Tomita Lab featuring Yumi Matsutoya -- God Bless You!

(cover version)

Had the windows open today since my room needed some airing out with some cool fresh air...only to get smacked down with a heavy case of allergies. I was sneezing up some of my internal organs until I got hold of that Reactine pill...and sorry, it didn't take 20 minutes to activate as advertised. It was more like 2 hours, just in time to have a nice Italian dinner with a couple of my friends in uptown Toronto.

Sneezing...a very appropriate segue into today's song "God Bless You!". This came from Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）2003 "Shipbuilding" album which I featured in an article that I wrote more than 3 years ago on KKP. As I intimated back then, I bought the album since I enjoyed the relaxing groove it brought through the speakers to my ears, and the collaboration between Tomita Lab and Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）is no different. "God Bless You!" starts off with a jazzy R&B riff before settling down into a fairly happy-go-lucky rhythm that would have made for some nice background music for a walk along the lakeshore.

Tomita was behind the music while Yuming took care of the lyrics. I had wondered what the deal was behind the title, so looking into the words that she wrote, I found out that the song is (possibly) about a young lady who believes that she is the target of rumours over her latest romance but frankly doesn't give a care what the gossipers think. One of the little things I learned in Japan was that sneezing signified that other folks were talking about the sneezer...thus the title. The protagonist of the song and I probably earned quite a lot of that title today.

I may have mentioned in one of the other Yuming articles that my listening heyday to the Queen of New Music ranged from the time of her debut in the early 70s to the early 90s. "God Bless You!" is one of the exceptions. Nope, it won't pop up in the Top 10 of any Yuming fan's list but I still think it is one of the cute little gems to be heard on a sunny Sunday.