Candies -- Abunai Doyoubi （危ない土曜日）

Just shortly before I was to leave Japan permanently a few years ago, I received some extra convenience store campaign mini-discs of classic kayo from a former student of mine at one of the sayonara parties. One of the discs happened to be Candies' "Abunai Doyoubi" (Dangerous Saturday).

It was one of the early Candies singles, their 3rd, so instead of Ran Ito（伊藤蘭）spearheading the effort, it was the late Yoshiko (Su) Tanaka（田中好子） as the main vocal. Released in April 1974, the song was interesting to me in that the sound was a fair bit more urgent than their later jauntier hits, almost as if the melody was meant to introduce some superhero or police squad. Perhaps this could have been fine as a cover tune by Pink Lady. The lyrics about a woman wondering what was coming next while on a date with her beau were written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, and the punchy music was by Koichi Morita（森田公一）.

"Abunai Doyoubi" peaked at No. 46 on Oricon after its first release but saw a boost in sales a few years later during their farewell concert tour. The single was also a track on Candies' 2nd album from June 1974, "Abunai Doyoubi -- Candies no Sekai"（危ない土曜日～キャンディーズの世界...Candies' World）.

It looks more like an innocent Saturday to me.