December 28th was the birthday of Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎）, often known as the Tough Guy. If he had still been with us, he would have been 91 right now. The above photo, according to Wikimedia Commons, is in the public domain and it shows him back in 1957 as a man in his early twenties.
I was just looking through the Tough Guy's Top 20 singles in terms of sales via J-Wiki. Now, usually when I think of his top songs, my mind often goes to his 1977 "Brandy Glass"（ブランデーグラス）which actually came in at No. 10. But this one, the 1964 "Ore wa Omae ni Yowainda" (I'm No Match For You), scored No. 8 with 1.75 million records sold. Never heard of this one before.
Well, listening to it a few times, it's evident that the title isn't referring to some sort of fist fight between Ishihara and a movie rival. It refers to him falling in love with a young woman but can't confess his feelings due to his troubled past and his great reluctance to end up pulling her into his sordid world. However, during the narrative parts of "Ore wa Omae ni Yowainda", it's obvious that he has been the perfect gentleman on what has been a regular series of dates with the lady.
The lyricist and composer for the song were Souichiro Ishimaki（石巻宗一郎）and Buckie Shirakata（バッキー白片）respectively. Whenever I tried to look up for one of them, I invariably saw the two together on other things so they've been a songwriting team evidently. Shirakata was actually a Nisei born in Hawaii who became a steel guitar musician and the leader of his own band, the Aloha Hawaiians, and one of the things about the genre of Mood Kayo in Japanese music is that Hawaiian influences were also notable. There is something very melancholy and poignant about Ishihara's narration along with the steel guitar and the haunting keyboard; the romance may not last too much longer.
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