Kuniko Fukushima -- Good-bye（グッド・バイ）/Subete wa Futari ni（すべては二人に）

 

I've been gathering together a number of singer-songwriter Kuniko Fukushima's（福島邦子）songs for quite a while now, and it's too bad that she's been one of the lesser-known chanteuses out there because I've found her music a nice example of City Pop and New Music in the late 1970s going into the 1980s.

This time, I'm going back to her very first single "Good-bye" which was released in February 1978. Written and composed by Fukushima with both her and Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）handling the arrangement, it starts out with a slow lone piano before things strut off into a soft disco direction highlighted with a twirling keyboard riff. Fukushima's vocal shuffle goes off into a kiss-off of a now-erstwhile paramour often punctuated by a rollicking honky-tonk piano and a solid background chorus.

The B-side, "Subete wa Futari ni" (It's All Down to the Two of Us), was completely taken care of by Fukushima, and it's a more elegant sunset ballad that has feelings of blues and soft rock. This time, the electric guitar has some centre stage of its own.