Pandaful-House -- Shiroi Bouquet（白いブーケ）

 

I was just mentioning Kaguyahime's（かぐや姫）"Ohayou Oyasumi Nichiyoubi"（おはようおやすみ日曜日）over the weekend and saw the composer's name, Kaguyahime bassist Tsuguto "Panda" Yamada（山田つぐと）. That rang a few bells and I remembered that last fall, I had written an article on the short-lived band Pandaful-House（パンダフルハウス）which had Yamada as the leader along with Keiko Yoshino（吉野恵子）and Yamada's younger brother Toshihide Yamada（山田智秀）,

"Kaze Gurashi"（風ぐらし）was the Pandaful-House 1979 single that I wrote about. That had quite a few familiar faces behind the songwriting: fellow Kaguyahime member Makoto Kitajo（喜多條忠）as the lyricist, singer/composer Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and bassist arranger Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, and the song was quite the peppy tune. Another single by them that year was "Shiroi Bouquet" (White Bouquet) which is a fair bit more introspective and melancholy as the protagonist remembers a friend who has now gone away for a new life. The song was written and composed by Yoshiki Tachikawa（立川義喜）, another singer-songwriter although he didn't seem to have any overt connection with Pandaful-House. The violin certainly adds to the more wistful tone.