The Peanuts/W/Yuki Koyanagi -- Koi no Fuuga (恋のフーガ）

Fugue: ".....a compositional technique (in classical music) in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced in the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and recurs frequently in the course of the composition." (Wikipedia)

Decided to give you a bit of a heads-up on the title of this song. "Koi no Fuuga"(Fugue of Love) was released in August 1967 by The Peanuts, and it's a 60s Quincy Jones-worthy tune written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）. I don't usually mention the arranger in my entries, but Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰） was the one behind this, and he was also the scorer behind "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト...Space Battleship Yamato）; one of the battle themes from that anime starts off just like this song. (things that make you go hmmmm.....). Speaking of Miyagawa, according to J-Wiki, he tried to arrange the song so that it followed a fugue pattern, but he got somewhat stuck so he ended up making a "slightly scary"arrangement, in his words.

It certainly starts off with a bang. With timpani at the beginning and some foghorn trombone near the end, Austin Powers and just about every other spy he was spoofing would've been quite impressed with this one. The Oricon charts would still be a few months away from starting up, but when they did, "Koi no Fuuga" apparently got as high up as No. 20. And the ladies did get onto the Kohaku Utagassen for that year as you can see below...complete with loud kettledrums (sorry but the video has been taken down).

Covers of the song would pop up over the decades. J-R&B singer Yuki Koyanagi（小柳ゆき） gave her own version in August 2003, as a track on her album, "Koyanagi The Covers Product 2". No twin sister for her but she improvised in the video. This version got as high as No. 36 on Oricon.

Then, there was the version given by the Hello Project duo, W, in February 2005 which went as far up as No. 12. Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji（加護亜衣・辻希美） debuted as the duo with another Peanuts tune, "Koi no Vacances"（恋のバカンス）the year before (already profiled....look for "Hello Project"or "2004"). The song also appears on their 2nd album, "2nd W", which was released in March of the same year.

In any case, the song is short but dynamic (kinda like Rita Moreno).