Anri -- Last Love （ラスト ラブ）

I was listening to Anri's（杏里）"My Favorite Songs 2" which came out in December 1991. I actually purchased it some years after its release since I popped the disc into my dearly departed Onkyo in my Ichikawa apartment.

Just about all of the tracks on the disc were songs that I have heard many times before but I simply wanted to get a CD that had all of Anri's later hits in one neat package. I ended up snoozing through the second half of the session...wasn't being insulting here; I like Anri a lot but she has a number of relaxing songs and I was lying on my comfy sofa at the time.

Then, I just happened to come out of dreamtime when the final track, a song that I had yet to hear for the first time, started wafting from the speakers. And it was truly one of the nicest songs that I had the opportunity to wake up to. This wasn't the musical equivalent of a jolt of a mug of steaming coffee. Nope, this was the foodie-comforting aroma of bacon frying on the pan. It's rather interesting to describe a lovely Anri ballad this way, but hey, that's the way I call it.

This gentle slice of R&B first came out as her 27th single in November 1991 and as the theme song for the NTV drama, "Kekkon Shinai kamo shirenai Shokogun"（結婚しないかもしれない症候群...May-Not-Marry Syndrome）. Anri composed and wrote "Last Love", and listening to it, it sounds like it came from a page from the playbook of Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）, her old songsmith from the early 80s. The soft R&B and the mellow horns may have reminded the fans of those early years in the singer-songwriter's career. I don't think it ever came out as a track on an original album but it was on this BEST album and probably is on some of her other compilations. As a single, it peaked at No. 14.

During my visit to Tokyo last month, I was able to go to my old
apartment near Minami-Gyotoku Station on a rainy day. It's the one on the 3rd floor and I
noticed it looked papered up. I guess after living there for
17 years, the real estate company must have
retired it. Some good memories there!