Chage & Aska -- no no darlin'

Yep, I have heard of the current troubles that Aska is going through right now. But he certainly isn't the first Japanese pop music artist to have fallen into the drugs trap and I'm pretty sure he won't be the last. All we can hope is that he will come back reflective and healthier soon.

Moving on, I came across this old song of Chage & Aska from a couple of decades back that I hadn't heard in some time. And it was good to hear again since compared to some of their huge anthems such as "YAH YAH YAH", "no no darlin'" is a nice and mellow piece, thanks in part to Jess Bailey's smooth and comfy piano. Plus, the boys keep the volume down a little more than usual. As for the official music video above, it's a nice little slice-of-life of a London suburb where everybody seems to know your name, although the last half when Chage & Aska go all Clarence The Angel and start spreading the pixie dust on that bickering couple had me slightly gagging.

"no no darlin'" was Chage & Aska's 30th single written and composed by Aska  for release in October 1992. An intriguing piece of trivia I was able to dig up from the J-Wiki article on the song was that the title was actually derived from one small part of the lyrics from an old kayo kyoku chestnut, Hiromi Ota's（太田裕美） "Momen no Handkerchief"（木綿のハンカチーフ）. The phrase was "Iie, anata"（いいえ、あなた...No, darling）. It's probably one of the more interesting lyrical examples of botanical grafting I've ever read about.

The song went as high as No. 2 and did very well despite the late release in the year to become the 26th-ranked song for 1992. It was also a track on Chage & Aska's 15th album, "GUYS" which was released in November in the same year and hit the top spot on the charts. That album did even better than the single on the annual charts as it became the 12th-ranking album for 1992, breaking through the million barrier.

Subaru also came calling on the guys to have the song made a commercial campaign tune for one of their cars.