Tatsuro Yamashita -- Dreaming Girl

Ah....Tamao Sato（さとう玉緒）, ohisashiburi desu ne. It's been a long while since I've seen the squeaky-voiced tarento/actress. And here she is above in an old Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎） music video (sorry but that video was taken down).

"Dreaming Girl", Yamashita's 29th single from May 1996, is about as sunny as you can get with his music. I didn't watch the NHK morning serial, "Himawari"（ひまわり...Sunflowers）, for which "Dreaming Girl" was the theme song, but I remembered actually keeping the TV on Channel 1 at 8 a.m. just so that I could see the opening credits with that song and the bright fields of sunflowers soaring by. I guess it was like a video version of orange juice.

The song has all the Yamashita tropes: his layered backing vocals, his falsetto and a melody that makes me muse back to yesteryear. But this time, the effect is a bit more muted than would be average for him, especially in the intro when he rather intones the "...dream...", not surprising since it is titled "Dreaming Girl". It sounds like a song to be listened to while drifting off on a bed of flowers under the sun. We really can't do that right now here in Toronto since it's still below freezing; we can only dream of a genuine spring at this moment.

Yamashita was behind the mellow melody while old friend Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）took care of the lyrics. It managed to peak at No. 25 on the Oricon weeklies, and is included on his 11th studio album, "Cozy" which was released in August 1998. The album hit No. 1 and was a million-seller.