Considering all of the comments that Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子） had been getting about how similar she sounded like the late, great Karen Carpenter since her debut in 1985, it was perhaps a foregone conclusion that Kobayashi would tackle a Carpenters song. So, in January 1988, her 8th single was the cover version of the band's final Top 20 song, "Touch Me When We're Dancing" (created by Terry Skinner, J.L. Wallace and Ken Bell) which had been released in June 1981. Actually, the Carpenters' version was itself a cover of the original by the band Bama back in 1979.
I first heard it on her first of two BEST albums, "The Luxury of Life"(1990). I gotta say that if I hadn't known about Kobayashi and then heard "Touch Me Asa ga Kuru Made"(Touch Me Until the Morning Comes), I would've said that Karen had been miraculously resurrected as a Japanese woman. The arrangement is slightly different from The Carpenters' version, but with Kobayashi's delivery, it certainly comes across as a Karen song. When I heard the song for the first time on the stereo, I wasn't been quite sure where the tune came from since it had been years since I had heard it on the radio, but when I figured out the source, I went "Ahhhhh, naruhodo" and felt it was about time.
The Kobayashi-Carpenters connection would gain further traction over the years. A couple of months after the release of this single, Kobayashi released her 4th album, "City of Angels" which had been a collaboration between her and Richard Carpenter. Then in 2003, she would also release "A Song For You -- Carpenters' Anthology", a tribute album. Not surprisingly, I snatched that one up, thanks to a recommendation from someone in The Carpenters community on Mixi.
As a bit of comparison, have a listen to The Carpenters' version. It was also a track on their album, "Made In America".
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