Akiko Nakamura -- Sasayaki no Kubikazari （ささやきの首飾り）

From jp.mercari.com

(Apologies but unfortunately I can't find any sign of the song online).

From my trip to Japan in 1981, I brought home an audio tape of Yellow Magic Orchestra's very first album (already profiled), but my relatives in Osaka were also kind enough to give me a gift in the form of another tape of general kayo kyoku for my parents. On it were a few Yujiro Ishihara（石原裕次郎） songs such as "Brandy Glass" and a couple of hits by Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）.....all three of those have been profiled. To be honest, I listened to that tape as much as I did to the YMO tape.

One of the other songs that I got attracted to was this one by Akiko Nakamura（中村晃子）, "Sasayaki no Kubikazari"(Whispering Necklace). She debuted in 1965 at the age of 17, and from listening to some of her earlier tunes such as "Niji Iro no Mizuumi"（虹色の湖...Rainbow-Coloured Lake) and "Garasu no Shiro"（ガラスの城....Glass Castle）, she performed a lot of shimmy-shammy uptempo stuff kinda along the lines of Linda Yamamoto（山本リンダ）.

However, this song, released in January 1981, is a heart-on-your-sleeve dramatic ballad of the Mood Kayo variety...something to listen to while you're drowning your sorrows in drink at that bar. Written by director/screenwriter Yoichiro Fukuda（福田陽一郎） and composed by Takashi Miki（三木たかし） (who had created melodies for singers as varied as Sayuri Ishikawa and Yoshie Kashiwabara), "Sasayaki" reminds me a bit of that old chestnut "Those Were The Days" from the late 60s in that it has that "la la la" type of European singalong-friendly melody. At the time, I hadn't realized that I could be so into something this sentimental, especially in the New Wave 1980s, but of course that year was one of so many revelations in kayo kyoku. I ended up listening to this song a lot for some months, especially at night. And I like to think that although this is the only Nakamura song that I know well, it was one of the stepping stones for my 30-year trek into this genre.

And for those who have forgotten the song or who have never heard of it, here is Mary Hopkin with "Those Were The Days".

courtesy of Christian Kaiser
from Flickr