NSP -- Go-chome Ni-banchi（五丁目二番地）

 

As people who have lived in or have known about Japan for a while already know, the address system there is something to behold. Usually here in Canada and the United States, if someone invites me to their home for dinner, I will get a street name and a preceding number. If it's a main street, then all I need is the nearest major intersection and perhaps a map for reassurance and I'm good to go. Even if it's a side street, maybe some general directions and a map for reassurance is all I need. 

However, when I've had to go to a friend's or a student's apartment for the first time in Japan, it's been the custom for that friend or student to meet me at their nearest train or subway station and then guide me over. Without the guidance, a map (homemade or otherwise) is absolutely essential because of the address system. It goes by descending order of area unit. For example, if I wanted to go to a friend's apartment whose address is Shinjuku 1-2-3, I would need to head into Shinjuku's 1st district before searching for the 2nd block there and then finally the 3rd building...theoretically. My old address was Fukuei 3-15-17 so the 3rd district of Fukuei, the 15th block in there and the 17th building within that block. But what determines the designation of any of those numbers?! Map please!

Anyways all that preamble ramble was there to introduce a song by NSP, a group that I haven't mentioned in quite a long time. "Go-chome Ni-banchi" (5-2...5th District 2nd Block) is a track on the band's 7th album "Tasogare ni Se wo Mukete"（黄昏に背を向けて...Turning Your Back on the Sunset） from November 1977. Written and composed by vocalist Shigeru Amano（天野滋）, that titular neighbourhood was apparently the scene of some really dramatic and romantic development.

Like a number of folk groups and singers in the 1970s, there was that leap into somewhat more urban contemporary music such as AOR and City Pop for NSP. But I hadn't known that Amano and his group leapt quite that early. When I first listened to "Go-chome Ni-banchi", I had assumed that this was a tune from their early 1980s period but actually it was quite early on in 1977. It is quite groovy with the Santana-esque guitar work and the keyboards, and I can only imagine the plot happening in some downtown neighbourhood not too far away from the rising skyscrapers of Shinjuku. I just hope that the two lovers involved here were able to find each other in the neighbourhood.