Miki Imai -- Yuki no Shuumatsu/Shiro no Waltz （雪の週末・白のワルツ）

A couple of more Xmas songs from Miki Imai（今井美樹）, the first one being "Yuki no Shuumatsu"(Snowy Weekend), a soothing mid-tempo ballad for cocoa drinking while the kids are destroying the toys you bought them. It was a track on Imai's 7th album, "flow into space" which represented a gradual change in the sound that Imai's songs had up to that point in 1992. The song itself was written and composed by a couple of the singer's stalwarts from her earlier albums: lyricist Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂） and singer-composer Akemi Kakihara（柿原朱美）. But producer Jun Sato（佐藤準）, who had taken care of Imai's albums from the beginning of her singing career in 1986, was not in charge this time. Instead, it was Joe Hisaishi（久石譲） who has written the scores for many of Hayao Miyazaki's films such as "My Neighbour Totoro" and "Nausicaa". "Yuki no Shuumatsu" has a bit more of a grounding in a lush piano than the pop synthesizers of her past arrangements.

From the next album onwards, though, the transition would continue as Tomoyasu Hotei（布袋寅泰）, formerly of BOOWY, would become Imai's producer.

As a bit of an extra with Imai's original, Kakihara did a cover of "Yuki no Shuumatsu".

I've always loved the beginning of this song with Imai and her husband/producer, Hotei, "lu, lu"-ing the opening notes before bursting into this waltz melody like a sudden squall. There is a certain court stateliness about "Shiro no Waltz"(A White Waltz) that still doesn't take itself too seriously. In a way, I think it would have been a nice addition to a Disney movie (although it became the commercial song for Canon's PIXUS cameras). In any case, it was the coupling song to Imai's 14th single, "Watashi wa Anata no Sora ni Naritai"（私はあなたの空になりたい...I Want to Be Your Sky), released in November 1997.

The song was also written and composed by Hotei, which was a bit of a revelation to me since I'd always seen him as that larger-than-life rocker from BOOWY, and as the master who created the theme song for "Kill Bill", "Battle Without Honor or Humanity".