Midori Hara -- Aamer Jabar（アマロ・ジャバロ）

JRC, DG, ECHO, EC via Wikimedia Commons

Singer-songwriter Midori Hara（原みどり）has been a relatively recent addition to the "Kayo Kyoku Plus" family, but she's been making an impression upon me with her willingness to tackle a ton of genres including City Pop, jazz and Latin. She was even in the earliest incarnation of the eclectic SPANK HAPPY band doing some rock along the lines of YUKI from Judy & Mary. You can also take a gander at the Part 1 and Part 2 articles I posted to cover her 1988 album "KO・KO・RO・NOTE".

In 1989, Hara released another album titled "Aamer Jabar to Ieta Hi"（アマロ・ジャバロと言えた日...The Day I Say Aamer Jabar [sic]）. The title track happens to be called "Aamer Jabar" and I had to jump through a few linguistic hoops before I found out that the title originates from Indonesian. Looking through Hara's lyrics of the song, I saw the expressions "Selamat malan!" and "Selamat tinggal!" which are Indonesian for "Good night!" and "Goodbye!" respectively. Assuming that "Aamer Jabar" was also from the same language...I ran it through Google Translate but didn't get anything. However, it then suggested that I try it through Bangla which is actually spoken in Bangladesh and eastern India and I got the translation "I'm going". But if anyone who's fluent in the above languages can confirm or refute what I've found, please let me know. Terima kasih!

Well, it seems like Hara decided to go trilingual including her native Japanese to broadcast her song of heartbreak and death of romance in "Aamer Jabar". Hara's melody at least sounds quite romantic and rather exotic with a bit of R&B balladry and late 80s City Pop stylings. In a way, it's kinda like Junko Yagami's（八神純子）style of music from those late 1980s.