Hiromi Iwasaki -- Ni-juu-go-ji no Ai no Uta （25時の愛の歌）

This ballad by Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）still pops up in my brain from time to time. "Ni-juu-go-ji no Ai no Uta" (Love Song at 1 a.m.) was another Iwasaki contribution to the "Kayo Suspense Gekijo"（火曜サスペンス劇場...Tuesday Night Suspense） series. Iwasaki provided a lot of her ballads to the long-running anthology show of betrayal, murder, mystery and justice during the 1980s...probably to the extent that true justice wasn't served until Iwasaki's lovely voice slid into the ending credits.

"Ni-juu-go-ji no Ai no Uta" was Iwasaki's 38th single from December 1985. It was written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Toshiyuki Kimori（木森敏之）(although the song sounds more like something Tetsuji Hayashi would concoct), the same duo who created one of the singer's biggest hits, "Madonna Tachi no Lullaby"（聖母たちのララバイ）back in 1982 (and was another contribution to the ending themes for "Kayo Suspense Gekijo"). However, unlike that successful ballad, "Ni-juu-go-ji" only went as high as No. 79 on the Oricon weeklies unfortunately. And yep, by the last word of that last sentence, I do like this song. Whereas "Madonna Tachi no Lullaby" had that feeling of a cooing lullaby, perhaps as reassurance for the hero/heroine of the episode or as a melancholy sendoff for the criminal, "Ni-juu-go-ji" was more in the cooler City Pop vein. As Iwasaki is singing, I could imagine those end credits rolling up the screen as the intrepid detective drives soberly under the city lights of Tokyo at night as he returns to headquarters after another tough case solved.

However, as the title suggests, the detective may be heading for someone cuddlier in the wee hours.