The first time I heard Chisato Moritaka's（森高千里） "Hachi Gatsu no Koi" (August Love) was perhaps via a concert video on TV in which the then long-haired singer was in her over-the-top techno-aidoru togs while she was singing this ballad and strumming a guitar. From my foggy memory, she rather resembled a balladeering matador in the bullring.
"Hachi Gatsu no Koi" was released in June 1991 as Moritaka's 13th single. The singer provided the lyrics about a summer love about to finish its course while the ever-prolific Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） came up with the romantic sigh-worthy melody. And this begged the question "Why does this song sound like something that came from the Disney movie 'Lady and the Tramp'?" Namely, I was thinking about "Bella Notte"....the song that was sung during the spaghetti dinner between the two dogs. There seemed to be something distinctly Italian.
In any case, "Hachi Gatsu no Koi" got up to No. 6 on Oricon and is a track on her 1991 remix BEST album, "The Moritaka"（ザ・森高） which peaked at No. 2. The video below is her self-cover of the song years later. Ciao!
Hi J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteIt's always nice to see a Chisato Moritaka entry here on the blog. As for "Hachi Gatsu no Koi", it's kind of a lost song in her catalogue as it was only performed during the "The Moritaka Tour" in 1991. Also, it's funny to hear this kind of song being sung by Moritaka. She was still devoted to the eurodance sound back in 1991, even though it was the last year she focused on it.
I probably like this song a lot because it's one of the few Moritaka songs I read a translation. Although a typical summer love song, it's very beautiful.
Hi, Marcos.
DeleteI was surprised to hear that Moritaka had only performed the song in concert during that one tour. I think it's quite a nice song to have in the performance list between her more hi-energy tunes.