Noriyuki Makihara/Every Little Thing -- Fuyu ga Hajimaru yo （冬がはじまるよ）

Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敏之） was such a clean-cut young man back then, wasn't he? Anyways, for his 4th single in November 1991, between his breakthrough hit of "Donna Toki mo"（どんなときも）and his second million seller "Mou Koi Nante Shinai"（もう恋なんてしない）(both already profiled), he came up with this uptempo seasonal tune in November 1991. As is shown in the music video, Makihara is as adept on the harmonica as he is on the keyboards, and the video is a nice piece of whimsy. It debuted on Oricon at 10th place, and peak at No. 5 as it hovered somewhere in the Top 10 for another 2.5 months. "Fuyu ga Hajimaru Yo"(Winter's Startin') would become the 25th-ranked song of 1992.

For me, the song strikes me as the fun-lovin' musical version of a day out having the proper fun of tobogganing and snowball fights, although none of that shows up in the video. C'est dommage!

15 years later, the pop duo Every Little Thing, with vocal Kaori Mochida（持田香織） and guitarist Ichiro Ito（伊藤一朗）, would release their own cover of "Fuyu ga Hajimaru Yo" as the coupling song (CD single equivalent of an old 45" B-side) on their 33rd single "Koi wo Shiteiru"（恋をしている....I'm In Love） on Halloween 2007. Their version is a tad more languid and has that ELT techno sound; Makihara comes in for a bit of an assist in backing vocals.