Tazumi "TAZZ" Toyoshima（豊島たづみ）is a Fukuoka-born singer-songwriter who I first found out about through one of the CDs in the "Good Times Diva" series with her song "Tomadoi Twilight" (The Bewildering Twilight) from February 1979. Showing that Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）wasn't just their only client, Ryudo Uzaki and Yoko Aki（宇崎竜童・阿木燿子）created this atmospheric ballad about a woman going through the sufferings of loneliness. The heroine seems to be spending her nights at the bars surrounded by the usual barflies only to come home to an empty room.
Although the lyrics hint at life in the big city, the music has a bit more of a countryside feeling due to those pan flutes (?) that are part and parcel of the original melody. Momoe may have sounded like the toughest suffer-no-fools-period woman of the city, but Tazumi's delivery of "Tomadoi Twilight" has a more crackly quality as if that same woman Momoe had portrayed was now a wiser, sadder and more resigned veteran now simply going through the motions of hitting the watering holes and hoping beyond hope that someone would even greet her with a friendly word.
Of the 10 singles that Toyoshima has released, this was arguably her most famous song as it peaked at No. 19 on Oricon, becoming the 78th-ranked song of the year and selling almost 150,000 copies. The sad ballad also became the theme song for a 1979 TBS drama titled "Tatoeba, Ai"（たとえば、愛...For Example, Love）about a popular radio DJ who's caught between her current husband and her previous one.
All-knowing Youtube commenters claim that this song is used as a background of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az2hrcUnmVQ
ReplyDeleteStrange, if true!
Hello, Anonymous! And it's amazing and true! I actually saw some reference to this rap song on the J-Wiki article for Tazumi Toyoshima but didn't follow up. I checked out the video and was pretty tickled hearing the familiar pan flutes while the rap is going at warp speed. Did you find out through the commenters or just by associative accident?
DeleteI found out through the commenters. It is also listed
ReplyDeleteon http://www.whosampled.com/sample/280375/Young-Jeezy-Jay-Z-Seen-It-All-Tazumi-Toyoshima-Tomadoi-Twilight/
Thank you for the background on this track. I heard it sitting in a tiny yakitoriya last Saturday in omoide yokocho in shinjuku at about 3PM that afternoon. I instantly recognized the flutes and the "sample" from the American rap song that I am very familiar with. I used the Shazam app on my phone to recognize it and to my delight find out the original, Tomadoi Twilight! I can't stop listening to this track. I was instantly struck by the intimate sadness of the vocal and the beautiful singing. Thank you for the insightful background!
ReplyDeleteHi there!
DeleteThank you for your story about the song. It's always good to hear various personal anecdotes when it comes to the music here. Hope you had a good time at that yakitoriya!
I always new this song as a Jay-Z and young Jeezy track called "seen it all" . I started writing a rap song to the instrumental but the tune continued to play in my head to the point I wanted to hear the original. I didn't realize how beautiful the vocals from TAZZ were.. I can't stop listening to the loneliness in her voice with those heavenly pan flutes in the background. I can't believe the song was made in 1979.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't believe that "Tomadoi Twilight" had been used in a hip-hop song years before the "Plastic Love" thing exploded on the Net. Just makes me wonder what other musical treats using snippets of kayo kyoku might be in the offing.
Delete