Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Checkers -- Kanashikute Jealousy (哀しくてジェラシー)


Ah....third time's the charm. And that certainly applied to Checkers' 3rd single, "Kanashikute Jealousy" (Sad Jealousy). Written by Masao Urino(売野雅勇) and composed by Hiroaki Serizawa(芹沢廣明) who brought in that 50s sound for the band, the song became the 1st No. 1 single for Fumiya Fujii(藤井郁弥 )and company when it was released in May 1984.

And the doo-wop translated quite well to our regular karaoke-happy university crew whenever we visited Kuri. We didn't exactly wave towels whenever one of us or one of the other guests sang "Namida no Request"(涙のリクエスト), but we all went all in for "Kanashikute Jealousy". The chorus arrangement by Urino was such that everyone liked to come in with our "Lonely, lonely, lonely" and "Hah, hah, hahhhh" whenever anyone decided to go for that particular Checkers hit. A few of us (such as me) didn't really understand what the song was all about or how to read the kanji back then, but it didn't matter one whit. It was too fun a tune to sit on the sidelines. Plus when one has had a few beers already...

"Kanashikute Jealousy" ended up becoming the 5th-ranked song for 1984, one of three Checkers hits that got onto the Top 10 on Oricon along with the aforementioned "Namida no Request" and the No. 8 "Hoshikuzu no Stage"(星屑のステージ).



No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.