Tatsuro Yamashita/Shonentai - Funky Flushin'

Great song....too bad about the title. Not sure where Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎） came up with "Funky Flushin'", but I just keep getting images of one notorious scene from "Trainspotting" with Ewen McGregor.

In any case, I'm happy to say that the song doesn't get anywhere near the scatological. Instead, it's a party tune that came out as the B-side to Yamashita's 5th single, "Eien no Full Moon" （永遠のFULL MOON...Eternal Full Moon) which came out in October 1979. With words by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子） and music by Yamashita himself, the two of them were fully in thrall to their R&B disco gods as they exhorted listeners to get down and get out to places like Roppongi or Akasaka....and considering that Japan was getting into the good times, I'm sure everyone did. As usual, Yamashita was more than happy to bring out the horns and bass. The only thing I regret about "Funky Flushin'"(aside from the title) is that Yoshida wasn't more involved with the vocals. I would've loved to have heard her getting more into the back and forth with her songwriting partner.

The song was also a track on his 5th album, "Moonglow" which also came out on the same day as that single. It managed to peak at No. 20 on Oricon. As for me, I have the song on "Greatest Hits of Tatsuro Yamashita".

I used to see the Johnny's aidoru group, Shonentai（少年隊）, a fair bit on videos of the ranking shows like "The Best 10". The trio of boys started out in December 1985 and had hits like "Stripe Blue" and "ABC". The members were Kazukiyo Nishikiori（錦織一清）, Noriyuki　Higashiyama（東山紀之）and Katsuhide Uekusa（植草克秀）. Of the three, I've only seen the tall and cool Higashiyama succeed beyond the group well into this year. I actually saw him appear on one of the shows that current Johnny's heartthrobs, Arashi（嵐）, hosts, and they were very respectful to their grand senpai.

I hadn't been aware that they actually did a cover of Yamashita's song, but it did come out as their 16th single in July 1990, and they were even able to get onto that year's Kohaku Utagassen with it.