This is kinda like following the running KKP narrative of me finding out that a beloved 80s hit wasn't an original but a cover of a less well-known original version. Mind you, I did find out some years ago that Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Firecracker", the first YMO song for me to hear, had originally been made by Martin Denny, a man who loved his exotica music back in the 1950s.
And it was then that I realized that the early years of YMO were about Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）among others in the band's collective filtering some of the old genres through the filter of synthesizers and other electronic equipment for fresh new takes. Well, some more revelatory stuff has come.
Case in point: it wasn't even the first time for Hosono to tackle "Firecracker". Last month, Hosono released an album "Yours Sincerely" where he supposedly ties up some melodic loose strings. But some months earlier in June, another album associated with him got out in public. Titled "Harry Hosono & Tin Pan Alley In Chinatown", this is a live performance album which was recorded all the way back in 1976 when they did a gig at the famous Tung Fat restaurant in Yokohama's Chinatown. One of the tracks is indeed "Firecracker" which is much closer to the 1959 Denny classic in terms of arrangement, and I have to give my compliments to Hosono's firecracking performance on the marimba. The album includes the covers but there are also some Hosono originals.
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