Momoe Yamaguchi -- Otome wa Matteiru（乙女は待っている）

 

Considering some of the world-weary characterization that 70s aidoru superstar Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）had adopted during the latter half of her singing career in songs such as "Imitation Gold"（イミテイション・ゴールド）, it can still be jarring to realize that 1) she retired from show business when she was barely into adulthood and 2) she used to have that earlier-half persona of a typical junior high school student with the lighter voice and school-aged concerns.

So it's especially refreshing, not to mention downright adorable, to see that cover of Yamaguchi's 5th studio album "Juu-go Sai"（15才...15 Years Old） from December 1974 since it has a very happy aidoru clutching that doggie. The penultimate track on the album is "Otome wa Matteiru" (A Young Lady is Waiting), a quintessentially 70s aidoru tune with that familiar decade-specific arrangement by Hiroshi Takada（高田弘） (strings-and-brass, flute-and-marimba) wrestling between innocence and uncertainty. Written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）and composed by Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）, "Otome wa Matteiru" is given the quick explanation by Momoe-chan herself right at the beginning; a young girl fights with a mischievous boy at school all the time but for some odd reason, she can't quite get herself to hate him and perhaps some other feelings are bubbling forth. Things that make you go Hmmm.

As for "Juu-go Sai", the album peaked at No. 8 on Oricon. The album also has "Izu no Odoriko"（伊豆の踊子）. Recently, Momoe has been showing up in the last several months as an entry in ROY articles, so it's nice to have her back with one of her own songs as the featured star once more.