I hadn't heard "Saiai"(Beloved) for many years, so on hearing it again after so long, I realized how well-crafted it is. Melodically, there is a certain Gallic flavour to it thanks to Nakajima's arrangements and orchestra behind Kashiwabara. Lyrically, Yoshie sings of being on a ship with an unidentified beloved one though they can never be together, and both have their own suitors. Nakajima could have almost presaged the story of "Titanic".
Here is Kashiwabara herself performing the song in front of her very ravenous fans. I can only imagine that some of those young men must have been wondering if they could have been her beloved. For the record, the song peaked at No. 8 on the Oricon charts and finished as the 70th-ranked song of 1984.
Yoshie and harpsichord: enchanting! How had I never known she had songs written for her by Miyuki Nakajima? Definitely requires further investigation.
ReplyDeleteYoshie first came to my attention by a song from the Saiai album, a dramatic ballad called "Tawamure no koi no mamani." Yoshie's version is a cover, the original is by a singer named Sumiko Toyohiro, and her version has the full 80s City Pop treatment, with a glossy bed of piano and crystalline synth and some wailing rock guitar on top. I've been looking for more info on Sumiko and her career seems to have been dreadfully short: one album (Water Heart, which has an impressive cast of session musicians behind it, including BUZZ and Hi-Fi Set on backing vocals) and one further single ("Ai wa Mellow Yellow") and nothing else that I can discern. A shame!
Hello, Mike.
DeleteI think my first Yoshie song was "Haru nanoni", another collaboration with Nakajima. After that, I went down to the local Chinatown and ended up getting a Hong Kong bootleg tape of hers and then got her BEST LP later on.
I never heard of Toyohiro so I looked her up on YouTube but there seems to be just one video of a live performance and then some very short recent videos of her talking. Her original of "Tawamure no Koi no mamani" sounds enticing since it is a City Pop tune.
Both versions had been on Youtube in the past but have since been taken down. But they shouldn't be too hard to track down, since both have been reissued on CD. Yoshie's cover is readily available on her Saiai album, while Sumiko's original can be found on the Popcon Single Collection 80s CD currently retailing for a discounted 3462 Yen over on amazon.co.jp. You can even stream the first 45 seconds of the track, to get an idea of what you're in for. That song you just posted by Yoko Nashigori is very similar in many respects; in fact I played the aforementioned clip right after Ms. Nashigori's tune, and the two would fit comfortably side-by-side on a compilation album.
ReplyDeleteI think the aforementioned Sumiko Toyohiro live recording on Youtube is the lesser album track "Keep On Shinin'."
Sumiko’s version is back up. Perfect timing for what is, to my ears, a very autumnal tune. Check it out but hurry, in case it’s taken down again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUiolfhVAto
ReplyDeleteHi, Mike. At risk of seeing the video taken down, I have written about "Tawamure" just now. It is a very nice nighttime ballad and I can only hope that the powers-that-be will have enough heart to leave it up for a while. After all, it's probably not all that easy to track the relevant albums down. Thanks for the tip.
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