Considering yesterday's massive snowstorm, I can imagine commuters who had to take the car or public transit this morning on this Monday were closing their eyes in resigned realization of their immediate working needs. Fortunately, a few of my friends work from home so they have been off the hook.
If I mention the name Keiko Matsuzaka（松坂慶子）, I believe that a lot of Japanese folks would remember her in her capacity as an actress, TV personality or commercial pitchman. However, she did have that hit back in 1979, the saucy "Ai no Suichuuka"（愛の水中花）. But she had been putting out music for several years in the form of singles and albums starting from the mid-1970s well into the 21st century.
One album was the February 1984 "Hitomi wo Tojite"（瞳をとじて ）and the track which started off the B-side of the original LP was "Close Your Eyes" which is the direct translation for the album title. Written and composed by Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）, who came up with a lot of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）hits back in the 1970s, "Close Your Eyes" is something quite different. For one thing, it's quite the haunting technopop tune thanks additionally to Matsuzaka's vocals, and it feels like something that came out of France although I can also imagine the band Blondie tackling this one.
Like the album cover, but I am surprised to see the fur coat as I did not think fur coats were ever popular or common in Japan. As for this song it has a very haunting mysterious sounding melody.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what it was like in the other cities besides Tokyo, but I think when it comes to Ginza and Akasaka, my impression was that the fur coat was rather like a status symbol. Practically speaking though, maybe the fur coat was really more for the northern areas and Niigata.
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