Anri -- Snowflake no Machikado （スノーフレイクの街角）

It's been said that Anri's（杏里） 23rd single, "Snowflake no Machikado"(Snowflake Street Corner) was more of a minor hit for the Kanagawa Prefecture native. However, it's one of my favourites by her. I first heard it as a karaoke song back in a bar so small that when I exhaled, two windows fogged up.... on opposite sides of the room. Still, I didn't mind it so much since I was enjoying my friend doing her version of the song. In fact, at the time, I hadn't even known who the original artist was and when I was told it was Anri, I just had to track it down. It took me months but just in the last few days before I was to head on back to Canada in 1991, I managed to find the CD single with Anri's smiling visage at a tiny disc shop in Kobe. Happiest 800 yen I spent.

The strangest thing is that I didn't bother reading the title or the lyrics all that carefully, so from the arrangements I'd thought for some time afterwards that this was a summer song. After all, this is Anri, the Queen Mother of Summer J-Pop.

But the title is indeed "SNOWFLAKE no Machikado" and the lyrics were indeed more about the Winter than any fun time in the sun. And in fact, the song was released in December 1988. Anri came up with the melody while her songwriting partner, Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）, provided the words. Still, it is one of the sunniest winter songs I've ever listened to. And perhaps one of the smokiest, since it was used as the commercial tune for a cigarette brand...nothing more romantic than lighting up under light flurries at night.... yes, I'm being sarcastic here.