Jun Inoue -- Kino - Kyo - Ashita （昨日・今日・明日）

Last week on NHK's "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）, the theme was happy and encouraging songs. Considering that the 5th anniversary of the Tohoku Earthquake was upcoming at the time, I think the show wanted to bring something uplifting in terms of kayo kyoku.

Chris Hart came up with something quite nice in the form of "Kino - Kyo -Ashita" (Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow). Totally upbeat, it was originally sung by TV mainstay Jun Inoue（井上順）as his debut single from April 1971. Inoue was part of the Group Sounds band The Spiders and then later became a co-host for the very long-running music program "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）on Fuji-TV among his other appearances on the telly. However, he was still releasing solo singles throughout the years up until 2003.

Written by the same duo who would later come up with all those hits for Pink Lady, Yu Aku and Shunichi Tokura（阿久悠・都倉俊一）, Inoue sang how no matter the time period, things would always be copacetic with the world. I don't think I can be quite that happy with life but it's nice to believe that there are probably a lot of people who are that optimistic. Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）also came up with her own cover although I couldn't track down when she recorded it. As for the original version by Inoue, it managed to sell more than 300,000 records.

Happiness is a fresh apple fritter!