Yoko Oginome -- You're My Life

In my club at the University of Toronto, we had one fellow from Japan on a working-holiday visa for about a year who became our perennial life of the party. His English ability, at least initially, was not so good, but he had this adorable quality and energy that had us all liking him (and no, Toronto Blue Jays fans....it wasn't Munenori Kawasaki). Humorously, our friend picked up some cornball romantic lines which he used on some of the female members in our group. After one night at The Copa, he yelled one such line at one of our chief members, "YOU'RE MY LIFE!!!"

Little did I know that a couple of years later, I would be hearing those words again in a Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子）song. My enjoyment of Oginome tunes started and matured all here in Toronto, so listening to "You're My Life", her 19th single from September 1989, was my first song to hear from her in Japan itself. Words and music were by James Christian (with Japanese lyrics by Masao Urino[売野雅勇]), and the sound had that different feel to it when compared to some of her earlier hits. Instead of the disco that we heard from songs like "Dancing Hero" and "Roppongi Junjoha"（六本木純情派）, there was more pop/rock in "You're My Life", and Oginome's vocals were fairly booming.

Strangely enough, according to J-Wiki, Oginome's cover wasn't the first cover....aidoru Miyoko Yoshimoto（芳本美代子） had done an earlier version with different lyrics on her 1987 album, "Yesterday's".

The song got as high as No. 10 on the Oricon charts but didn't register in the Top 100 for the entire year. Despite that, "You're My Life" did earn a slew of awards, including the Gold Prize in the Japan Record Awards for that year. And she got that invitation to the Kohaku Utagassen.