Miki Hirayama/MODOKEES -- Manatsu no Dekigoto (真夏の出来事）

Just to show that not all summer J-Pop came from the 80s, here is another kayo kyoku classic from 1971 with Miki Hirayama（平山みき）. "Manatsu no Dekigoto" (Midsummer Happening) has Hirayama weaving her thoughts of an ideal date involving a car and a beach. Released in May 1971, this was just Hirayama's 2nd single after debuting with "Beautiful Yokohama"a year earlier. The second time was the charm since this would become Hirayama's biggest hit.

Written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by the prolific Kyohei Tsutsumi『筒美京平』 (Kiyohiko Ozaki, Hiromi Iwasaki and Yu Hayami were just a small fraction of his clientele), the song won an award for composition at the 1971 Japan Record Awards. It went as high as No. 5 on the Oricon weeklies, and finished the year as the 37th-ranked single.

Strangely enough, the first time I had heard this song was actually through its cover version in 1982. Singer Yaeko Kojima（小島八重子）, later to be known as Yaya（やや）, became Miki Himalaya(ﾋﾏﾗﾔﾐｷ), and with a unit called MODOKEES, gave a somewhat techno-ized and sped-up version of the song. At the time, with the Yellow Magic Orchestra being at the top of the charts and my interest in them, I was quite keen on this version, having never been aware of the original for several more years. Amazing what some imagination and a good synthesizer can do.