Momoe Yamaguchi -- Get Free

Just a couple of weeks after beginning "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in 2012, I actually had written up an article on this song "Get Free" by Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）with the corresponding YouTube video. But when the video got taken down, I was actually quite depressed since I didn't have the knowledge or the experience I have now, so I decided to eliminate the whole article and later just covered the whole album it came from, "L.A. Blue" (1979),  

I've already mentioned about the song on that article already since a karaoke version of "Get Free" exists. But since I wanted to make some amends for that early inexperience and also provide a bit of a counterpoint to the other article I just wrote for Momoe-chan's raunchy "Rock n' Roll Widow", I'm bringing back this particular song.

(cover version)

Do I have any new insights about it after a few years? Well, it's amazing how different a singer can sound by changing the songwriters. So instead of the rock n' roll husband-and-wife team of Ryudo Uzaki and Yoko Aki（宇崎竜童・阿木燿子）, "Get Free" was taken care of by the sibling songwriting duo of Takao and Etsuko Kisugi（来生たかお・えつこ）. Another surprising thing is how American AOR the tune sounds. The Kisugis are known for some pretty mellow songs but I always pegged them as kayo kyoku songsmiths so "Get Free" is a pretty fascinating stretch. And as I mentioned in the article for "L.A. Blue", it feels like a theme song of driving across America to the West Coast. Getting free, indeed. In a way, perhaps Momoe was a proto-Anri（杏里）.