Another singer whose work I haven't revisited in some time. Nice to see him again. I've known the late Kozo Murashita （村下孝蔵）as a singer-songwriter who created some wonderful folk ballads and uptempo pop songs with that early 80s synth sound. "Yume no Tsuzuki" (The Dream Goes On) is one of the latter type in the same vein as his biggest hit from a year previously, "Hatsukoi"（初恋...First Love）.
"Yume no Tsuzuki" was Murashita's 8th single from September 1984. I first heard it on "Sounds of Japan", and it has that interesting mix of a near-balletic main melody supported by a surprisingly booming synth. After listening to it the first time, I had initially thought that one of the guys from YMO had a hand in its creation, but it was all Murashita with Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）handling the arrangements as both did for "Hatsukoi". The song didn't do quite as well as that big hit, but "Yume no Tsuzuki" did score on the Oricon Top 100 by topping out at No. 50, and I think it's still pretty jaunty.
The above YouTube link will take you to the song accompanying a slideshow of the ladies from Perfume, although the uploader may have turned up one of the dials on his stereo a little too high. However, the link below will take you to the original music video for "Yume no Tsuzuki" which is pretty special since the animation is by Tamotsu Murakami（村上保）, the kiri-e artist who also came up with designs for the covers of a number of Murashita's albums. Just watching it brought a good deal of iyashi feeling to this author.
I started listen Kozo Murashita the last year. Now, he's my favorite musician. I'm studying japanese, and the lyrics of his songs have a big meaning to me. I was looking for the lyrics of "Yume no tsuzuki", and i found your blog. I'll be looking it for sure, i want to learn more about J-pop
ReplyDeleteHello there and thanks for your comments. I'm sure wherever Mr. Murashita is now, he would also appreciate your kind words. I hope you will continue to discover more songs by him.
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