Sing Like Talking -- Skylark

(cover version)

In my neighbourhood surrounding Minami-Gyotoku Station on the Tozai Line in Ichikawa, I once made it a habit to head over to a family restaurant near the station for breakfast. It was part of the Skylark chain, and this particular branch had a breakfast buffet which consisted of all-you-can-eat pasta, hamburgers, salad, fried fish, and other stuff. Uh, nope, this wasn't strictly healthy fare. And when I consider that the manager always greeted me with a smile and said "Itsumo osewa ni natte oriamasu..."（いつもお世話になっております...Thank you for coming as always）, I figured that I was dining there a bit too often. Still, it is one of my gastronomically good memories.

All this to introduce another smooth groove by Sing Like Talking. "Skylark" was a track on their 1997 album, "Welcome to Another World" which also contained the lovely ballad "Rendezvous". And Chikuzen Sato （佐藤竹善）and the crew brought in a great uptempo contribution packaged like a grand ol' Stevie Wonder hit from the 70s. Sato's splendid vocals along with another great turn by the horns spark "Skylark" into something wonderful. I think Keizo Nakanishi （中西圭三）would have enjoyed contributing his vocal cords to this one as well. I only wish that songs like these had gotten a bit more love at the time, but certainly the concert version of this got the lion's share of appreciation.

Sato and fellow member Chiaki Fujita （藤田千章）were responsible for this one.