Ikuzo Yoshi's (吉幾三) pretty darn good at expressing anguish through gloomy, sake related songs where the protagonist would most likely be moping away at some izakaya, longing for Ma, Pa and or that special someone and drinking himself to death. And he himself would always seem as grim as the song itself, face contorted with pain and sorrow. Sometimes he'd even look like he's about to break down in tears, with his face red and all.
Then you have 'Dream'.
Being made to be a commercial jingle for a home renovation company, I'm sure it shouldn't have grey skies or any brooding, am I right? I'd doubt anyone would patronize the company if they were advertising that.
Moving on to the song itself, in 'Dream' we have Yoshi all smiles this time singing about what seems to be the perfect scenarios that everyone dreams of after some home renovation. For example, taking in and enjoying the smells of probably a park on beautiful clear day, or just spending time with the wife and kids in the evening under the stars. Huh, it does sound like a pretty good time to me. So instead being depressed, everything's all sunshine and sparkles in a way for the fellow in the song.
Anyway, this feel-good song was also released as Yoshi's 45th single in 2002 and the pleasant lyrics along with the jaunty toe-tapping melody was written by the big guy himself, as with most if not all of his songs. It was one of the first few Yoshi songs I had come to like from quite a while back and still is one of my favorite songs (overall), commercial song or not. I can't help it, just listening to the music just puts me in a good mood. It even made me sway along to the beat!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOVb69e9GsI
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| Yoshi had some weird hairdo back then... |
http://books.rakuten.co.jp/rb/3888532/
Yup, I used to hear this all the time with Yoshi dressed up as one of the workers. It kinda has that uptempo 50s beat....almost on the Group Sounds level.
ReplyDeleteHi J-Canuck,
ReplyDeleteThere's this other Yoshi song that was in another commercial. Its called 'Kaze ni fukarete' (風に吹かれて...) for this company 'Workman' and Yoshi was dressed as construction worker and window cleaner with the word 'Yoshi' on his hardhat, etc. Here's the link to the 'Workman' commercial if you want to check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oiedds6wMGw