Shinichi Mori -- Onna no Tameiki (女のためいき)

Watching the episode of "Nippon no Uta" that featured Kiyoshi Maekawa (前川清) and Shinichi Mori  (森進一) during the weekend show's "Special stage" segment - I had been waiting patiently for that episode... - a few weeks back, I would have to say that my favourite part came when Maekawa had a go at Mori's hit, "Onna no Tameiki" (A woman's sighs). That was then followed by the pair taking turns to sing another of Enka/Mood Kayo composer Kosho Inomata's (猪俣公章) famed works, "Kimi Koso Waga Inochi" (君こそわが命) (already profiled), sung by the late Mood Kayo crooner Hiroshi Mizuhara (水原弘).

Moving on, "Onna no Tameiki" was released in 1966 as Mori's debut single when he was only 18 years-old going on to 19, and while Inomata handled the music, Shizuo Yoshikawa (吉川静夫) wrote its lyrics about a poor woman who seems fed up about love and how much it hurts in the end, hence her pained sighs... and Mori's anguished, intense delivery. From the video above that shows Mori way back then, his voice wasn't as husky and raspy as it is now, but its trademark roughness is definitely there.

"Onna no Tameiki" also has a couple of recognizable bits to it. Those being, "Shinji te taa-ah-ah-ah-ah", and "Onna no-o-o-o-o tameiki". Initially when hearing it for the first time from that "Nippon no uta" performance, I had thought that Mae-Kiyo was just trying to be silly as he made a goofy face while doing so and exaggerated the "Onna no-o-o..." portion. And then I checked out the original. Oh. Mori did that too. It's part of the song.

This song was quite well-received overseas as well. There's a Mandarin version to it called "Fu Xin de Ren" (負心的人).

Although I couldn't make out about half of their MC banter, whatever Maekawa said must have been gust-bustingly funny in order to make Mori burst out into a fit of laughter - he looked to be holding it back throughout the previous MC sections, but couldn't help it towards the end. Dang, I've never seen the guy laugh so hard EVER! I hardly see his lips break into a bright smile, so him laughing equaled to my mind being blown.

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