Tomoyasu Hotei -- Dreaming in the Midnight City

 

On Friday, NHK's "Asaichi"（あさイチ）program had its usual Premium Talk segment and the guest just happened to be the one and only Tomoyasu Hotei（布袋寅泰）, a musician whose reputation certainly preceded him as the hosts looked pretty nervous and tongue-tied around the man initially, and it wasn't just because he towered over everyone at over 6"1' (that's still considered very tall in Japan), although still not quite as tall as Shohei Ohtani.

However, in his gray hair, spectacles, and a one-button blazer that looked almost like a comfy cardigan around him, Hotei looked practically grandfatherly (which I shouldn't say because his daughter isn't even married yet) and nothing like his hellraising self on stage with all of the leather and spiky hair. And he was very self-effacing in his talk about his life in London and his approach to his guitar, although we also all found out that he is one heck of a whiz in the kitchen and he has a green thumb.

But getting back to the music, I found this one track which acted as the final track of his March 2002 8th album "Scorpio Rising". His composition "Dreaming in the Midnight City" sounds something like a good way to finish up the album as it has this rather elegiac feeling with Hotei exhorting Yukinojo Mori's（森雪之丞）lyrics of being someone who's gone through the late nights of paying one's dues to get where he is today. I'm not sure if Hotei was indeed singing about himself or about certain people in general but he's definitely gone the anthemic way about it. "Scorpio Rising" itself reached No. 6 on Oricon.