Mieko Hirota/Hideaki Tokunaga -- Ningyo no Ie （人形の家）

When I profiled the Kohaku Utagassen (under "Media") some months ago, one of the videos I put up from YouTube was Mieko Hirota's（弘田三枝子） performance of this song on the 1969 Kohaku. Hirota was born in the inner suburb of Ikejiri-Ohashi in Tokyo in 1947 and debuted as a singer in 1961 at the age of 14 with the cover of UK singer Helen Shapiro's "Don't Treat Me Like A Child" and then doing a cover of Connie Francis' "VACATION" in 1963. At the time, Japanese pop singers' repertoire often included covers of the big American and British hits of the day. In her earlier years, Hirota had that cute girl-next-door image but heading into the late 60s, she dramatically changed her looks to take on a sultrier appearance. At one point, she was called The Queen of Pop Music.

Her 11th single, the haunting "Ningyo no Ie"(The Dollhouse), was released in July 1969. It was a crying song that would have made Connie Francis proud, as Hirota sings about being cast aside by a lover like an old doll. The song was written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼） and composed by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）who has composed songs for Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）and the first leader of Morning Musume, Yuko Nakazawa（中澤裕子）.

"Ningyo no Ie" was a big hit and became one of her trademark tunes as it won a prize for her at the 1969 Japan Record Awards and her 6th of 8 invitations to the Kohaku Utagassen. The song hit the top spot on Oricon and was the 18th-ranked song of that year.

Hideaki Tokunaga（徳永英明）, who has been known of late for doing cover versions of many kayo kyoku/J-Pop songs over the decades, performed "Ningyo no Ie" on a music show although I'm not sure if this cover has made it onto any of his "VOCALIST" series of albums.