Motoharu Sano -- Manhattan Bridge ni Tatazunde（マンハッタンブリッヂにたたずんで）

by Jakub Hałun
via Wikimedia Commons

 

1981 was the year that I went to Japan on that graduation trip, and it was the trip that for all intents and purposes put me on the course that has led me to this moment. Basically...no trip, no realization of Japanese popular music, no blog. It was also the year that "My Dinner with Andre" first came out, a movie that in all likelihood blew a lot of folks' minds including those belonging to movie critics who are probably some of the most jaded people on the planet.

After hearing about this movie for decades, I finally took in a few scenes and the trailer for "My Dinner with Andre" via YouTube last night, and of course, though I'm still not totally convinced that a restaurant conversation can hold my rapt attention for nearly two hours without watching it in its entirety, I've already picked up on some things. I had already known about the actor Wallace Shawn, whose character has his first reluctant meeting with Andre for the first time in years, because of his recurring role in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" and his name had hit media because of his time on "The Princess Bride". At the same time, though, it was really quite a re-revelation of sorts seeing Wallace walking down the Manhattan streets and riding the heavily-graffitied subway where he could have been mugged at any time to enter one of the most storied establishments of fine dining, the Café des Artistes (a place that I first heard about on "Star Trek: The Next Generation") and have a good dinner and a rather high-falutin' talk with Andre. I was also finally able to match the ending scene music and its title: "Gymnopedie #1" by Erik Satie; I'd first heard the piece when I was a kid watching "Sesame Street", and I'd read the title but never put the two together until last night.

I had been meaning to write about this song today because it's gonna be part of the Yutaka Kimura Speaks series in a few weeks, but I think the timing couldn't have been more coincidental because there also seems to be a somewhat light-hearted argument taking place within the lyrics about love itself, and the title has a connection with New York City obviously. "Manhattan Bridge ni Tatazunde" (Standing on Manhattan Bridge) is a song that was supposed to have been placed onto Motoharu Sano's（佐野元春）famed 1982 album "Someday", but instead found itself a track on the compilation album "Niagara Triangle Vol. 2" that was released in March of the same year. 

"Niagara Triangle Vol. 2" was the follow-up to "Niagara Triangle Vol. 1" from 1976 featuring Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）with their tunes coming together. "Volume 2" had Ohtaki back but with Sano and Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）this time around as the two other "sides". Ohtaki had requested Sano to use "Manhattan Bridge ni Tatazunde" in "Volume 2", although the latter had some reservations about the supposedly cynical lyrics being sung over the happy rock-n'-roll-tinged melody by the singer. However, the song did get onto the album and it has a very sunny outlook on life, melodically speaking, maybe in the same way that Wallace had felt at the end of "My Dinner with Andre" when he treated himself to that cab ride home.