Thursday, April 5, 2012

Yumi Arai -- Velvet Easter (ベルベット・イースター)




Seeing that Easter is just around the corner, I thought I would throw in a Easter-themed kayo kyoku song. Now, Yumi Arai's(荒井由実) "Velvet Easter"doesn't really have anything to do with the Christian holiday or the Easter Bunny, except that Arai talks about a Sunday in the lyrics. The theme of the song seems to be loneliness as Yuming sings about staying home alone on a rainy Sunday. But you can judge from the following translated lyrics as you listen to the song:

Velvet Easter
A showery morning
The window is filled with glistening droplets
Velvet Easter
Please come and get me
I'm sleepy but knock on my door

The sky is so low
As if the angels were going to descend
It's my favourite season
It's a different Sunday than usual

Velvet Easter
I decorated a white hat I bought yesterday
With flowers
Velvet Easter
I'll wear the boots that
Mama loved so long ago

The sky is so low
As if the angels were going to descend
It's my favourite season
It's a different Sunday than usual

"Velvet Easter", according to the J-Wiki writeup, was treated as Yuming's ticket into the big leagues of singing so it was promptly campaigned on TV, and I assume as well, on radio. The YouTube video here is from a 1976 TV broadcast from that time so it will sound a bit wobbly. Her back-up band here is Tin Pan Alley whose members included Haruomi Hosono(細野晴臣) from YMO, and her husband, Masataka Matsutoya(松任谷正隆).


The song was a track on Yuming's very first album released in 1973, "Hikoki Gumo"ひこうき雲...Vapor Trails) which peaked at No. 9 on the Oricon weeklies. It was never released as a single at that time, but was the B-side song on Yuming's final single as Yumi Arai.



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