Itsuko Nakamura -- Yakan Hiko（夜間飛行）

By Kentaro Iemoto at Wikimedia Commons

 

I'll have to see whether there were a whole lot of other kayo kyoku with the title "Yakan Hiko" (Night Flight). The one that I'd known up to now is Junko Yagami's（八神純子）soaring City Pop ballad "Yakan Hiko" from her 1979 album "Sugao no Watashi"（素顔の私）.

Cue ahead a couple of years to 1981 and singer-songwriter Itsuko Nakamura（中村伊都子）comes up with her own "Yakan Hiko" as the B-side to her 2nd single "Rain". And the crazy thing is that it's also a cool and polished City Pop song about romance and air travel. Written by Sonomi Ari（阿里そのみ）and composed by Nakamura herself, this "Yakan Hiko" practically sports a passport, a tumbler of Old Parr and a cigarette while waiting in the airport lounge at Narita one evening. Both Nakamura's and Yagami's "Yakan Hiko" are different but both relate the urbane attraction of air travel (always have a sexy sax solo) at a time when the Japanese were finally on the cusp of affording recreational flights.