, it's similar to how teen girls in the 1990s wanted to be known as Amurer（アムラー）after their inspiration, music superstar Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）.

Thus it is here that I can introduce the title "Tokyo Jenne" as sung and composed by Naomi Maki（マキ奈尾美）. The English title has been wisely translated as "Tokyo Parisienne" to show off the title character living the life of a fashionable young lady around town and playing the romance game. Shades of the book "Nantonaku Crystal"（なんとなくクリスタル...Somehow, Crystal） came to mind as I was listening to Yasuo Tsukakoshi's*（塚越靖雄）lyrics. 

I first wrote about Maki last fall via her "Aquarius", the track mate to "Tokyo Jenne" on her one-and-only 1986 album "Time, Time After Time". As was the case with "Aquarius", Maki's melody is sophisticated pop in the big city, a good match with the life and times of the Tokyo Parisienne. Enjoy tea in Omotesando, have that French dinner in Ginza, sip cocktails in Akasaka, dance the night away in Roppongi and then sleep it off alone or otherwise in Shirokanedai. As "Tokyo Jenne" might imply, it's never a boring time at night in the megalopolis.

*The lyricist's first and last names have various readings so if anyone can confirm or refute my interpretation of his kanji, please let me know.

No Shirokaneze were harmed in the taking
of these photographs.