Friday, July 19, 2024

Shigeru Suzuki -- Summer Wine(サマー・ワイン)

 


Considering the lush goodness of this song, I should be forgiven if I were to think that singer-songwriter and musician Shigeru Suzuki(鈴木茂)held a monopoly on summery songs of the 1970s. I had just provided a Yutaka Kimura Speaks article based on his "Hachibu Onpu no Uta"(8分音符の詩)last Friday, but I couldn't resist here and after all, since we're now all in the hot season (well, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), why not?

"Summer Wine" is a classy and elegant track from his January 1978 album "Caution!", and considering that release date, this particular song by him and lyricist Takashi Matsumoto(松本隆), his old bandmate from Happy End(はっぴいえんど), must have been a good tonic for fans to realize that summer would come eventually once more. It can have many labels added to it, and indeed I did do that in Labels...I can hear some bossa nova, Resort Pop, sophisticated pop and soft rock. With the lyrics including one fellow deciding to take a step romantically by using the tactic of offering to read his partner's palm over a bottle of that titular wine, I can imagine this being played out in some 1960s exotic romance filmed in Panavision.

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