Kaoru Nakahara -- Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi （淋しがりやふたりぼっち）

Not quite sure what late-night TV is like in your countries. In Canada and the US, it's often filled with talk shows such as "Late Night With David Letterman" or "The Tonight Show" and infomercials. On the other hand, in Japan, there is a bit more variety in terms of the content. Late-night variety shows could run anywhere from 30-90 minutes and could be a bit more racy about the content; music ranking shows and sports highlight programs were there for the young folk, and then there were these rather specialized 5-10 vignette shows. One of them that I used to catch on Fuji-TV back almost 2 decades ago was an interesting show called "Rooms", and it was broadcast sometime after midnight on the weeknights. Basically, the camera focused on one person's individualistic 1K apartment somewhere in one of the big cities (usually Tokyo) while the resident gave out his thoughts. Then, in the last couple of minutes, there'd be some odd poetry reading by one of the Fuji announcers followed by an ending theme that would change every few months.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=egoIx33uYRI

It was from "Rooms" that I found out about TRF's "Samui Yoru Dakara"（寒い夜だから） and "Chiisana Koro Kara"（小さな頃から） by Judy & Mary. They rather acted like my lullabies before I turned off the telly. But there was also this entry by Kaoru Nakahara（中原薫）titled "Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi" (The Lonely Couple). This was her 2nd single released in 1995 and was composed by Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）with lyrics by Nakahara herself. I was rather taken by this lush ballad as "Rooms" ended with a sunset view of Tokyo, and I noticed how similar Nakahara sounded to Zard's Izumi Sakai. There were a few more viewings of "Rooms" before I decided that I had to get the CD single.

I wonder if Fuji-TV ever decided to release "Rooms" on DVD.

Kaoru Nakahara -- Sabishigariya Futari Bocchi