Mayumi Itsuwa -- Sayonara Dake wa Iwanai de （さよならだけは言わないで）

I think Mayumi Itsuwa（五輪真弓） has made truly beautiful music. It's no wonder a number of her songs have gone beyond the borders of Japan and have been accepted in a number of other Asian countries. I'm not sure whether this early hit by her had also made it overseas like her later works such as "Kokoro no Tomo"（心の友）, but "Sayonara Dake wa Iwanai de" (Don't Just Say Goodbye) is just one of those songs that automatically calms me down. Written and composed by Itsuwa for release as her 13th single in March 1978, it peaked at No. 13 on the Oricon weeklies and became the 49th-ranked song of the year, selling around 300,000 records.

I'm not sure whether Itsuwa had intentionally made the song to sound as if we were all walking the side streets of Paris, but the rich piano at the intro and then the accordion during the bridge just made me wonder if the singer had envisioned a lonely Alain Delon standing by a lamppost in the rain. And that resonant voice of hers....c'est magnifie!

Mayumi Itsuwa -- Now & Forever