Mariko Takahashi -- Mayoi Bato no You ni （迷い鳩のように）

If I had to be persnickety about how to classify Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）"Mayoi Bato no You ni" (Just Like a Lost Pigeon...yep, it loses a bit in the translation), I would probably make up a new sub-sub-genre and call it Sunset Pop. In a Venn diagram, Sunset Pop would be encircled by Resort Pop which would be surrounded completely by City Pop. It just has that 7 p.m. (8:30 in Newfoundland) feeling.

Like my last entry for Mariko Takahashi last month, "Mayoi Bato no You ni" is from her 10th album, "Mellow Lips" which came out in September 1985. I first heard it on "Sounds of Japan" and the image of being on the Lido Deck of a cruise ship at cocktail time has stayed with me ever since. Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）, who I've spoken about recently in terms of his own brand of mood music, came up with the soothing melody while Takahashi herself wrote up the lyrics about trying to cope with some romantic crisis while envying that titular pigeon which seems to keep on flying or strutting no matter what injuries it incurs. I ended up buying "Mellow Lips" for this song and for the first track, "Jun".