Megumi Hayashibara -- Makenaide, Makenaide... (負けないで、負けないで…)

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/nm7691580

I usually cover one of Megumi Hayashibara’s (林原めぐみ) early-to-mid 90s songs when I talk about her here on the blog, but today I decided to write about a song called “Makenaide, Makenaide...”, which she released as a single in September 2003.

When I started listening to Megumi, “Makenaide, Makenaide...” was a song I didn’t care too much, because of its predominant acoustic and light sound. I was a kid at the time, so I only liked to listen to Megumi’s edgy anime songs. However, this feeling changed after some years, and I soon learned to appretiate “Makenaide, Makenaide...” as a beautiful contribution to Megumi’s remarkable singing career.  Also, as the title suggests, it’s a song about being strong and not giving up, which is a somewhat regular theme in Megumi’s repertory.

“Makenaide, Makenaide...” was used as Megumi’s “Heartful Station” (林原めぐみのHeartful Station) radio show theme instead of “Nijiiro no Sneaker” (虹色のSneaker), which was being used as the theme since 1991, when the song was released as her debut major label single.

Here’s Megumi singing a small part of the song live. I just love how beautiful she is with this lip gloss (fanboy mode on).

(I'm sorry but the video has been taken down.)

The “Makenaide, Makenaide...” single reached #8 on the Oricon charts. The song was later included in Megumi’s 2007 album, “Plain”. Lyrics and music were composed by Midori Karashima (辛島美登里), while the arrangement was done by Tomoji Sogawa (十川知司).